Bahadur Shah II

Bahadur Shah II (1775-1862), a.k.a. Bahadur Shah Zafar (Zafar was his nom de plume, or takhallus, as an Urdu poet), was the last of the Mughal emperors in India. He was the son of Akbar Shah II. After the "Mutiny of 1857, he was deposed and exiled to Rangoon, Burma (now Yangôn, Myanmar). His two sons were killed in front of him by the British, thus effectively ending the Mughal dynasty. It is recalled that Bahadur Shah Zafar II was seen begging in the streets of Rangoon.

Bahadur Shah's removal from the throne of Delhi ended the formal independence of the Mughal empire, and the title of "Emperor of India" was taken over by the British monarch, in the person of Queen Victoria, and held until 1948 (with retroactive effect to August 15, 1947).

Bahadur Shah Zafar was also an Urdu poet of some repute. The court he maintained, arguably pretentious and decadent for a ruler whose writ famously extended only to Delhi's Red Fort, was home to others with a standing in Urdu and South Asian literature, including Ghalib, Daag, Momin, Zauq, and others.

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