Friday, November 1, 2019

The last king of Burma and the last emperor of India (2/2) The Last Mughal - William Dalrymple


William Dalrymple - The Last Mughal

Dalrymple describes the events surrounding the great uprising in India from an original perspective, which differs considerably from British historiography.

Bahadur Shah Zafar was the emperor or mughal of India in name, but all the power was with the British occupiers. After the mutiny in 1857-1858 he was exiled (forever disturbing the balance between Hindus and Muslims in India along the way) to Rangoon in Burma - now Yangon in Myanmar. There he died in 1862. He was buried as quickly as possible by the British in a secret place, not to create a place of pilgrimage for anti-British. His grave was rediscovered in 1991.

The location of his grave had been a secret for a long time. But the book gave some clues as to where it was, so now we wanted to look for it. The first step was to find a hotel in the part of the city where the grave should be. Theatre road now had a Burmese name, but our guess was it must have been near the National Theatre.

The second step was to inquire about the Shah's grave at the hotel reception. Five people pieced the answer together, and they even sketched us a map. It was a half-hour walk. Through the embassy area, with many vacant ministries. The capital was recently moved to a newly built city in the interior. The Russian embassy was an unprecedented fortress with high walls, lots of barbed wire, heavy security and fenced off streets.



When we arrived at the destination, we had to ask for the exact location. Five different people gave four opposite directions. But after fifteen more minutes we had found the right place.

A modest compound with small minarets; some halls ("established in cooperation with the Government of India"); three "graves" that looked like a made-up bed, for the Shah, his wife and his daughter-in-law. A little further on, where his real grave was found in 1990, a basement with another tomb.


There were some visitors who worshiped the deceased as saints (in the religious sense). It was lively and serene at the same time. The whole thing was simple but made quite an impression.

 Yangon, January 2008

The last emperor of India had been exiled to Burma. The last king of Burma had been exiled to India. I had now visited the last place of residence / grave of both. This makes history tangible.

PS Nowadays both places are easy to find on Google Maps and attract quite some foreign visitors.

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