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.
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.
More
Continue reading about the last king of Burma.More book reviews.
No comments:
Post a Comment