The last Mughal emperor — a gifted Urdu poet reduced to a pensioner, who became the reluctant figurehead of the 1857 rebellion and died in British exile.
Life
Bahadur Shah Zafar (reigned 1837–1857) held only the shadow of the Mughal throne, a poet-king confined largely to the Red Fort under British suzerainty. When the Indian Rebellion of 1857 erupted, the mutineers proclaimed the aged emperor their symbolic leader. After the revolt's brutal suppression, the British tried him, executed his sons, and exiled him to Rangoon, where he died in 1862 — the extinction of the Mughal dynasty. He is remembered as much for his melancholy Urdu ghazals as for his tragic end.