Revision as of 21:14, 8 September 2026

Introduction

Indian Culture

Begum Hazrat Mahal, Begum of Awadh (c.1820- 7 April 1879)
From: Indian Culture

Nawab Wajid Ali Shah (1822–1887)
From: Indian Culture

Begum Hazrat Mahal was one of the few women who challenged the British during the revolt of 1857. Her maiden name was Muhammadi Khanum. She was born at Faizabad, Awadh. Later in life, she performed a mut’ah marriage with Nawab Wajid Ali Shah.

Awadh was annexed by the British East India Company in 1856 and Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh was sent into exile to Calcutta. Hazrat Mahal decided to stay back in Lucknow along with her son Birjis Qadir.

After the absorption of Awadh, a rebellion broke out at Meerut and the banner of revolt was raised in Lucknow which spread rapidly to other towns of Awadh. Lucknow was the only place where the English did not leave the Residency building and faced the rebels until they were able to regain their lost power.

Hazrat Mahal was one of the primary figures in bringing about this uprising. ‘‘She has excited all Oudh,” says Russell. Her closest allies were Nana Saheb and Maulvi Ahmad ullah Shah. Outram and Havelock arrived from Kanpur to relieve the British Garrison in the Residency of Lucknow. After a few encounters with the rebels, Outram was able to occupy Alum Bagh (a garden in the suburb of Lucknow) on September 23, 1857.

The victory of the English in Kanpur was another setback to her plans. In the month of November Sir Colin Campbell, Commander in Chief of the British Forces along with a small reinforcement arrived at Lucknow.

Begum faced the enemy in a fierce fight but her position grew weaker. In spite of the resistance put up by the Begum, the English Commander was able to escort the besieged garrison out of the residency to Alum Bagh during which a few British officers were killed and wounded.

Begum Hazrat Mahal often called meetings to encourage soldiers, asking them to be brave and fight for the cause. She wrote letters of instruction for the movement and is reported to have appeared on the battlefield on February 25, 1858, mounted on an elephant. Alum Bagh was attacked by a force sometimes led by Maulvi Ahmad ullah Shah and at other times by the Begum in person but the British succeeded in defeating the rebel force.   In March, British started operation against Lucknow under the command of Sir Colin Campbell. The force included 3000 Goorkhas sent by Jung Bahadur, Maharaja of Nepal for the capture of Lucknow.

By March 19, 1858, Moosabagh, Char Bagh, and Kesar Bagh were captured by the British.

Under adverse circumstances, Begum with her followers, her son Birjis Qadir and Nana Saheb escaped to Nepal. The Nepalese authorities were hesitant to give asylum to the rebels and in a strongly worded letter on January 15, 1859, General Budri wrote “if you should remain or seek asylum within my territory and frontier, the Goorkha troops will most certainly, in pursuance of the treaty agreed upon by both the high States, attack, and make war on you…”

Nepalese authorities later changed the decision and an asylum was given to her on the conditions that she did not hold any communication with the rebel leaders or with the people of India. She faced difficulties in Nepal where her son fell sick. The Lieutenant in charge of her at Noakote (Nepal) observed that Begum had plans to flee from Nepal as well. According to a letter by Col. Ramsay, there were five routes by which rebels could pass over the range of the hills.

After the escape of Begum, the British declared that the rebels and their leaders must submit themselves for conspiring against the Government. It was added that the lives of those who did not murder British officials would be spared and this was applicable to all, from Begum down to those of the lowest rank amongst them. Begum did not agree to this and instead of surrendering, she asked for assistance from Nepalese authorities for the purpose of armed retaliation.

Despite the terms offered by the British authorities that “the Begum Hazrat Mahal will receive all the considerations which are due to her as a woman and a member of a Royal house, Begum Hazrat Mahal did not surrender to them.

After the outbreak was quelled, the Queen of England issued a proclamation to appease the people of British India. As a response to this, Begum Hazrat Mahal issued a counter-proclamation and warned the people not to have faith in these promises “for it is the unvarying custom of the English never to forgive a fault be it great or small.’’

The Begum tried to come back to India in 1877 but orders were issued, whereby any request made by either Birjis Qadir or his mother to enter British India would not be entertained. The Government of India put up a condition that if they did enter the territory of the British Government they would not receive any assistance or allowance from the Government and would be under the surveillance of the magistrate of the district in which they might take up a residence.

Begum Hazrat Mahal could not come to India and had to reside in Nepal permanently. She died for the great cause in 1879, in a land foreign to her. The grave of Begum Hazrat Mahal is in Kathmandu. On 10 May 1984, a Postage Stamp was issued in her honour.

The indomitable Begum became one of the few women to fight against the British in the first war of Independence.

Rosie Llewellyn-Jones’ biography

Nikita Mohta, August 25, 2026: The Indian Express

As the Mughal Empire weakened in the 18th century, Awadh emerged as a virtually independent kingdom. But in February 1856, the British annexed it, driving its last king, Wajid Ali Shah, into exile in Calcutta. He left with his mother, brothers, some of his wives, and a vast retinue of servants.

But in her new book, scholar Rosie Llewellyn-Jones turns to the woman left behind in the story: Begum Hazrat Mahal.

Llewellyn-Jones first encountered Hazrat Mahal while researching Wajid Ali Shah for her 2014 biography, The Last King in India: Wajid Ali Shah (1822-87). “When I first came across Begum Hazrat Mahal, it was because I was writing a biography of her husband,” she tells indianexpress.com.

Twelve years later, she has returned to her story in a new book, Hazrat Mahal: The Rebel Begam of Awadh.

Reconstructing the begum’s life, however, was not easy. A massive cyberattack on the British Library in October 2023 restricted access to East India Company records for months. Llewellyn-Jones instead turned to older accounts. One crucial source was Qaisar-ul Tawareekh: The History of the King, written by Kamal-ud din Haider, a former employee of Wajid Ali Shah who later fell out with him. “I knew Urdu, and that helped. I could pick out verbatim quotes from his text,” she says.

After weeks and months of reading and rediscovering, Llewellyn-Jones pieces together the story of Awadh’s rebel begum.

The annexation of Awadh

At the beginning of February 1856, Wajid Ali Shah ruled over a kingdom of 24,000 square miles and a population estimated at between five and ten million people. By the end of the month, it was all gone. Llewellyn-Jones details the upheaval in her interview.

“The British took over immediately, erecting an electric telegraph between Lucknow and Cawnpore (Kanpur), connecting the city to the wider imperial network. People don’t seem to realise its importance, but the new communication system allowed the British to liaise with Calcutta and elsewhere,” she says.

Then came changes to Lucknow itself. Mosques were demolished to widen streets, one Muslim madrasa was shut down and Christian missionary schools were established in its place. Hazrat Mahal condemned these measures in her proclamation, particularly the destruction of places of worship and the spread of Christian education. “And then together with the land grab, that seemed to be the final straw,” Llewellyn-Jones says.

“The defence of Lucknow was the begum’s primary concern in the early weeks of 1858, but other towns in Awadh needed support, too,” she adds.

Yet governing a kingdom whose monarch had been exiled was far from straightforward.

Beneath the common fight against the British, rival factions under Hazrat Mahal jostled over wages, status and power. According to Llewellyn-Jones, the British were seemingly unaware of these conflicts at the time. “Information was difficult to obtain during the siege and later, through the winter of 1857-58, when only a relatively small British force remained on the outskirts of Lucknow,” she says.

The taluqdars were among Hazrat Mahal’s important allies, but their motivations were often tied to their own survival. The British land settlement following the annexation threatened their holdings, taxed landowners heavily, stripped some of their land and, in certain cases, imprisoned them. “It was this desire to hold on to their land which was one of the main forces in supporting the Begum,” remarks Llewellyn-Jones.

At the same time, some taluqdars remained ambivalent about Hazrat Mahal’s regency, insisting that Wajid Ali Shah, now in Calcutta, was their only legitimate ruler. The begum also faced hostility closer to home, including from some of the king’s other wives, whom Llewellyn-Jones describes as “really quite nasty and sarcastic towards her”.

But perhaps the most volatile force in Awadh was the army. Wajid Ali Shah’s forces had been disbanded after his departure; roughly half were absorbed into a new irregular force, leaving around 30,000 armed men without jobs or pay, roaming the region disgruntled and uncertain of their future.

Put together, Llewellyn-Jones argues, the picture was far more chaotic than she had initially imagined. “Looting had begun in Lucknow on an unprecedented scale…it seemed that whenever people were disgruntled, they’d go on a loot. It wasn’t an easy transition to British rule, but it wasn’t an easy transition to rule by Hazrat Mahal.”

An ‘elusive’ Begum

Much about her origins remains uncertain. She is believed to have arrived at the court of Wajid Ali Shah through Amman and Imaman, sisters and singers from Farrukhabad, around 130 miles from Lucknow. She was introduced to the king in 1843 and was pregnant by the beginning of the following year.

“People have speculated on where she might have come from,” the author notes. “There’s a suspicion that she came from Farrukhabad,” largely because of her connection to the two singers from the city. They came from a musical family, and, as Wajid Ali Shah was deeply fond of music and dance, he brought them into his court. Whether they brought Hazrat Mahal with them from Farrukhabad or found her in Lucknow, however, remains unknown.

The Begum was described as an aurat khanagi, or a woman of the house, a term Llewellyn-Jones notes referred to as a high-class prostitute. “She is an elusive person”.

A woman who seemed to emerge from nowhere and disappear into obscurity, Hazrat Mahal remained a shadowy figure even during the 1857 uprising, when she challenged the East India Company and British forces.

One fascinating discovery the author reveals in her interview is the evidence she uncovered over the past two decades of a substantial African population in and around Lucknow. This included enslaved people brought to India by Arab traders and mercenaries recruited by Wajid Ali Shah.

Against this backdrop, the claim that Hazrat Mahal’s father was African or of African descent is less surprising. “We do know that her father was an African slave or of African descent,” she opines.

Her mother, however, was a domestic servant employed by a Muslim nobleman.

The fall of Lucknow, the flight to Nepal

Hazrat Mahal became especially notorious in February and March 1858 as British forces returned to Lucknow and recaptured the city after two weeks of fierce fighting. With the Qaisarbagh palace in Hazratganj taken by British troops, she and her supporters retreated towards the northeast of Awadh, where British control remained limited.

“She kept fighting the British until the very end,” reiterates the author.

This continued resistance was another reason the British vilified her. According to Llewellyn-Jones, a campaign was launched to discredit the Begum, including the false rumour that her son, Birjis Qadr, had not been fathered by Wajid Ali Shah but by Mammu Khan, one of her chief advisers.

Yet Llewellyn-Jones finds evidence of a more complex and capable leader. Another rebel leader, the maulvi Ahmad Ullah Shah, repeatedly disrupted her efforts, even fighting against her own men. Rather than have him killed, Hazrat Mahal summoned him to the palace, met with him and negotiated a settlement. “I thought that was pretty impressive! She was obviously a very good conciliator and administrator.”

But the struggle was becoming increasingly difficult. By September 1858, her forces had dwindled to an estimated 5,000. Eventually, she crossed into Nepal, where she lived in exile and largely disappeared from the historical record. “She disappears into Nepal, where we know very little about her,” Llewellyn-Jones says.

A rebel denied a legacy 

The begum was once dismissed as an “unscrupulous woman” who led a failed revolt before disappearing so completely that, when news of her death was announced, a government official reportedly had to ask who she was.

“It was only after Independence that Hazrat Mahal slowly found her place in India’s history, helped in part by her descendants, who pressed the new government to recognise her fight against foreign rule,” Llewellyn-Jones says.

The lament echoes in a powerful argument in the book’s closing chapters. “The Hindu rani [Lakshmi Bai] was killed in battle by the British in 1858 and was immediately mythologised as the potent symbol of defiance; a martyr in the fight for independence, something which Hazrat Mahal was unable to claim.”

Her legacy was eventually acknowledged. Jawaharlal Nehru asked the Indian embassy in Kathmandu to search for the begum’s grave. They subsequently found and identified it at the Hindustani Masjid in Baghbazar, a busy commercial area of the city.

With this book, the author hopes to contribute to another such effort.