The unsung victims of 1857

Rana Safvi offers an evocative translation of an account that recalled how Mughal royals, especially women, suffered after the exile of Bahadur Shah Zafar

The Uprising of 1857 is often remembered as a rebellion against the British East India Company initiated by Hindu and Muslim sepoys who were upset about being forced to use rifle cartridges with grease derived from beef and pork. This historical moment is also valorised for the emergence of leaders such as Mangal Pandey and Rani Lakshmibai, who have leapt out of school textbooks and become protagonists in Bollywood films such as Ketan Mehta’s Mangal Pandey: The Rising (2005) as well as Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi and Kangana Ranaut’s Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi (2019).

If you are keen to explore narratives that try to understand the same uprising from a different political and emotional location, read Tears of the Begums. It focuses on the plight of Mughal royals, especially women, who were compelled to live in penury after the last Mughal emperor – Bahadur Shah Zafar – was “deposed and exiled to Rangoon by the British East India Company” in 1857. The book estimates that approximately 3,000 royals were living inside Delhi’s Red Fort at the time of the Uprising.

This is Rana Safvi’s English translation of Khwaja Hasan Nizami’s book Begumat Ke Aansoo. The original was written in Urdu and first published in 1922. Nizami, who was born in 1879, wrote 12 books on the events that took place in 1857. According to Safvi, these books were based on “eyewitness accounts of survivors” and the most popular among these was Begumat Ke Aansoo. She referred to three Urdu editions of the book for her translation.

There are heart-wrenching stories here of women who were in dire straits all of sudden after a lifetime of luxury. Some ran away and hid in jungles to protect themselves from British troops and Indian sepoys. Some sought shelter in the homes of their wet nurses and servants. Some had their jewellery stolen. Some became widows. Some were separated from their children. Some had to beg for food. Some had to wash utensils, work as cooks, or sew clothes to make a living. Some were abducted and married off without their consent. Some were dragged and beaten up. Some died of cholera. Some died during childbirth because there was no one to help. Some were dependent on monthly pensions given by the British.

If you are interested in the ethics of interviewing while collecting oral histories, it is worth noting that Nizami was a bit pushy. One of the women that he approached for an interview told him, “…it is unacceptable to me that my name should become a cause of gossip in every house and lane.” The concern with privacy was connected to notions of family honour, and the fact that some of these women saw themselves as descendants of Prophet Muhammad. In such cases, Nizami assured them that he would mention their circumstances, not their names.

In the acknowledgments section, Safvi offers a glimpse of her inner world as a translator and a woman engaging with this intense material about loss, grief and hardship. She writes, “I have cried as I translated some of the stories and wondered at the transient nature of the world, after reading the stories of the Mughal princes and princesses and why we are so heedless of the future. I hope these stories act as a warning for the readers.”

Fate, retribution, faith and repentance are recurrent themes in the pages of this book. The spiritual function of storytelling seems quite important to Nizami, who we are told, “was born into a Sufi family who were descendants of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and belonged to the Sufi order Chishti-Nizamiya.” You might be surprised to know that one of the stories attributes the decline of the Mughal Empire to emperor Mohammed Shah’s insistence on being buried between the shrines of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and Hazrat Amir Khusrau. Apparently, the audacity to come between the lover and the beloved was suitably punished.

Some of the stories are filled with despair and resignation. The people telling them feel that their ancestors have dethroned and destroyed others in the past, so it is not surprising that they have to bear suffering in the present. Some stories are marked by nostalgia, and a deep longing for fragrant sleeping chambers, delicious food, soft pillows, singing girls and attendants. We also find stories of people who train their mind to embrace suffering as part of their spiritual practice, and hope for an afterlife that will liberate them from their misery. Speaking from their own experience, they advise others to give up pride and arrogance.

It is difficult, and perhaps unfair, to comment on the quality of the translation itself without having read the source texts, but what stands out is how lightly Safvi wears her scholarship. It is clear that she wants the book to be accessible to readers outside academia, so her “Note from the Translator” offers a basic historical background as an entry point for non-specialists. Her footnotes providing historical, literary and cultural information are quite illuminating. The beautiful cover illustration and design by Reya Ahmed also deserve a special mention.

If you are looking for a review essay mapping out the voluminous literature on the 1857 Uprising, you might feel a bit disappointed. You could read a book called Dastan-e-Ghadar: The Tale of the Mutiny (2017), which is Safvi’s English translation of Zahir Dehlvi’s book written in Urdu. Dehlvi – who was a poet and official in the court of Bahadur Shah Zafar – wrote this memoir on his deathbed to chronicle his experiences during the uprising.

The reviewer is a Mumbai-based writer who tweets @chintanwriting

Title of the book: Tears of the Begums

Author: Khwaja Hasan Nizami

Translator: Rana Safvi

Publisher: Hachette India

Pages: 244

Price: Rs 499