In the City of Gold and Silver (46 page)

Opening her gold medallion, she contemplates her lover's portrait. They hung him at Kaisarbagh—the very place where they had fought their last battles together, where they had loved each other, where they had made so many plans for the future . . . maybe this thought gave him strength when they were trying to break him, not considering it sufficient to kill him . . .

 

In November, Rana Beni Madho and the Rajah of Gonda are killed in the Terai during a series of confrontations with the Gurkhas.

December 1859 is to see most of the other rebels in the Terai jungles captured one after the other. Bahadur Khan, the grandson of the last king of Rohilkhand, and Amar Singh, the “old tiger” Kunwar Singh's brother, and . . . Mammoo!

Taken prisoner by Jung Bahadur's men, they are to be sent to Lucknow and handed over to the authorities.

Maybe the begum would like to bid her former servant goodbye, suggests the maharajah sweetly.

Hazrat Mahal hesitates, fearing that Mammoo would be humiliated. She thinks of the eunuch who served her for so long. Despite the differences that arose later, she is overcome by emotion, remembering the time when he was her only support. Yes, she will see him one last time to express her gratitude.

Their meeting is heartrending.

Mammoo sobs while he kisses her hands, begging her to speak to the maharajah: can he not remain with her? Hazrat Mahal knows there is no hope of saving him, but to calm him she promises to try, and he leaves slightly comforted. Later she reproaches herself for her own faintheartedness, but is it weak-heartedness to give hope to those who are not ready to die?

A few days later, she learns that Mammoo has been hanged.
111

 

Winter in Nepal is harsh and Hazrat Mahal's health begins to deteriorate. But, above all, it is the condition of exile that saps her. In 1863, the British government yet again offers her the possibility of returning to India, on the condition that her son sign a document renouncing the throne. Yet again, she does not bother to reply.

Birjis Qadar has grown into a thoughtful and determined young man. He has inherited his mother's moral strength. He prepares himself, knowing that he will return to his country one day.

The British have re-established their authority; however, India is changing.

Whatever they do, the insurrection has sown seeds, and Hazrat Mahal will have the joy of seeing them flourish before she dies.

In Bengal, during the 1870s, the intelligentsia is fighting for the peasants oppressed by the British planters. This is the “Indigo revolt.” The elites also launch movements against the censorship of the vernacular press and against racial discrimination before the courts.

These elites who had not joined the 1857 insurrection, trusting in the capacity of the British to modernise the country, realise that, as Hazrat Mahal had predicted, Queen Victoria's promises were only a smokescreen and the British ideals of democracy and equality do not apply to Indians.

 

From Kathmandu, Hazrat Mahal follows all these events closely. Although she is alone and impoverished, she remains a highly respected queen. Despite her lack of funds, she never refuses charity to anyone who asks for it.

 

On April 7th, 1879, the woman the British described as “the soul of the revolt” passes away at the age of forty-eight, after having made her son promise her to continue the struggle.

 

The little Muhammadi, the poetess of the Chowk, Wajid Ali Shah's captivating wife, the young regent, the passionate lover, the enlightened sovereign, the intrepid war leader, Hazrat Mahal, was like a dazzling meteor in Indian history.

She has shown the way towards India's freedom.

I
n 1887, at the age of sixty-eight, King Wajid Ali Shah dies in his Matiaburj Palace near Calcutta
.
There are rumours circulating that the deceased was poisoned, as his nails are blue.

In 1891, the viceroy, representative of the British government, allows Birjis Qadar to return to India after thirty-two years in exile. He is not to enjoy his freedom for long. One year later, on August 14th, 1892, the heir to the throne of Awadh dies—also a victim of poisoning—along with his oldest son and daughter, during a banquet given by his half-brother.

Disputes regarding the inheritance but also political motives are evoked—Birjis Qadar shared his mother's convictions and did not hide the fact that he saw the British as usurpers.

 

Contemporary historians agree that the sepoy rebellion was neither a mutiny nor a revolution, but the dawn of India's march towards independence.

The Awadh insurrection in particular—the longest and fiercest fight—was a true national struggle, inasmuch as the whole population joined in under Begum Hazrat Mahal's leadership.

A few years after the bloody suppression, the battle was to start again, no longer led by the princes who had rallied to the British side, but by an educated bourgeoisie, who demanded a role in governing their own country.

This was to be the aim of the Indian National Congress, which held its first session in December 1885 in Bombay. It was followed by the All India Muslim League, a moderate party led by the Aga Khan, created in 1906.

During the same period, violent
 
attacks were carried out. Following the division of Bengal by the British, a group of young upper-caste Hindus founded a movement which condoned terrorism as an instrument of divine power. These young people considered themselves the heirs to the Hindu tradition of resistance to foreign tyranny, which was violating the “motherland.”

In 1916, in Lucknow—the emblematic town of the revolt and a symbol of unity between the different communities—the Indian National Congress and the All India Muslim League signed a cooperation agreement in order to obtain autonomy from the British, along the same lines as that granted to Canada and Australia. However, London would hear nothing of it.

Finally, in 1919, Gandhi launched
Satyagraha
, a non-violent civil disobedience movement, supported by both Hindus and Muslims.

It was to be a long and difficult struggle.

Ninety years after the beginning of the uprising against the British and the struggle led by Hazrat Mahal, in 1947, India was to obtain its independence.

 

Today, few remember the warrior queen, except in Lucknow, where old families take pride in having participated in this extraordinary saga. In 1957, to mark the centenary of the insurrection, Nehru came with all pomp and circumstance to rename Queen Victoria Park the Begum Hazrat Mahal Park.

In lieu of
 
the bust of the former empress of India, Nehru had a memorial erected there, in honour of the heroic begum, the “soul of the revolt.”

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