Begum Hazrat Mahal - The Begum who defied Queen Victoria

As anyone familiar with Lucknow will agree, Begum Hazrat Mahal was a woman whose name every child today will know. Born Muhammadi Khanum in Faizabad (c.1820) in the Kingdom of Awadh, she was sold to royal agents as a child, becoming a courtesan, and eventually the wife and Begum of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah. In the lead-up to 1857 and the First War of Independence, the Kingdom of Awadh was annexed by the British, and the Nawab exiled to Kolkata. What started as a ‘sepoy mutiny’ soon spread like wild fire, with many regions simultaneously taking up arms against the British. The Begum decided she was staying in Lucknow, and that she was going to put up a fight. Appointing her 12 year old son Birjis Qadr king, she became the regent and, uniting Hindus and Muslims as well as encouraging women to take up arms, she began to gather troops and mobilise masses, turning the rebellion into a people’s movement to reckon with. Laying siege to Lucknow, her troops continued to exert pressure on the British while she repeatedly turned down Queen Victoria’s offers of peace (surrender in exchange for a very generous pension), issuing counter proclamations warning her people never to take the British at their word. Tragically defeated at the hands of the Gorkha troops (sent by King Jang Bahadur to support the British), she was forced to flee to Nepal, never to return. She was laid to rest in Kathmandu, in a spartan grave that still stands. Over it is the tricolour, and in burnished gold letters, ‘Begum Hazrat Mahal, Freedom Fighter of India’. Her great great granddaughter, celebrated chef Manzilat Fatima @mannzie says, “She decided to stay back in Kathmandu and live a free life in a foreign land, rather than die a slave under the British.”