The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857

By : William Dalrymple


This books is third of a four book series by the author. Although I have not read 'City of Djinns' or the 'White Mughals' I found it easy to follow. Years of force fed history lessons about the Muhgal dynasty did help in setting the context.
It is a wordy book, and somewhat tedious to read, interspersed with 'quotes' which, though lend it an air of authenticity -- become an impediment to the reading process.
The book is titled - 'Last Mughal', but really it is about the last decade of Zafar's life with a blow by blow description of the 1857 rising in and around Delhi. The authors ambivalence about who to make the centerpiece of the book ( the mutiny or Zafar) makes it a somewhat rambly.
It is full of detailed depictions of the people around the Emperor, the City ( Delhi) and the siege and the fall of the city to the the 'Sepoy's' and ultimately the British. The description of the city and the culture before 1857 destroyed the city is amazing in the quality of research and attention to detail.
The book provides a different view into the cause of the mutiny, the rising 'evangelical' element of the British occupation which stoked the religious ire of Hindu's and Muslim's alike. What happened after in the next century with the widening chasm between Hindu's and Muslims in the country leading to partition and creation of Pakistan is there for all to see.

Nothing threatens the liberal and modern aspect of Islam so much as aggressive
Western Intrusion and interference in the East, Just as nothing so
dramatically radicalises the ordinary Muslim and feeds the power of the extremists: the
histories of Islamic fundamentalism and Western imperialism have,
after all , often been closely and dangerously, intertwined..

It is a new look into the battle, and an interesting insight into a society where Muslims ruled the predominantly Hindu Indian sub-continent.

Today, West and East again face each other uneasily across a divide that many
see as religious war ... Against this bleak dualism , there is much to value in
Zafar's peaceful and tolerant attitude to life; there is so much to regret in
the way that the British swept away and rooted out the late Mughal's Pluralistic
and philosophically composite civilization.