In Rangoon in November 1862, an anonymous coffin is buried in eerie silence, and the turf carefully replaced to disguise the spot. So ended the life of Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last of the Great Mughals. Zafar was a remarkable poet who turned Delhi into a city of cultural brilliance and learning. But in 1857 his capital became the centre of the greatest anti-colonial uprising in history, which on defeat was reduced to a battered, empty ruin.
The Last Mughal has at its heart the story of the doomed Mughal capital, its tragic ruler and the individuals cauht up in one of the bloodiest upheavals in history.
