One of India’s greatest poets also happens to be the last great poet of the Mughal Empire. Ghalib Mirza, who had seen the Empire through to its final days, was a poet in the court of Bahadur Shah II – the last Mughal emperor.
It was Bahadur’s patronage that gave Ghalib his daily bread. But Ghalib knew that Empires do not last forever. He had seen the rise of the British, and their steam-powered ships that seemed magical in the Mughal era. He knew that poets need patrons – and so, in 1856 after the death of the last Crown Prince of Bahadur Shah II, Ghalib wrote a letter to the Begum of London, Queen Victoria.
He began with praise, but he soon moved onto business. The truly great rulers of history, as he informed Queen Victoria, ‘rewarded their poets and well-wishers by filling their mouths with pearls, weighing them in gold, and granting them villages and recompense.” It was the Queen’s duty, as he wrote, to bestow upon him the title of Mihr-Khwan, a robe of honour and a royal pension.
In January 1857, he received a letter from London confirming that the title would be his soon. But four months later, the Revolt of 1857 broke out. Ghalib’s shot at British favour was crushed.
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