In Myanmar, Bahadur Shah Zafar is an emperor-saint

In Myanmar, Bahadur Shah Zafar is an emperor-saint
RAKESH SINHA

YANGON/MANDALAY, FEB 17: When they transferred power to their colonies in the East, the British carried home with them one of the great secrets of the 19th century -- the final resting place of the last Mughal emperor. For 130 years after the death of Bahadur Shah Zafar II, who was made to shuffle all the way to Rangoon after the British put down the revolt of 1857, nobody knew where exactly had the last emperor been buried. Simply,because the British didn't want people to know.

It was only a decade ago -- in 1991, to be precise -- when the caretakers of the supposed tomb of Bahadur Shah Zafar decided they needed to dig deep to lay the foundation for a new hall. As they furiously shovelled earth out of a pit, workers paused to stare at what they had begun to uncover -- a red-brick structure which is now acknowledged by all as the real tomb of the last emperor.

``Tell A.B. Vajpayee to visit Yangon again. The tomb he saw last time (as foreign minister, Vajpayee was in Yangon in 1977) was not the real one. But now he should come to see where the last Mughal lies. For that matter, even Rajiv Gandhi, when he was here in 1987, never got to see the actual tomb. It is another matter though that we pray at both the tombs. After all, it is a question of faith,'' says 80-year-old Ismail Baggia, whose forefathers came to Burma all the way from Surat to make their fortune.

For a long time, Baggia and others from the Muslim community used to function as caretakers. But in 1998, the Myanmar government took charge of this address on Ziwaka Road in Yangon and appointed a nine-member Zafar Shah Mausoleum's Supervisory and Management Committee to run the place.

It saddens Baggia when he is told Bahadur Shah Zafar is just a chapter in Indian history textbooks. Nothing saintly, one tells him, about the weak emperor who was banished to faraway Rangoon after he was unseated. But here, in his final resting place, Bahadur Shah Zafar is called the Emperor Saint and people worship him, leaving behind token money near his tomb. They say he was a pir, a saintly figure.

``Why do you think we took such pains to get the truth out of the British? They were so scared that his tomb could become a rallying point for the locals that they refused to tell people where they had buried him. Bahadur Shah was brought here in 1858. His queen Zeenat Mahal and two children had come with him. She now lies buried next to the tomb we earlier believed was his. As for Bahadur Shah, he died at 5 am on November 7, 1862. Zeenat Mahal passed away in 1886.'' The third tomb there is that of a grandchild.

``It was only in 1935 that the British agreed to part with one small information -- that the emperor had been buried at a spot wooded with ber trees. People found a lone ber tree at the spot the British described and began to worship there,'' says Baggia.

Inscribed on the wall overlooking the newly-discovered tomb is a quote from G.D. Khosla's The Last Mughal which says ``Captain Davies drew up a report describing the important event. Abu Zafar, he wrote, expired at 5 o'clock on Friday. All things being in readiness, he was buried at 4 pm the same day in the rear of the main yard...in a brick grave, covered with turf and level with the ground. A bamboo fence surrounded the grave for a considerable distance. By the time the fence is worn out, the grass will have again covered the spot and no vestige will remain to distinguish where the last of the great Mughal rests.''

In death, Bahadur Shah Zafar has become a saint. But in Mandalay, the ancient capital of Myanmar kings and the next big city after Yangon, King Thebaw's descendants grieve for the last King. He met a similar end. Like Bahadur Shah Zafar, Thebaw was banished after Mandalay fell to the British in 1885 and the entire land became a part of the British empire.

Thebaw's great grandson U Soe Win, a senior official in the Myanmar foreign office, says Thebaw died in Ratnagiri in western Maharashtra. ``Some yearsago, I went to Ratnagiri to look for his tomb. The place was in ruins. Some of my cousins still live there. Maybe you could look for them in Ratnagiri.''

The Mandalay royal palace, built by King Mindon between 1857 and 1859, was gutted in the fighting between Japanese and British troops during the final months of World War II. Only a few structures survived. Years later, the State Law and Order Restoration Committee, which stepped in after Ne Win resigned in 1988, ordered reconstruction of the royal palace. What you have now is a glimpse of the glory that must have been Mandalay. But Thebaw lives on in Mandalay. As does the Emperor Saint in Rangoon.