Anwar Rizvi

A few weeks ago I received a note dropped through my letter box: it was a very polite note from one of the neighbours informing me that a street party was being planned for the day of the official Coronation of King Charles and if I would be so kind as to make a small contribution? The note also asked for any ideas/suggestions. Up to that point, I had been by and large trying to ignore the rising hyperbole in the lead up to the main event. If the British media does one thing really well, it is to overdo to death anything that relates to the Royal family. The late Princess Diana could tell you a thing or two about that. And I just realised that overdoing to death applied to the tragic Princess literally and metaphorically.

I did respond to the note, equally politely, briefly informing the organiser why I would not be joining the party and would be quite happy to discuss my views in person. The offer was never taken up. The note however started to fill me with a sense of dread. A weekend was coming up with wall to wall coverage of the Coronation ceremony and the lead up was going to be a rising crescendo of the worst kind of fawning commentary known to humanity with the odd bit of dissent thrown in here and there for the purposes of balance. The coverage of the ceremony itself started at midnight on all the mainstream terrestrial and satellite channels and continues as I write this 24 hours later.

Now I have no issues with folk wanting to celebrate what is if truth be told a once in a lifetime event. The monarchy for a very large segment of the British population is still a venerated institution. For many people, the monarchy symbolises stability and continuity, especially in uncertain times. I totally get and respect that. But therein lies a problem: for many people like me, and this also includes a significant number of people who would call themselves ethnically British, the monarchy is fast becoming an anachronism and the sooner it goes the better. And for migrant Britons like me, the monarchy is a permanent reminder of a very painful past. A past that is covered in blood, gore, looting on an unprecedented scale, the bankrupting of what was once one of the world’s wealthiest economies and the humiliation of a people that lasted almost 200 years. And an event such as today’s brings back memories of that entire inglorious episode in all its ugliness and awfulness.

And so this afternoon, as the Archbishop of Canterbury put that bejewelled crown on the head of King Charles and cried God Save the King, I was reminded of another event that took place more than 160 years ago in Delhi, India. An event whose scars have never really healed.

On the 20th of September 1857, soldiers of the British army led by Major William Hodson surrounded the tomb of the Mughal Emperor Humayun and captured Shah Bahadur Shah Zafar, the reigning Mughal emperor after the failed war of independence against the colonisers. While the history behind the war of independence and how the British finally managed to subdue it is a subject in its own right, lets just stay with the events that followed from the capture of the king. The very next day after his capture, Major Hudson shot dead his two sons Mirza Mughal and Mirza Khizr and his grandson Mirza Abu Bakht in cold blood. The king was kept captive in his wife’s haveli where he was subjected to constant abuse and humiliation by the British soldiers guarding him. The news of his sons and grandsons’ execution was given to him summarily and he was not allowed to make funeral arrangements for them.

Bahadur Shah Zafar was put on trial by the British in Delhi’s Red Fort. It was a show trial. There was no due legal process and the only witnesses were those willing to testify against the king. He was already old and frail and in no position to defend himself against the full might of the British empire now stacked up against him. The charges laid against him were as follows: Aiding and abetting the Sepoy mutiny, encouraging and assisting persons in waging war against the British government, assuming the sovereignty of India and causing and being accessory to the murder of Christians.

Just take a few seconds to read those charges again: the Emperor of India was on on a sham trial for wanting to assume the sovereignty of his own country and for encouraging Indian soldiers to rise up against their occupiers. And he was accused of being an accessory to the murder of Christians. The irony of these so called “Christians” being in India in the first place without anyone wanting them to be there was completely lost here.

The so called trial ended as expected and as planned: Bahadur Shah was convicted on all of the above fraudulent counts and as a sort of plea bargain due to him surrendering he was spared death and sent in exile to Rangoon in Burma instead. Of course the colonisers were going to make sure that the journey was going to be as uncomfortable and as humiliating as possible so the king and his family were put on bullock carts all the way from Delhi to Calcutta from where they were put on a steam liner to Rangoon.

Meanwhile the royal palaces were looted at will, and much of that loot was brought back to Britain, never to be returned again.

Bahadur Shah Zafar spent the remainder of his life locked up in the windowless garage of a British army officer in Rangoon, who remained spiteful of him right until his death. And when he died after suffering a long and miserable illness for which it is unlikely that he was provided any form of medical care, he was buried in an unmarked grave near a Buddhist pagoda. It can be said with a degree of certainty given the spitefulness of the colonisers during his captivity, that he was not allowed any form of dignity in death and the burial was done more to dispose of the body rather than to give him a dignified funeral. His grave was not discovered until 1991. It is now a “dargah”, a shrine.

It should therefore be of no surprise to anyone that I find an event like today to be not just underwhelming, but actually an ugly reminder of the terrible terrible injustice that was inflicted upon my people, and my king, whatever his faults may have happened to be. And therefore my mood is less than celebratory.

And despite all that, I bear no ill will towards those who revere the monarchy. Most would probably not be aware or do not wish to learn about the crimes of their ancestors. Most also do not see how that is any shape of form relevant to the modern world. I do not have any issues with that either. But if we all claim to live in a free society then my voice also needs to be heard and on days like this it needs to be heard louder and clearer.