The emperor permitted the company to collect taxes from Delhi and maintain a military force in it. The emperor was respected by the company, who provided him with a pension. Outside the region controlled by the company, hundreds of kingdoms and principalities fragmented their land. The East India Company became the dominant political and military power in mid-nineteenth-century India. The Marathas installed Shah Alam II in the throne in 1772, under the protection of the Maratha general Mahadaji Shinde and maintained suzerainty over Mughal affairs in Delhi. The Maratha Empire had brought an end to the Mughal Empire in the Deccan during the 18th century and the regions of India formerly under Mughal rule had either been absorbed by the Marathas or had declared independence and become smaller kingdoms. However, The East India Company exiled Jahangir after he attacked their resident, in the Red Fort, paving the way for Zafar to assume the throne.Įmblem of the emperor in the first year of his reignīahadur Shah Zafar ruled over a Mughal Empire that had by the early 19th century been reduced to only the city of Delhi and the surrounding territory as far as Palam. One of Akbar Shah's Queens (Begum), pressured him to declare her son, Mirza Jahangir, as his successor.

Following his involvement in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the British exiled him to Rangoon in British-controlled Burma, after convicting him on several charges.īahadur Shah Zafar's father, Akbar II, had been imprisoned by the British and he was not his father's preferred choice as his successor. He was a titular Emperor, as the Mughal Empire existed in name only and his authority was limited only to the walled city of Old Delhi ( Shahjahanbad). He was the second son and the successor to his father, Akbar II, who died on 28th September 1837. Bahadur Shah Zafar ( Persian: بهادرشاه ظفر, born Mirza Abu Zafar Siraj-ud-din Muhammad 24 October 1775 – 7 November 1862) or Bahadur Shah II was the twentieth and last Mughal Emperor of India, also considered the last ruler of Timurid Dynasty.

Bahadur shah zafar tv series episodes