Shah Alam had been born in the Red Fort, a grandson of the Emperor Bahadur Shah I. He was brought up and educated in the prince’s ‘cage’ – the salatin quarters of the Red Fort where the princes were raised in some comfort, but with no freedom to leave their prison. He was only twelve when Nader Shah rode into Delhi and looted the Mughals of almost all their treasures; and he grew up constantly aware of what his dynasty had lost to the Persians, Afghans and Marathas, and the urgent need to rebuild.
