The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

by William Dalrymple

The Company conquest of Delhi was, by any standards, a hugely significant moment. For the sightless and powerless Shah Alam, described by the poet Azad as ‘only a chessboard king’, it represented a final resolution to the conundrum that had been haunting him all his life: how to rule the Empire of his Timurid ancestors, from where, and under whose protection.166 He was now in his seventy-seventh year. As a boy he had seen Nader Shah ride into Delhi, and leave carrying away the Peacock Throne, into which was embedded the great Koh-i-Noor diamond. He had escaped Imad ul-Mulk’s attempt to assassinate him and survived repeated battles with Clive. He had fought the Company at Patna and Buxar, awarded the Diwani to Clive at Allahabad and defied the Company with his cross-country trek back to Delhi. There, with Mirza Najaf Khan, against all the odds he had nearly succeeded in rebuilding the empire of his ancestors; only to see it vanish like a mirage after the premature death of the last great Mughal general. Finally, at his lowest point, the Emperor had been assaulted and blinded by his psychotic former favourite, Ghulam Qadir. Now under the wings of Wellesley’s protection, and with a Company pension, he could at least spend his last years on the throne of his ancestors, in his beloved Red Fort, in comfort and safety, and with some measure of dignity.