In any case, for the garden variety bigot seeking to rename Hyderabad Bhagyanagar—a Sanskritised version of Bhagnagar—it may come as news that the last laugh will still be had by the ghost of the Qutb Shah. If he was forced to erase Bhagmati’s name, this might be justice done for a Hindu woman who loved a Muslim king; if she never existed at all, the Qutb Shah’s memory still triumphs. After all, he built a city that still endures, while the men seeking to wipe out his contributions in the service of religious bigotry have only a pretended glory—one that begins and ends with waging war on the
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