000			02731nam a22002297a 4500
005			20261112145516.0
008			261112b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9789361132483
028			_a: Samyak Vidyasagar _b: Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh - 201012 _c: BOS-000544 _d: 06/11/2026
082			_a954.0317 JON
100			_aLlewellyn-Jones, Rosie.
245			_aHazrat Mahal _b: The Rebel Begam of Awadh. _c/ Rosie Llewellyn-Jones.
260			_a, New Delhi _b: Macmillan _c, 2026
300			_axix, 273p. _c14.7 x 2.5 x 23cm.
365			_b560
520			_aBEGAM HAZRAT MAHAL (c. 1820–1879) is an elusive figure in Indian history – her origins and destiny have remained shrouded in ambiguity. The daughter of a slave – likely of African ancestry – and a domestic servant, her birth name is unknown. What is known is that she entered Prince Wajid Ali Shah’s Pari Khana as a courtesan and was renamed thrice before emerging as Hazrat Mahal, one of his many wives. She gave birth to the prince’s son Birjis Qadr in 1844 and, after Wajid Ali inherited the throne, briefly enjoyed the position of a favourite. By the end of the decade, however, the two were divorced. In 1856, the East India Company annexed Awadh and deposed Wajid Ali Shah. The takeover was sudden and brutal, igniting fear and dissatisfaction among the people. At the same time, the events now known as the First War of Independence were stirring across India. With Wajid Ali exiled and eventually imprisoned in Calcutta, thirteen-year-old Birjis Qadr became the royal figurehead of Awadh’s rebel opposition and his mother, the begam, its de facto leader. Hazrat Mahal appeared immune to prejudice in her attempts to unite the fragmented rebels: powerful landowners, nawabi elite, religious leaders, enraged soldiers and citizenry. Despite her lack of education and experience, she devised military strategy, dealing with two, sometimes three, groups of soldiers with conflicting ideas, and negotiated with an unimaginably powerful enemy, the East India Company itself. And at the centre of her brief rule is one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of British India: the siege of the Lucknow Residency. Drawing from decades of meticulous research and previously undiscovered archival material – Indian and British – acclaimed historian Rosie Llewellyn-Jones rescues this ruler from obscurity and renders the complexities of nineteenth-century Awadh through the story of its fiercest, most unlikely leader.
650			_aHazrat Mahal, Begam of Awadh, 1820-1879
650			_aIndia - History - Sepoy Rebellion, 1857-1858
650			_aAwadh (India) - History - 19th century
700			_aRosie Llewellyn-Jones.
942			_cBOOK
999			_c72412 _d72412