Birjis Qadir

Birjis Qadr (20 August 1845 – 14 August 1893) was the son of Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh. He was put on the throne after his father had been deposed by the East India Company in 1856 under the terms of the Doctrine of lapse and Oudh State was annexed into the Bengal Presidency.

During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Birjis Qadr was raised as a figurehead monarch of Oudh by his mother Begum Hazrat Mahal, who became his regent. Despite stiff resistance to Company forces, he had to flee to Kathmandu in the Kingdom of Nepal after the Capture of Lucknow in March 1858. He became a poet and organised mushairas (poetry recitals).

In 1887, he returned to India and moved to the Metiabruz neighbourhood of Kolkata, where his father had also lived in exile and imprisonment since 1856. In 1893, he was allegedly murdered by his own relatives.

Early life and enthronement

Qadr was born in August 1845 at Qaisar Bagh, Lucknow, Oudh State, to Nawab Wajid Ali Shah and Begum Hazrat Mahal. In 1856, Qadr's father Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was deposed by the British on the pretext of mis-governance, and was exiled to Metiabruz, a neighbourhood of Calcutta.

In 1857, the Sepoy Mutiny erupted against the East India Company, with Begum Hazrat leading the rebels in Awadh. A decisive victory by the rebel forces in the Battle of Chinhat forced the British to take refuge in The Residency (eventually resulting in the Siege of Lucknow). On 5 June, 11-year old Qadr was declared the Nawab of Awadh by his mother Begum Hazrat under the active persuasion of Jailal Singh, the chief spokesman of the rebel army; his coronation was widely supported by court-nobles. Historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee notes that though the rebel army allowed Begum Hazrat to rule the state on Qadr's behalf, they had carved out a large degree of autonomy.

Exile in Nepal Birjis Qadr (left) with son Khurshid Qadr (right) and three bodyguards in Calcutta around 1893 in this rare photograph. After arriving in Kathmandu, Qadr again wrote to Rana for asylum and despite his initial hesitance, he and his mother were allowed to stay at the Barf Bagh, a palace near the Thapathali Durbar. They came with a coterie of helpers and soldiers.

In a simultaneous bargain, about 40,000 rupees worth of jewels were purchased by the Rana, for a mere 15,000 rupees. Historians have since observed that the Rana provided refuge only to those rebels who paid for it, earning precious jewels in the process.

While staying in Kathmandu, Qadr became a shayar (poet) and organised mehfils in the city, the earliest of which were recorded in 1864. He wrote poems at the tarahi mushaira (recitals). Qadr's poems were recorded by Khwaja Naeemuddin Badakashi, a Kashmiri Muslim living in Kathmandu. They had two sons, Khurshid Qadr and Mehar Qadr, and three daughters. In 1893, a few years after the death of his exiled father, Qadr returned to Kolkata. According to his grandson Koukab Qadr, Birjis's wife Mehtab Ara Begum was supposedly the lone eye-witness to a dinner, where Birjis Qadr along with his son and other confidantes were poisoned to death, by his siblings and jealous begums (high ranking females). Ara Begum, being pregnant, had not eaten the dinner.