Reports from Yangoon  : 1862 - Death of Bahadur Shah Zafar   Captain H Nelson Davies 

Report by Captain H. Nelson Davies on the death and burial of Bahadur Shah Zafar.

“                                                             10^th November 1862

Reports that Abu Abu Zafar Mohammed Bahadur Shah Zafar a State Prisoner, died on 7^th November 1862 and was buried the same day. 

 The Civil Surgeon of Rangoon certified that the ex-King of Dehli was seized with a third paralytic attack on 6^th November and died at 5 A.M. on 7^th November 1862.

Since Sunday 26^th October 1862 according to the statement made by Ahmad Beg his attendant Bahadur Shah felt sneaks (sic) and could swallow his food with difficulty.  His condition grew worse every day and his condition was reported on Sunday, 2^nd November.  On Monday 3^rd November 1862 the doctor reported that Abu Zafar’s throat ahd become affected; it is very difficult to get broth down even in small quantities.  On Thursday, 6^th November, the doctor reported, Abu Zafar is evidently sinking from sure decrepitude and apparently paralysis in the region of his throat.

H.Davies, the officer in charge of the State Prisoners, then ordered bricks and lime to be collected near the spot appointed for his last resting place and made other necessary arrangements.

He expired at 5 o’clock on Friday; all things being in readiness he was buried at 4 P.M. on the same day in the rear of the Main Guard in a brick grave covered with turf level with the ground; a bamboo fence surrounds the grave for some considerable distance and by the time the fence is worn out the grass will have again covered the spot and no vestige will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Moghuls rests.

A Mulla assisted at the funeral and the body of the deceased was placed in a teak wood coffin covered with red cotton velvet.  A crowd of Mahomedans from the bazaar had assembled near the enclosure; but beyond a general rush to touch the coffin on its being brought out from the palisade round the Prisoners’ quarters, no inconvenience was experienced.  They were all kept outside the enclosure which had been erected by a few policemen on duty at the entrance.  A few bystanders were admitted inside the enclosure in order that the internment might be sufficiently public.

The two sons of the deceased Jawan Bakht and Shah Abbas and male attendant Ahmed Beg accompanied the coffin; no females were allowed to be present, nor were any titles allowed to be rehearsed.

The death of the ex-king may be said to have had no effect on the Mahomedan part of the population of Rangoon.  “

Thus ended the life of Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.   Very little is known now of his captors who denied a poet and writer of his genius  the instruments of writing, however,    a lot is known about the Emperor, who is today more famous for the stand he took for freedom for his countrymen and for his poetic genius.