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Sultana Begum is the widow of Muhammad Bedar Bakht, a direct descendant of Bahadur Shah Zafar. She and her youngest daughter, Madhu, live in the slums of Howrah in Kolkata and survive by running a tea stall. -- PHOTO: NEWS.BBC.CO.UK
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->KOLKATA: A descendant of India's last Mughal emperor has been rescued from a life of penury in the north-eastern city of Kolkata.
Madhu, the illiterate great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, has been given a job to run errands at the state-run Coal India.
A letter of employment will be formally handed over to her by the Coal Minister at a function next month, the BBC said.
'It will be great to have Madhu working for us. Actually, it will be a great tribute to the last Mughal emperor, who played a key role during the first war of independence in 1857,' Coal India chairman Partha Bhattacharyya said.
Madhu, 33, and her mother, Sultana Begum, currently run a tea stall in the slums of Kolkata.
The move by Coal India follows sustained efforts by Delhi-based journalist Shivnath Jha, who launched a campaign to rescue and rehabilitate descendants of the forgotten heroes of India's independence wars.
Mr Jha began promoting the cause of Sultana Begum, the poverty-stricken widow of Muhammad Bedar Bakht, a direct descendant of Bahadur Shah Zafar.
Sultana Begum, 55, has five daughters. All are married, except for Madhu, her youngest daughter.
'My other daughters and their husbands are poor people. They barely survive, so they cannot help us,' she said. 'We have been living, but God knows how.'
The tea stall run by her and her daughter earns the pair a subsistence income.
Mr Jha said another industrialist-philanthropist, Mr Madhusudan Aggrawal, owner of Ajanta Pharmaceuticals, has offered to help Sultana Begum with a small house and a job in a school run by his company.
If all works out, Sultana Begum and her daughter can look forward to moving out of the slums of Howrah, a decrepit industrial area.
Bahadur Shah Zafar was placed on the throne in 1837. He was the last of a line of Mughal emperors who ruled India for three centuries.
In 1857, when Indian soldiers mutinied against their British masters, Bahadur Shah Zafar was declared their commander-in-chief.
He was exiled to Rangoon after the British crushed the mutiny in 1858. He died five years later at the age of 87.
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Sultana Begum is the widow of Muhammad Bedar Bakht, a direct descendant of Bahadur Shah Zafar. She and her youngest daughter, Madhu, live in the slums of Howrah in Kolkata and survive by running a tea stall. -- PHOTO: NEWS.BBC.CO.UK
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->KOLKATA: A descendant of India's last Mughal emperor has been rescued from a life of penury in the north-eastern city of Kolkata.
Madhu, the illiterate great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, has been given a job to run errands at the state-run Coal India.
A letter of employment will be formally handed over to her by the Coal Minister at a function next month, the BBC said.
'It will be great to have Madhu working for us. Actually, it will be a great tribute to the last Mughal emperor, who played a key role during the first war of independence in 1857,' Coal India chairman Partha Bhattacharyya said.
Madhu, 33, and her mother, Sultana Begum, currently run a tea stall in the slums of Kolkata.
The move by Coal India follows sustained efforts by Delhi-based journalist Shivnath Jha, who launched a campaign to rescue and rehabilitate descendants of the forgotten heroes of India's independence wars.
Mr Jha began promoting the cause of Sultana Begum, the poverty-stricken widow of Muhammad Bedar Bakht, a direct descendant of Bahadur Shah Zafar.
Sultana Begum, 55, has five daughters. All are married, except for Madhu, her youngest daughter.
'My other daughters and their husbands are poor people. They barely survive, so they cannot help us,' she said. 'We have been living, but God knows how.'
The tea stall run by her and her daughter earns the pair a subsistence income.
Mr Jha said another industrialist-philanthropist, Mr Madhusudan Aggrawal, owner of Ajanta Pharmaceuticals, has offered to help Sultana Begum with a small house and a job in a school run by his company.
If all works out, Sultana Begum and her daughter can look forward to moving out of the slums of Howrah, a decrepit industrial area.
Bahadur Shah Zafar was placed on the throne in 1837. He was the last of a line of Mughal emperors who ruled India for three centuries.
In 1857, when Indian soldiers mutinied against their British masters, Bahadur Shah Zafar was declared their commander-in-chief.
He was exiled to Rangoon after the British crushed the mutiny in 1858. He died five years later at the age of 87.
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