Author: Indrani Dutta
Publication: The Hindu
Date: May 4, 2009
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/05/04/stories/2009050455371200.htm
She is a fourth generation `heiress' of the
last of the Mughals, Bahadur Shah Zafar, and lives in penury in a slum in
Howrah district in West Bengal on a monthly dole of Rs. 400 - and an ardent
supporter of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Sultana Begum is wife of the late Muhammad
Bedar Bakht, great grandson of Bahadur Shah, who was exiled to Yangon (Burma)
by the British.
Her husband used to run his family by sharpening
knives and doing odd jobs.
Ms. Sultana, now in her sixties, runs a tea
stall at 'Cowies Ghat' area near her home and also makes fake stone bangles
to feed herself and her family.
She is peeved that the State government did
not give her the protection that she needed for herself and her five daughters,
when she was harassed and hounded out of her shelter in Tollygunj by goons.
From then on her home has been a 8x8 feet
shanty in the slums of Howrah.
Unexpected help
Help came from unexpected quarters. From L.
K. Advani, who heard about her from a 'swamiji' who had visited the Begum's
house while carrying out charity work in the area.
Since then BJP parliamentarian Tapan Sikdar
also visited her and touched by the BJP's gesture, Ms. Sultana Begum became
a BJP member.
The pension, which had been stopped after
her husband's death, was resumed although it remained fixed at Rs. 400.
The visit that she cherishes the most is the
one from Mamata Banerjee who came calling soon after the 2004 elections. She
gave Rs. 50,000 to Ms. Sultana Begum. She has not been in touch since then,
but the Begum remains sympathetic.
"Unka kitne kaam hain" (she is so
very busy after all?)
"Was Bahadur Shah a traitor, that his
descendants are treated like beggars?" she asks, even as her eyes moisten,
recalling that the British, who had captured Bahadur Shah and exiled him,
gave him a pension of Rs. 500 in those days.
She is thankful to the financial help and
support she has received from the Bismillah: The Beginning Foundation, which
is trying to rehabilitate her and has given her money to marry off one her
daughters.
On May 7, when Howrah goes to vote in the
second phase of polling in West Bengal she says that she will vote for the
Trinamool Congress candidate Ambika Banerjee, since there is no BJP candidate.
And she lives on with one mission - to bring
back someday the soil from the grave of the last Mughal emperor from Yangon
and bring peace to his soul.
Corrections and Clarifications
The penultimate paragraph of an article "Mughal
'heiress' roots for the BJP" ("Elections 2009" page, May 4,
2009) said that there is no BJP candidate for Howrah. The BJP's candidate
is Ms. Polly Mukherjee.
