Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was not exiled to Calcutta but he came to the city because he wanted to take a ship to London to submit a petition but that departure was restricted and he stayed on, according to a biography by his great-grandson, recently translated from Urdu to English.
About Wajid Ali Shah:
Nawab Wajid Ali Shah (1822-1887) belonged to the princely kingdom of Awadh (Oudh) in Uttar Pradesh.
He succeeded his father, Nawab Amjad Ali Shah, to become the province’s tenth and last nawab.
His deposition and the annexation of Awadh became one of the major causes of the Revolt of 1857.
He was a poet, playwright, dancer, and profound patron of arts.
His works included numerous poems, prose, ragas, playwrights, and ghazals under his pen name of ‘Qaisar’.
The Ishqnamah (Book of Love) is a youthful autobiography written in Urdu verse by Wajid Ali Shah.
He is also credited for contributing to the revival of the Indian dance form Kathak.
He was also greatly interested in architecture. He started building the Qaiser bagh palace complex as soon as he came to the throne.
Besides the Nawab’s immense contributions to India, one of his wives, Begum Hazrat Mahal, was known to be a great Indian freedom fighter who played a major role during India’s First War of Independence (1857-58) against the British.
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