The Last Mughal

Speaker: William Dalrymple
10th June

Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last Mughal Emperor and direct descendant of Genghis Khan and Tamburlane, was born when the British were still an insignificant coastal power. In his lifetime he saw his own dynasty reduced to insignificance, and the British transform themselves into the most powerful military and economic force India had ever seen.

This talk will chart how two worlds drew apart and headed into confrontation, culminating in a massive and bloody clash of civilisations. The echoes of this clash are heard even today: the Deoband Medresse, the spiritual home of the Taliban, was founded by exiled Mughal clerics fleeing the ashes of the Fall of Delhi. Equally, nineteenth century British rhetoric bears a striking and frightening resemblance to some of the language of the current War on Terror.

William Dalrymple is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Asiatic Society. In 2002 he was awarded the Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for his 'outstanding contribution to travel literature' and in 2005 he was given the Percy Sykes Medal of the Royal Society of Asian Affairs. He wrote and presented the television series Stones of the Raj and Indian Journeys, which won the Grierson Award for Best Documentary Series at BAFTA in 2002. His Radio 4 series on the history of British spirituality and mysticism, The Long Search, recently won the 2002 Sandford St Martin Prize for Religious Broadcasting and was described by the judges as 'thrilling in its brilliance... near perfect radio.'
>> William Dalrymple's website

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