Jenab Aliya Begum, the Remarkable and Forgotten Queen of Awadh

With over 3.5 million visitors every year, Père Lachaise in Paris is one of the most visited cemeteries in the world. The hillside cemetery is the resting place of eminent personalities like Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison. In a relegated corner of the cemetery lies the tomb of Jenab Aliya Begum a.k.a Malika Kishwar. She was the queen of Awadh, the present-day Uttar Pradesh, and mother of Wajid Ali Shah. Lord Dalhousie, a Governor General of British India, using the unfair Doctrine of Lapse had annexed the kingdom of Awadh and banished Wajid Ali Shah to Calcutta. This decision by the British is often cited as the prime reason for the 1857 Revolt. Shah decided to travel to England to convince Queen Victoria to revoke the annexation policy. Jenab Aliya Begum accompanied Shah as she thought that her presence would help evoke the maternal instinct in Queen Victoria. However, Wajid Ali Shah fell seriously ill on reaching Calcutta and couldn’t travel farther. But this incident didn’t dissuade the Queen of Awadh. In those times when royal women traveling to a distant land were looked down upon, she managed to reach England all by herself. But to her disappointment, Queen Victoria said that the power to revoke the annexation rest with the British Parliament. The disheartened Jenab was returning to India via France where she breathed her last. Her simple but stately funeral was attended by representatives of the Turkish sultans, and a marble cenotaph was constructed on her tomb. Today, her tomb lies in a bad state in a secluded corner of the cemetery, waiting to tell her tragic story to the world

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