It was at the time of Bahadur Shah Zafar that the firt War of Independence of India in 1857 started. In Bahadur Shah Zafar,  the freedom fighters found the symbol of freedom and therefore nominated him as their Commander-in-Chief. In the initial stages, the freedom fighters were successful, but later on the strong and organized British forces defeated them. Bahadur Shah, who had been proclaimed as an emperor of whole of India, was overthrown. He was arrested from Humayun's tomb, in Delhi, where he was hiding with his three sons and a grandson. His sons and grandson were killed.
Bahadur Shah Zafar himself was tried and  was exiled to Rangoon (now Yangon), Burma (now Myanmar), in 1858 where he lived his last five years and died in 1862 at the age of 87.

During the reign of Bahadur Shah Zafar, Urdu poetry flourished. He himself was a prolific poet and an accomplished calligrapher. Some of his poems express his devotion to the motherland and the longing that he felt for her. He was a great patron of poetry and literarature and some of the most eminent and famous Urdu poets like Mirza Ghalib, Zauk, Momin and Daagh were of his time.

Prof. Ali Ahmad Fatimi of Allahabad University will deliver a talk on the movement and the leader of the movement, Bahadur Shah Zafar. Prof. Fatimi is an accomplished scholar and writer who has extensively contributed to literature on India's independence movement.

The talk will be followed by screening of excerpts from TV series ‘Bahadur Shah Zafar - the last Moghul’.