Birjis Qadr

Nawab Birjis Qadr
Royal portrait of Birjis Qadr
Nawab of Awadh [note 1]
Reign	5 July 1857 – 3 March 1858
Predecessor	Wajid Ali Shah
Successor	Monarchy abolished
Regent	Begum Hazrat Mahal
Born	(1845-08-20)20 August 1845 Qaisar Bagh, Lucknow, Oudh (present-day Uttar Pradesh, India)
Died	14 August 1893(1893-08-14) (aged 47) Arabagh Palace, Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India (present-day West Bengal, India)
Burial	Sibtainabad Imambara, Kolkata
Spouse	Mehtab Ara Begum
Issue	5
Father	Wajid Ali Shah
Mother	Begum Hazrat Mahal
Religion	Shia Islam

Birjis Qadr (20 August 1845 – 14 August 1893) was the son of Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh. He was a put on the throne after his father had been deposed by the East India Company in 1856 under the terms of the Doctrine of lapse and Oudh State was annexed into the Bengal Presidency.

During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Birjis Qadr was raised as a figurehead monarch of Oudh by his mother Begum Hazrat Mahal, who became his regent. Despite stiff resistance to Company forces, he had to flee to Kathmandu in the Kingdom of Nepal after the Capture of Lucknow in March 1858. He became a poet and organised mushairas (poetry recitals).

In 1887, he returned to India and moved to the Metiabruz neighbourhood of Kolkata, where his father had also lived in exile and imprisonment since 1856. In 1893, he was allegedly murdered by his own relatives.
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