The grandeur of Red Fort

The Qila-e-Mubarak or the blessed fort was home to Shah Jahan the Mughal Emperor and the grandson of Akbar, the greatest ruler the Mughal Empire ever saw. Not so different from Akbar, and having taken enough cues from him, Shah Jahan chartered his own course with élan. He was responsible for erecting some of the glorious structures of the time which are still identified as the most exquisite known for their sheer magnificence and the arduous journeys behind them.

The Red Fort came to the being after Shah Jahan moved his capital from Agra and left his residence at the Agra Fort. He constructed a new walled city – Shahjahanbad naming it after himself and built a new residence, the Red Fort. It took a decade to complete the Red Fort which served as a residence to the Mughal rulers for nearly 200 years. The chief architect of the Red Fort was Ustad Ahmed Lahauri who started the construction in 1638 and completed in 1648.

 The red in the Red Fort was always not present. What many don’t know is that the edifice was painted red by the British only after the limestone from which the building was originally built in started to chip off. The name Red Fort finds its roots in the British era after they painted it in red to preserve it and thus rechristened it to Red Fort which then had its translation to Lal Qila among the land of the people.

 With the passing away of Shah Jahan the fate of the fort started to plummet as well. The successive rulers turned out to be defenceless against the rampages and pillages that followed. The Turk ruler Nadir Shah attacked the fort in 1739. The last Mughal ruler to have lived in the Red Fort was Bahadur Shah Zafar whose rule wasn’t so significant and the title was mere titular. Later when the British seized power and control, he was exiled to then Burma known as Myanmar now. And that was the end of the Mughal dynasty.