Where a woman managed to hoodwink the govt with one of the biggest hoaxes in post-independence period.
And Indian media continued to believe in the false narrative, at times embellishing it till this hoax became urban legend. A column from The Statesman, published in 1993, with the headline “When History Is Based on Errors” sums it up the best in these lines- “Have you noticed that a factual error appearing in respected printed form tends to be copied by other researchers in the same field, until, inevitably, it competes with the truth for credibility?” it read. “The writers who perpetuate these mistakes rarely do so from evil motive: They have no axe to grind, they simply do not have time to check and double-check each fact, so they rely on the scholarship of their predecessors.”
It is a different matter that New York Times Investigation in 2020 proved how for 40 years, a reclusive family in Delhi presented itself as the last surviving heirs to the princely state of Oudh, which once ruled a swath of northern India. The three of them — the mother, and her adult son and daughter — were an incredible story, living in a ruined palace in a forest courtesy the government which fell prey to this elaborate hoax.
In the investigation published in NYT of the family’s true origins, revealed that their claims of royal lineage were in large part invention. They were an ordinary family displaced by Partition. The Begum, or queen of Oudh, was Wilayat Butt, the widow of a Pakistani civil servant. Her son, Prince Cyrus, was Mickey Butt and her daughter, Princess Sakina, was Farhad Butt.
Locals believe that spirit of Begum Wilayat Mahal, who died by suicide after allegedly swallowing crushed diamonds in her possession three decades ago still lives in the ruins!
It is located in a high security zone and sometimes difficult to gain entry.
@curatorofmemory