{"id":11454,"date":"2019-11-24T18:12:18","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T09:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/nov\/24\/indian-fake-queen-oudh-dynasty-delhi-palace-lie"},"modified":"2019-11-24T18:12:18","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T09:12:18","slug":"royal-claims-of-indias-fake-queen-exposed-as-a-web-of-elaborate-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=11454","title":{"rendered":"Royal claims of India\u2019s fake queen exposed as a web of elaborate lies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A widow claiming to be descended from royalty was believed, and even given a dilapidated palace to live in<\/p>\n<p>For 40 years, stories about India\u2019s most mysterious and reclusive royal family persisted among foreign correspondents in New Delhi. Few were granted an audience with them or were able to report on the tragic downfall of a dynasty said to have ruled a kingdom of five provinces in northern India until 1856.<\/p>\n<p>The widowed Begum Wilayat and her children, Princess Sakina and Prince Ali Raza, also known as Cyrus, claimed to be the heirs of the Nawab of Oudh, descendants of Persian nobility. They reportedly regarded the Mughals, India\u2019s imperial rulers from the 16th to the 19th century, as \u201ccommon as dirt\u201d and considered \u201cordinariness not just a crime [but] a sin!\u201d.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/nov\/24\/indian-fake-queen-oudh-dynasty-delhi-palace-lie\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A widow claiming to be descended from royalty was believed, and even given a dilapidated palace to live inFor 40 years, stories about India\u2019s most mysterious and reclusive royal family persisted among foreign correspondents in New Delhi. Few were grant&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":636,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[962,353,62,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bradford","category-delhi","category-india","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/636"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11455,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11454\/revisions\/11455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}