"The life was gone out of the body and the body of this town had been left lifeless." The statement is used in the context of:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Wajid Ali Shah’s exile to Calcutta.
Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was widely loved, and when he left his beloved Lucknow, many followed him all the way to Kanpur singing songs of lament. One contemporary observer wrote that the life was gone out of the body, and that every street, market and house wailed in separation from Jan-i-Alam, the Nawab.
Option (1) Death of the people of Awadh during 1857 revolt. — Incorrect. The lament was written at the time of the Nawab’s exile after the annexation of 1856, before the revolt; it mourns his departure, not deaths in the fighting.
Option (2) Wajid Ali Shah’s exile to Calcutta. — Correct. The line records the widespread grief and loss at the Nawab’s exile: the town of Lucknow was the body, and the departing Nawab its life.
Option (3) People who died in Bengal and Bihar during the revolt. — Incorrect. The words describe Lucknow, the Nawab’s capital in Awadh, not Bengal or Bihar, and they speak of his leaving, not of anyone’s death.
Option (4) 1857 revolt ruined the people’s life of Calcutta. — Incorrect. Calcutta was only where the Nawab was sent. The town left “lifeless” was Lucknow, which he had to leave.
NCERT (2026-27): “2.2 ‘The life was gone out of the body’ … Lord Dalhousie’s annexations created disaffection in all the areas and principalities that were annexed but nowhere more so than in the kingdom of Awadh in the heart of North India. Here, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was dethroned and exiled to Calcutta on the plea that the region was being misgoverned. The British government also wrongly assumed that Wajid Ali Shah was an unpopular ruler. On the contrary, he was widely loved, and when he left his beloved Lucknow, there were many who followed him all the way to Kanpur singing songs of lament. The widespread sense of grief and loss at the Nawab’s exile was recorded by many contemporary observers. One of them wrote: ‘The life was gone out of the body, and the body of this town had been left lifeless … there was no street or market and house which did not wail out the cry of agony in separation of Jan-i-Alam.’…” |