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Colonialism And The City The Story Of An Imperial Capital

Question
CBSEENSS8006933

Read the following extract (Source 1) taken from NCERT textbook (page 67) and answer the questions that follow.

“Dilli jo ek shahr tha alam mein intikhab...”

By 1739, Delhi had been sacked by Nadir Shah and plundered many times. Expressing the sorrow of those who witnessed the decline of the city, the eighteenth-century Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir, said:

Dilli jo ek shahr tha alam mein intikhab,

Ham rahne wale hain usi ujre dayar ke

(I belong to the same ruined territory of Delhi, which was once a supreme city in the world)

Questions:

(i) Who had sacked and plundered Delhi and when?

(ii) Who was Mir Taqi Mir? How does he lament over the ruins of Delhi?

Solution
(i) In 1739, Nadir Shah sacked and plundred the city of Delhi.

(ii) Mir Taqi Mir is a eighteenth-century Urdu poet. He is one of the unfortunate persons who has witnessed the decline of the city of Delhi. He remebers those times when Delhi was a supreme city in the world. After Nadir Shah plundred this city, it became a deserted place.