When Margot Robbie appeared on a red carpet of the premiere of her new film Wuthering Heights wearing a historic necklace associated in popular lore with Mughal royalty, the outrage was instant and global. Commentators debated colonial loot. Was it Elizabeth Taylor’s? Was it Noor Jahan’s? Should it be in Hollywood or returned to India? The necklace glittered beneath flash photography as Robbie gushed over the famous Taj Mahal necklace that Richard Burton bought for his beloved Elizabeth Taylor. Experts then wondered if Robbie knew anything about the Mughal Dynasty...

While the world argued over a diamond, the last Mughal emperor’s descendant was worrying about her next electricity bill. In a narrow lane in Kolkata’s Howrah district, history does not glitter. Sultana Begum, the great-granddaughter-in-law of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor of India who died in exile in Rangoon, lives in a small hut and survives on a meagre pension of R6,000 per month. The Union Home Ministry recognises her lineage but that recognition has not lifted her out of poverty.