After her husband had been exiled to Calcutta and the Indian Rebellion broke out, she made her son, Prince Birjis Qadr, the Wali (ruler) of Awadh, with herself as regent during his minority.

[3] She became a Begum after being accepted as a royal concubine of the King of Awadh,[4] the last Tajdaar-e-Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah; became his junior wife[5] and the title 'Hazrat Mahal' was bestowed on her after the birth of their son, Birjis Qadr.

Begum Hazrat Mahal remained in Lucknow with her son[6][7] and soon took charge of the affairs of the rebel state of Awadh as it entered armed struggle with the British East India Company.

[8] During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Begum Hazrat Mahal's band of supporters rebelled against the forces of the British under the leadership of Raja Jailal Singh; they seized control of Lucknow, and she took power as the guardian of her minor son, Prince Birjis Qadr, whom she had declared as the ruler (Wali) of Awadh.

[9] In a proclamation issued during the final days of the revolt, she mocked the British claim to allow freedom of worship:[9] To eat pigs and drink wine, to bite greased cartridges and to mix pig's fat with sweetmeats, to destroy Hindu and Mussalman temples and mosques on the pretense of making roads, to build churches, to send clergymen into the streets to preach the Christian religion, to institute English schools, and pay people a monthly stipend for learning the English sciences, while the places of worship of Hindus and Mussalmans are to this day entirely neglected; with all this, how can people believe that religion will not be interfered with?

[13] Begum Hazrat Mahal's tomb is located in the central part of Kathmandu near Jama Masjid, Ghantaghar, not far away from the famous Darbar Marg.