Phoolan Devi (Phūlan Devī, Hindi: फूलन देवी) (10 August 1963 – 25 July 2001), popularly known as "The Bandit Queen", was an Indian dacoit and later apolitician. She was notorious across India during her time as a bandit.
As a dacoit
In 1979, a gang of dacoits abducted Phoolan. The gang leader, Baboo Gujjar, who was an upper-caste Gujjar, wanted to rape her. However, she was protected by Vikram, the deputy leader of the gang who belonged to Phoolan's caste, Mallah. One night when Baboo attempted to rape Phoolan, Vikram killed him and assumed the gang leadership. Phoolan became Vikram's second wife. The gang ransacked the village where Phoolan's husband lived. Phoolan stabbed her estranged husband, and dragged him in front of the villagers. The gang left him lying almost dead by the road, with a note as a warning for older men who marry young girls.
Phoolan Devi learned how to use a rifle from Vikram, and participated in the gang's activities, which consisted of ransacking high-caste villages and kidnapping upper-caste landowners for ransom. After every crime, Phoolan Devi would visit a Durga temple and thank the goddess for her protection.[1] The gang hid out in the Chambal ravine.
Later, Shri Ram got out of jail and claimed the leadership of the gang. He belonged to the Thakur caste, and would make sexual advances towards Phoolan. This led to tensions between Shri Ram and Vikram, who made him apologize to Phoolan. When the gang would ransack a village, Shri Ram would beat and insult the Mallahs. This displeased the Mallahs in the gang, many of whom left the gang. When Shri Ram got a dozen Thakurs to join the gang, Vikram suggested the gang be divided into two, but Shri Ram refused. Shortly afterwards, Shri Ram and other Thakur members in the gang attempted to kill Phoolan and Vikram, who managed to escape. However, later they successfully killed Vikram Mallah, abducted Phoolan and locked her up in the Behmai village.[1] Phoolan Devi was raped by many men in Behmai. After three weeks, she managed to escape with two other Mallahs from Vikram's gang, helped by a lower-caste villager. She gathered a gang of Mallahs, that she led with Man Singh, a member of Vikram's former gang. The gang carried out a series of violent robberies in north and central India, mainly targeting upper-caste people. Some say that Phoolan Devi targeted only the upper-caste people and shared the loot with the lower-caste people, but the Indian authorities insist this is a myth.[2]
Seventeen months after her escape from Behmai, Phoolan returned to the village, to take her revenge. On 14 February 1981, Phoolan and her gang marched into the Behmai village, dressed as police officers. The Thakurs in the village were preparing for a wedding. The gang demanded that her kidnappers be produced, along with all the valuables in the village. Details of what exactly happened are not available, but Phoolan is said to have recognized two men who earlier had sexually assaulted her and murdered her lover. When Phoolan's gang failed to find all the kidnappers after an exhaustive search, she ordered her gang members to line up all the Thakur men in the village and shoot them. The dacoits opened fire and killed twenty-two Thakur men, most of whom were not involved in her kidnapping or rape. Later, Phoolan Devi claimed that she herself didn't kill anybody in Behmai – all the killings were carried out by her gang members.[1]
The Behmai massacre was followed by a massive police manhunt that failed to locate Phoolan Devi. V. P. Singh, the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, resigned in the wake of the Behmai killings.[3] Phoolan Devi began to be called the Bandit Queen. Dolls of Phoolan Devi dressed as Hindu goddess Durga were sold in market towns in Uttar Pradesh. She was glorified by much of the Indian media.[2]
[edit]Surrender and jail term
Two years after the Behmai massacre the police had still not captured Phoolan Devi. The Indira Gandhi Government decided to negotiate a surrender. By this time, Phoolan Devi was in poor health and most of her gang members were dead. In February 1983, she agreed to surrender to the authorities. However, she said that she didn't trust the Uttar Pradesh police and insisted that she would only surrender to the Madhya Pradesh Police. She also insisted that she would lay down her arms only before Mahatma Gandhi's picture and Goddess Durga, and not to the police.[4] She also required the following conditions:[citation needed]
- She would not get the death penalty
- Her gang members should not get more than eight years in jail
- Her brother should be given a government job
- Her father should receive a plot of land
- Her entire family should be escorted by the police to her surrender ceremony
An unarmed police chief met her at a hiding place in the Chambal ravines. They walked their way to Bhind, where she laid her rifle before the portraits of Gandhi and Goddess Durga. The onlookers included a crowd of around 10,000 people and 300 police and the then chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Arjun Singh. The 300 police were waiting to arrest her and other members of her gang who surrendered at the same time.
Phoolan Devi was charged with 48 crimes, including 30 charges of dacoity (banditry) and kidnapping. Her trial was delayed for 11 years, which she served in the prison. During this period, she was operated on for ovarian cysts and ended up with an involuntary hysterectomy.[1] She was finally released on parole in 1994. Then she launched Eklavya Sena, a group that was aimed at teaching lower-caste people the art of self-defense. She married Umaid Singh, her sister's husband and a New Delhi business contractor.
[]Popular culture
Shekhar Kapur made a movie Bandit Queen (1994) about Phoolan Devi's life up to her 1983 surrender. Although Phoolan Devi is a heroine in the film, she fiercely disputed its accuracy and fought to get it banned in India. She even threatened to immolate herself outside a theater if the film were not withdrawn. Eventually, she settled a suit against the filmmakers for about $60,000. The film brought her international recognition. At this time, she was re-indicted for murder and other charges.
Though she was illiterate, Phoolan composed her autobiography titled The Bandit Queen of India: An Indian Woman's Amazing Journey From Peasant to International Legend, with help of two international authors, Marie-Therese Cuny and Paul Rambali.
[]Political career
In 1996, Phoolan Devi contested for the 11th Lok Sabha from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh as a Samajwadi Party candidate and was elected. She was re-elected to the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999.[5][6] In a 1999 interview, she explained her political objectives, stating, "My main goal is that things that only the rich and privileged have enjoyed until now should also be given to the poor: for example, drinking water, electricity, schools and hospitals... I’d like there to be seats reserved for women in government posts. Women should be educated in schools. And people should not be forcing them to get married at a very young age...the most important thing is equality. So that people can get employment, they can get proper food and drink, and also to be educated. And especially women – now they are really treated very lowly, like shoes! They should be treated on an equal basis. And like other countries that have progressed and have comforts, I also want my country and people to progress that way."[7] During her election campaign, she was criticized by the women widowed in the Behmai massacre. Kshatriya Swabhimaan Andolan Samanvay Committee (KSASC), a Kshatriyaorganization, held a statewide campaign to protest against her.
Some people[who?] thought she proved ineffective as an MP.[8] She got a train stopped at unscheduled stops to meet her acquaintances in Uttar Pradesh. The railway minister, Ram Vilas Paswanplayed down the train incident and ordered only a nominal enquiry. Once, she visited the Gwalior jail (where she was imprisoned) to meet her former inmates. When the jail officers didn't let her in due to the visiting hours rules, she abused them. Later, a suspension order was issued against the jail officials involved in the incident, without any explanation.[4]
In 1998, Phoolan Devi claimed she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by some members of the British Parliament.[9] She lost a bid for reelection in 1998, but was returned to office the following year.
[]Assassination
On 25 July 2001, Phoolan Devi was fatally shot as she got out of her car at the gate of her New Delhi residence. The assailants also wounded her bodyguard and escaped in an auto rickshaw.
Sher Singh Rana, Dheeraj Rana, and Rajbir were accused of the crime. Sher Singh Rana allegedly surrendered in Dehradun. He confessed to the murder, saying he was avenging the deaths of 22Kshatriyas at Behmai. He escaped from Tihar Jail in 2004, but was captured in April 2006 from Kolkata and sent to Rohini Jail, Delhi. The same year, the KSASC decided to honor Rana for "upholding the dignity of the Kshatriya community" and "drying the tears of the widows of Behmai".[3]
On 19 January 2007, Balender Singh, Phoolan's bodyguard who had been witness to the shooting, identified Dheeraj and Sher Singh as the people who had fired on him and Phoolan respectively. Balender Singh was cross-examined on 2 February 2007.
[]Books on Phoolan Devi
- Devi: The Bandit Queen, by Richard Shears, Isobelle Gidley. Published by Allen & Unwin, 1984. ISBN 0049200976.
- India's Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi, by Mala Sen. Published by HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. ISBN 0-04-440888-9.
- I, Phoolan Devi: The Autobiography of India's Bandit Queen, by Phoolan Devi, Marie-Thérèse Cuny, Paul Rambali. Published by Little, Brown and Co., 1996. ISBN 0316879606.
- Moxham, Roy (3 June 2010). Outlaw: India's Bandit Queen and Me. Rider. ISBN 9781846041822.
Phoolan Devi, with Marie-Therese Cuny, and Paul Rambali, "The Bandit Queen of India: An Indian Woman's Amazing Journey from Peasant to International Legend" Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 2006 ISBN 978-1-59228-641-6 Notes: (1) Copyright 2003 by Robert Laffont. (2) First Lyons Press paperback 1st edition (1 August 2006) (3) The Lyons Press An imprint of The Globe Pequot Press.
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