Phoolan Devi

‘I sat there surrounded by policemen. I was still a child, just sixteen years old, an uneducated, illiterate peasant fit only for minding cows, collecting dung and wiping the bottoms of my nieces and nephews. Why all this violence and hatred towards me…I began to wonder if there was some force in me they were all trying to crush, a force that made me retaliate, a force that drove me desperately to survive. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that being beaten and humiliated was better than suffering in silence, like the women in the villages…I resolved to hang onto this force that was a gift from Durga. I was still tearful and afraid like a child. I still needed my mother, I wanted tenderness and protection, and it seemed as though all I got was more violence. But I was learning to survive; even as I wished I was dead, I knew I would survive.’

 

 

Phoolan Devi (1963 – 2001), popularly known as "Bandit Queen", was an Indian female rights activist, bandit and politician from the Samajwadi Party who later served as Member of Parliament.

Following on from my book review, I decided that I would TRY and do justice to Phoolan Devi’s story, purely because my research has shown how misconstrued and mythologised it has become in popular history. However, I wanted to add a few warnings before I delve in:

1.     This is not an easy read. I am adding a trigger warning for rape, sexual assault, child abuse, and police brutality – but pretty much the whole thing is traumatic so please be warned that this may be a difficult story for many of you.

2.     My post is largely based on Phoolan’s autobiography, which has been both transcribed and translated. I am fully aware that this leaves it open to interpretation and inaccuracies, and that autobiographies are not necessarily the most objective historical sources. However, Phoolan was denied a voice and autonomy for so much of her life, I think it is important to tell her story through her eyes and through her words, which is why I urge you all to read her autobiography yourself, in whatever language you can. I will link it in my stories and add the story to my highlight

3.     This will be a long post, but her story is too powerful and too important to shorten (although I'm already leaving out so much!) so please bear with me. I will do my best to share as much as her story as I can here.

Here goes…

“Before I was married, I thought the sound of bangles jangling on my forearms would be delightful. I looked forward to being able to wear bells around my ankles and silver necklaces around my neck, but not any more, not since I had learned what they represented for the man who gave them. A necklace was no prettier than a piece of rope that ties a goat to a tree, depriving it of freedom.”

Phoolan was born into the Mallah (boatmen) caste, in the small village of Ghura Ka Purwa in Uttar Pradesh. She was the fourth and youngest child of Moola and her husband Devi Din Mallah.  

Phoolan's family was very poor. Their legal inheritance had been stolen by her paternal uncle, and Phoolan’s father put up very little fight against his uncle and later his nephew to reclaim his land. All her family had to their name was a large and very old neem tree. When her cousin - who had terrorised her family for years - illicitly chopped down this tree in the middle of the night to keep the profit for himself and plant crops on the land, Phoolan decided that she would fight for what her father would not. Despite being just eleven years old, Phoolan publicly taunted her cousin and tried to physically assault him in retribution for their beloved tree. She then gathered a few village girls and staged a Dharna (sit-in) on the land, and did not budge even when the family elders tried to use force to drag them home. She was eventually beaten unconscious with a brick, but her cousin never forgot the humiliation she had caused him.  

A few months later, the 11 year old Phoolan was given in marriage to a man three times her age named Puttilal Mallah. He lived several miles away from her family and was in his 30s. Despite their protests that she was too young, her parents felt they had no choice and agreed to the marriage. Puttilal physically and sexually abused by her husband – abuse which was well known amongst his community but no one dared to interfere. After several attempts to escape, she was returned to her family “in disgrace”, to the disapproval of her villagers who believed a wife’s place was with her husband, regardless of the treatment she received at his hands. 

“I alone knew what I had suffered. I alone knew what it felt like to be alive but dead. At an age when young women wait patient for their husbands…I was a stone in the jungle, a stone without feelings or regrets. I was no longer a woman. A stone couldn’t marry a man when it was a man who had made the stone.”

The abuse she suffered was not revenge enough for her cousin, Maya Din, and he accused her of stealing from him. This resulted in her arrest, where she was beaten and raped by police officers (in front of her father), giving her a lifelong fear and hatred of the police. She was sent to prison without trial, and eventually released on bail once her mother and lawyer managed to raise the funds to free her.

After Phoolan was released from jail, her parents once again wanted to send her to her husband. Having survived jail and years of abuse, the villagers condemned Phoolan as an outcaste and she and her family struggled to survive. Her parents, who had tried to protect her from the community’s scorn, decided there was nothing to do except send her back to her husband. After bribing the in-laws with generous gifts that they could scarcely afford, her parents were able to convince her husband to take her back. They performed the ceremony of gauna (after which a married woman begins to cohabit with her husband), took Phoolan to her husband's house, and left her there.  

Within a few months, Phoolan returned again to her parents. Shortly afterwards, her in-laws returned the gifts that Phoolan's parents had given them and sent word that under no circumstances would they accept Phoolan back again. This was in 1979, and Phoolan was only a few months past her 16th birthday. Despite her husband’s abuse being widely known and even condemned, no one showed Phoolan any sympathy and her family’s status in the community continued to deteriorate to the point where they were forbidden even to drink water from the well. She became hardened and aggressive, fending for her family by whatever means necessary. She became regardless of caste and social conventions – to her, she had nothing left to lose and no greater harm could befall her than that which she had already endured. 

‘The men in my village all wanted the women to respect them, but they never asked if they deserved it.’

In 1979, Phoolan was captured by a gang of dacoits. There is debate about why she was targeted for kidnapping – but Phoolan herself believed that the village elders paid for it for fear she would destroy the reputation of the village. Others have posited that her reputation attracted her to the bandits because her "spirited temperament," estrangement from her family and outspoken rejection of her husband had attracted the attention of the bandits. In her autobiography, she merely says "kismet ko yehi manzoor tha" ("it was the dictate of fate").

 

Despite already having a wife and children in his village, Vikram argued that the only way he could protect Phoolan was to marry her (debatable). A few weeks later, the gang attacked the village where Phoolan's husband lived. Phoolan herself dragged him out of his house and stabbed him in front of the villagers. She said she wanted to leave him unable to do to any other women the torture he had perpetrated on her.  The gang left him lying almost dead by the road, with a note warning older men not to marry young girls. The man survived, but carried a scar running down his abdomen for the rest of his life. He lived his life as a recluse because most people in the village began avoiding his company out of fear of the bandits. A fate too good for him if you ask me.  Shortly after, Vikram and Phoolan were married. He was closer in age to Phoolan and she found him handsome and caring, even though she feared him. She eventually grew to love him, and credited him with saving her life. 

‘I cursed all the gods, shaking my head in a rage and frustration as I knelt beside the only man who had given me love.’

Vikram taught his young wife how to use a rifle, and she came to lead the group alongside her husband. They looted across Bundelkhand, which straddles the border between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. This included attacking and looting villages where upper-caste people lived, kidnapping relatively prosperous people for ransom, and committing occasional highway robberies which targeted flashy cars. Phoolan was the only woman member of that gang of dacoits. She believed that she was doing right because she stole only from the rich, and kept little money for herself or her gang – most of it was redistributed to the poor. She also specifically targeted men who were reported to have raped or abused women as girls, and the poor began to revere her as a goddess (or what Western audiences might think of as a female Robin Hood). After every crime, she would visit a Durga temple and thank the Goddess for her protection.  According to legend, Vikram taught Phoolan, "If you are going to kill, kill twenty, not just one. For if you kill twenty, your fame will spread; if you kill only one, they will hang you as a murderess."

Sometime later, Shri Ram and Lalla Ram, two upper-caste Rajput brothers who had been caught by the police, were released from jail and came back to the gang. They were outraged to hear of the murder of Babu Gujjar, their former leader, and held Phoolan responsible for inciting the act.  Vikram loved and respected Shri Ram, who he regarded as a guru, and sheltered the brothers despite their unpopularity with the men and the hostility they showed to his wife. The Rajputs never let Phoolan or her gang forget that they belonged to a lower caste, and ensured that they were all treated as second-class citizens.

Vikram Mallah then suggested that the gang be divided into two, one comprising mainly Rajputs and the other mainly Mallahs. Shri Ram and Lalla Ram refused this suggestion stating that the gang had always included a mixture of castes. Meanwhile, Vikram was becoming increasingly unpopular owing to his blind defence of Shri Ram, as well as jealousy that he alone was allowed to keep a wife. Some of the other Mallahs had bonds of kinship with Vikram's first wife and resented this young newcomer who now outranked them.

A few days after the proposal for division had been floated, a quarrel ensued between Shri Ram and Vikram Mallah, resulting in a gunfight. Vikram and Phoolan escaped, and travelled hundreds of miles trying to find a doctor who would treat them without reporting them to the police. However, they were tracked down and Vikram Mallah was killed. Thus, Phoolan lost her only protection, and her only ally in the world. 

“That night, I vowed silently…that I would be a woman no longer. Whatever I did from then on, I would do as a man would do. Evil had left its mark on me. I had survived the evil of men, and I had nothing more to lose. I was stronger than ever.”

Following her husband’s death, Phoolan was captured by the Rajput brothers and imprisoned in their village. She was beaten, gang-raped and humiliated by several upper caste Thakur men over a period of three weeks. In a final humiliation, they paraded her naked around the local villages, allowing the men to do with her as they liked. She eventually managed to escape with the help of a holy man (who was killed in her defence), and two Mallah members from Vikram’s gang, including their most loyal compatriot Man Singh Mallah.

It has been suggested that Man Singh and Phoolan were lovers, however, Phoolan makes no claim of this in her autobiography, instead describing him as her brother. Re-joining some of Vikram’s gang, they carried out a series of violent raids and robberies across Bundelkhand, usually (but not always) targeting upper-caste people. Authorities claim that Phoolan never shared any of her loot with the poor and that she targeted upper-castes in revenge for the abuse she had suffered at their hands – however, given the authorities’ complicity in her torture and imprisonment, it is likely they spread this image of the evil Bandit Queen to justify their own treatment of her.

Several months after her escape from Behmai, Phoolan returned to the village to seek revenge. On the evening of 14 February 1981, Phoolan marched into Behmai with her gang and demanded that her tormentors be produced before her. The two men could not be found. Instead, she rounded up twenty-two young men from the village and ordered them killed. 

“But what they called a crime, I called justice.”

The Behmai massacre provoked outrage across the country and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, resigned amid criticism for failing to bring her to justice. A massive, but unsuccessful police manhunt was launched. It was believed that Phoolan escaped because she was aided by the poor, who called her the Bandit Queen and hailed her as a goddess and a hero. This image was so bolstered by the media, who avidly followed the tale of this heroic and undaunted woman, the underdog struggling to survive in the world. Phoolan wrote that her men respected her as a man – calling her the male version of her name – and that rumours circulated that she was actually a man masquerading as a woman because no one could believe that a woman would have the guts or the capacity to do the things Phoolan had done.

Two years after the Behmai massacre, Phoolan continued to evade arrest. The humiliated Indira Gandhi Government decided to negotiate a surrender. By this time, Phoolan was in poor health and most of her gang members were dead, either as the result of police shoot outs or assassination by rival gangs. In February 1983, under pressure from her family and remaining gang members, she agreed to surrender to the authorities. However, she said that she did not 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 the pictures of Mahatma Gandhi and the Hindu goddess Durga, not to the police. She laid down seven further conditions for her surrender:

1.     That she would not be hung

2.     That she would be tried only in Madhya Pradesh

3.     That she would be sentenced to exactly 8 years in prison

4.     That she was imprisoned alongside her men

5.     That their families be given gun permits for their safety

6.     That their families be provided with land and peace to work on it

7.     That these demands were written and agreed upon on official government stationary (Despite the fact that Phoolan was, and remained until her death, illiterate).

An unarmed police chief met her at a rendezvous in the Chambal ravines. They travelled to Bhind in Madhya Pradesh, where she laid down her rifle before the portraits of Gandhi and Goddess Durga. The onlookers included a crowd of around 10,000 people and 300 policemen, as well as the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Arjun Singh. Other members of her gang also surrendered with her. 

“if only they had talked about me before, I thought, when I was the one being mistreated and I was the one crying out for justice. But the bad things done by the poor were all anyone ever talked about, not the bad things done to them.’

Phoolan was charged with as many as 48 crimes, including 30 charges of banditry and kidnapping. Her trial was delayed for eleven years, during which time she remained in prison in squalid conditions and without her men – despite the conditions of her surrender stating that she would be fairly tried and receive a maximum of eight years. During this period, she was operated on for ovarian cysts and underwent an involuntary hysterectomy. The doctor of the hospital reportedly joked that "We don't want Phoolan Devi breeding more Phoolan Devis". This statement alone would indicate a disrespect of her reproductive rights. Forced sterilization is a common abuse against socially outcast women or those branded criminals, even to this day. She remained a popular figure amongst the masses, who often paid to visit her in prison (although she was not allowed to interact with them, and was given none of the profit.)

Phoolan was finally released on parole in 1994 after intercession by Vishambhar Prasad Nishad, the leader of the Mallah community. The Government of Uttar Pradesh, led by Mulayam Singh Yadav, withdrew all cases against her. This move rocked the country and became a matter of public discussion and controversy.

‘Ignorance, I realised, could be every bit as cruel as hunger’.

Phoolan later married politician Ummed Singh. Together, they converted to Buddhism, but Phoolan’s sister later accused him of complicity in her murder.

In 1995, one year after her release, Phoolan was invited by Dr. Ramadoss (founder of Pattali Makkal Katchi) to participate in their conference about alcohol prohibition and women Pornography. This was her first conference after her release which began her political career in India. However, Phoolan stood for election to the 11th Lok Sabha from the Mirzapur constituency in Uttar Pradesh. She contested the election as a member of the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose government had withdrawn all cases against her and summarily released her from prison. She won the election and served as an MP during the term of the 11th Lok Sabha (1996–98). She lost her seat in the 1998 election but was re-elected in the 1999 election. I absolutely love that this poor and illiterate girl who had been powerless for so long, won against all the authorities complicit in keeping her down.  One can only imagine what she may have achieved if her term – and her life – had not been cut short. 

‘But who was I to defy destiny?’

On 26 July 2001, at 1.30pm, Devi was shot dead by three masked gunmen outside of her Delhi bungalow. She was hit nine times, in the head, chest, shoulder and right arm. Her personal security guard, Balinder Singh, was shot in his right chest and right arm. He returned fire and the gunmen fled the scene.

Devi was rushed to hospital, but was there pronounced dead. The prime suspect, Sher Singh Rana, later surrendered to the police. Rana allegedly claimed to have murdered Devi in revenge for the upper-caste men she gunned down in the Behmai massacre. In the latest ruling, on 14 August 2014, the court sentenced Rana to life in prison.  

In the immediate aftermath of her assassination, the police were accused of incompetence in their handling of the case. It was alleged that a party worker picked up revolvers that had been dumped by the killers and hid them. Three other people staying in her house were accused of knowing about the revolvers. The revolvers then disappeared before the police could conduct forensic tests on them. It would not surprise me if this “incompetence” was a deliberate move on the part of authorities for whom Phoolan had been a thorn in the side since she was eleven years old. However, they did successful convict her killer, Sher Singh Rana, the main accused, on 8 August 2014. However, the other ten accused were acquitted. 

“Sing of my deeds. Tell of my combats. How I fought the treacherous demons. Forgive my failings. And bestow on me peace”

In 1994, Shekhar Kapur made a movie Bandit Queen (1994) about Phoolan Devi's life up to her 1983 surrender, based on Mala Sen's 1993 book India's Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi. Although Phoolan is the heroine of the film, she fiercely disputed its accuracy and fought to get it banned in India. She even threatened to immolate herself outside a cinema if the film were not withdrawn. Eventually, she withdrew her objections after the producer, Channel 4, paid her £40,000. The film brought her international recognition. However, author-activist Arundhati Roy in her review entitled, "The Great Indian Rape Trick", questioned the right to "restage the rape of a living woman without her permission", and alleged Shekhar Kapur of exploiting Phoolan Devi and misrepresenting both her life and its meaning.  This criticism still stands today.

In order to tell her own side of the story, the illiterate Phoolan composed her own autobiography entitled: ‘I, Phoolan Devi The Autobiography of India’s Bandit Queen.’ For days & nights, Phoolan related her extraordinary life via an interpreter. Recorded & transcribed, the typescript ran to 2000 pages. Then over several weeks in 1995, it was back to her and she would ‘interrupt to correct errors, clear confusing contradictions, & add more recollections as they came to her. Phoolan signed her name at the bottom of each page, the only word she knew how to write.’

This book is one of the most powerful, humbling, and infuriating books I have ever read. It filled me with pain, and awe, and anger, and despair, and hope. Although I suspect parts are romanticised, I found it to be authentic and refreshing, and I trust it more than any “official” accounts of her life. She writes in the book how her rifle gave her power, but I think her words give her far more. One cannot condone all her actions, but I doubt anyone could read the book and blame her for them either.

I truly hope that in death Phoolan has found the peace and respect that the living world never gave her. If there ever was a living incarnation of the Goddess, I am sure it was her.