Phoolan Devi

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Phoolan Devi

Born	August 10, 1963 Gorha Ka Purwa, Uttar Pradesh, India
Died	July 25, 2001 New Delhi, India
Occupation	Dacoit (Bandit), Politician
Spouse	Ummed Singh

Phoolan Devi (Phūlan Devī) August 10, 1963 – July 25, 2001), popularly known as "The Bandit Queen," was an Indian dacoit, who later turned politician.

1 Early life
2 Dacoit career
3 Surrender and jail term
4 Film and autobiography
5 Political career
6 Murder
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Early life

Phoolan Devi was born into a family of the shudra sub-caste of boatmen called mallah^[1] in the small village of Gorha Ka Purwa, Uttar Pradesh, India. At 11 years of age she was married to a widower 20 years elder to her (or maybe three times her age)^[2]. Her husband used to rape her and mistreat her. Later, he abandoned her and sent her back to her village^[3]. Her family also disowned her. Another version of her biography, most probably mythical^[1], says that she was arrested in a family land dispute involving her father and upper-caste landlords. According to this version, as a consequence of the dispute, she was arrested and later raped by the policemen.

[edit] Dacoit career

In the late 1970s, a gang of dacoits abducted Phoolan. The gang leader, Baboo, who was an upper-caste Thakur, 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^[3]. 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. Then, the gang left him laying near death by a road, with a note as a warning for old men who marry young girls^[3].

Phoolan Devi learnt 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, Vikram's friend and Shri Ram, another dacoit, got out of jail and claimed the leadership of the gang. Shri Ram 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 February 14, 1981, Phoolan and her gang marched into the Behmai village, dressed as police officers. The Thakukrs 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^[4]. 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

Even two years after the Behmai massacre, the police weren't able to capture 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 and Goddess Durga, not to the police^[5]. She also put following conditions^[3]:

She should not get death penalty
Her gang members should not get more than eight years in the prison
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 officers. Three hundred 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 thirty charges of dacoity (banditry) and kidnapping. Her trial was delayed for eleven 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 Dehli business contractor.

[edit] Film and autobiography

Shekhar Kapur made a movie Bandit Queen (1994) on Phoolan Devi's life up through 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.

[edit] Political career

In 1996, Phoolan Devi ran for a seat in the Parliament as a Samajwadi Party candidate. During her election campaign, she was criticized by the women widowed in the Behmai massacre. Kshatriya Swabhimaan Andolan Samanvay Committee (KSASC), a Kshatriya organization, held a statewide campaign to protest against her.

Nevertheless, Phoolan Devi was elected as an Member of Parliament (MP). However, she proved ineffective as an MP^[1]. She got a train stopped at unscheduled stops to meet her acquaintances in Uttar Pradesh. The railway minister, Ram Vilas Paswan played 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^[5].

In 1998, Phoolan Devi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by some members of the British Parliament^[6]. She lost a bid for re-election in 1998, but was returned to office the following year.

[edit] Murder

On July 25, 2001, Phoolan Devi was shot dead 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.

The murder accused are Sher Singh Rana, Dheeraj Rana and Rajbir. Sher Singh Rana allegedly surrendered in Dehradun. He confessed to the murder, saying he was avenging the deaths of 22 Kshatriyas 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"^[4].

On January 19, 2007, Balender Singh, Phoolan's personal security officer who had been wounded and is an eye-witness, identified Dheeraj and Sher Singh as the people who had fired on him and Phoolan respectively. Balender Singh is set to be cross-examined on February 2, 2007.