Raj of the Rani

The 400-year-old town of Jhansi still feels that it owes its fame to a young Rani who ruled for four-and-a-half years. In the uprising of 1857 which came to be known as the ‘First War of Indian Independence’, she was a singular figure in a gallery of heroes. Rani Lakshmi Bai also became the protagonist in a different kind of story–fiction by British writers to dramatize the horrific experience of the mutiny to which an oriental queen, full of passion, added a thrilling dimension. But despite her incredible career, it took eighty years for Indians to write a comprehensive description of Rani Lakshmi Bai’s life. It was not because she was forgotten but that people who lived in her time did not leave any writing behind–and the few who knew her were too afraid of reprisals to profess links with her. How did a young Marathi woman come to wield so much influence in a strongly Rajput-dominated region in the grip of an Alien power? The life of the warrior queen has inspired historians, writers and, more recently, film-makers. But for the first time, in biographer Tapti Roy’s vivid rendition, Lakshmi Bai is located within the wider context of her time and space.