Born on the banks of the Ganges at Benares, little Manakarnika was a charged and precocious girl – destined to be etched in history as the towering queen of the revolt of 1857. A touching yet accurate portrait of this Indian Boadicea, The Ranee of Jhansi as a biography also puts the events of the ‘mutiny’ and the actual role of Lakshmibai in it, into perspective. The writer takes your on a journey through the plains and hills of central India which in 1857 could have – but such is the fatalism of history – turned around India’s future forever. It makes for a breathless reading from beginning to end –through the circumstances that led to the revolt and through the vivid scenes of the glorious battle at Jhansi. A woman of the strongest Mahratta mettle, Lakshmibai had an intuitive grasp of warfare, astute judgment of the enemy’s power and an indomitable will that made her fight even in the face of defeat. And being a young Brahmin widow of thirty who led a whole army. She inadvertently created one of the greatest ironies in Indian history, when she was declared the ‘best man on the rebel side’!
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