Phûlan Devi (aka Phoolan Devi, 1963 – 2001), known as the “Queen of Bandits”, was an Indian band leader who became a member of parliament.
[Warning:rape, violence]
Married at eleven
Fourth and last child of Shrimati Mool Devi and Shri Devi Din, Phûlan Devi was born on August 10, 1963 in a small village in northern India. Born within the corporation of mallah, fishermen and boatmen, she is considered to be of low caste. In her siblings, only one big sister and she will reach adulthood.
When Phûlan is eleven years old, his paternal grandparents die and his violent uncle becomes the head of the family. With her sister, the little girl opposes this uncle and his son, Mayadin, who appropriates the land of his parents. His uncle then arranges a marriage between Phûlan and a thirty-three-year-old cousin. Despite her young age and despite custom, the child is sent to live with her husband, who beats her, rapes her and forces her to perform exhausting domestic chores. She ran away several times but her parents systematically brought her back to her husband, until the latter himself asked his parents-in-law to keep her. But the fact for a woman to leave her husband is an act of extreme gravity, and Phûlan loses all status in the eyes of Indian society.
Defender of the oppressed
Back with her parents, the young girl wants to take Mayadin to court for having appropriated her parents' land, but she loses and her cousin, accusing her of larceny, has her thrown in prison, where she will be abused again. . When she left, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, she returned to her parents.
In 1979, Phûlan Devî fell into the hands of a band of dacoits, groups of brigands made up mostly of landless peasants and untouchables. The leader of the band violent her but Vikram, one of the bandits, mallah like her, kills her and takes her place. Becoming Phûlan's lover, he teaches her how to use a gun and how to attack thâkûr , landowners. A few weeks later, the gang attacks the village of Phûlan's husband, who stabs him herself and leaves him dying, with a note telling older men not to marry young girls. The gang kidnaps landowners, assaults men who rape low-caste women, and sometimes attacks trains. The only woman in the group, Phûlan became famous throughout the state as a defender of the oppressed.
The Behmai Massacre
With the return to the band of Shri Râm, a dacoit thâkûr, serious dissensions are created between the mallah members and the thâkûr members. Shri Râm is particularly virulent against Phûlan Devi, whom he accuses of being responsible for the death of the previous gang leader. One day, an argument escalates in exchange for gunfire and Shri Ram shoots Vikram. Captured, Phûlan is held in Behmai, a village of Thâkûrs, and Shri Râm and his gang rape her collectively. She manages to escape after three weeks of captivity and joins some former mallah accomplices, including Man Singh, who becomes her lover and with whom she takes the head of exclusively mallah dacoits. Phûlan then only dreams of revenge.
On February 14, 1981, learning that Shri Râm would be in Behmai, Phûlan and his band returned to the village of Thâkûrs. Arriving in the middle of the wedding day, she demands that her torturer be delivered to her and the village is searched from top to bottom, but Shri Ram is not there. Filled with hatred for the entire Thâkûr caste, Phûlan still has the men present lined up and executed. Twenty-two Thâkûrs will die that day. Later, she will defend herself by saying that she did not fire a single shot.
Public enemy number one
Declared "public enemy number one", Phûlan Devi becomes the heroine of the people and begins to be called "Queen of bandits". It is perhaps thanks to this popular support that she manages to evade law enforcement for two years. By February 1983, however, most of her gang had died and she herself was in poor health; she decides to surrender to the authorities and negotiate a deal. Insisting that she surrender her weapons not to the police but to Mahatma Gandhi and the goddess Durga, she gets a maximum sentence of eight years for her gang members, a government job for her brother, land for her father, and life for herself.
Phûlan was charged with 48 crimes and spent eleven years in prison, during which she underwent an unnecessary hysterectomy. "We don't want Phûlan Devi to wear other Phûlan Devi," the prison doctor reportedly said. Illiterate, she published her autobiography with the help of publishers in 1984. In 1994, she was released on parole. On her release from prison, she joined a group teaching self-defense to people of low castes and converted to Buddhism.
Phûlan Devi in politics
In 1996, Phûlan Devî became involved in politics and, within the Samajwadi party (socialist party), she is running for a post of deputy, which she wins. Its program is mainly focused on the defense of the rights of the lower castes and women, a program which will meet with much opposition within the upper castes. In 1998, she lost her seat but regained it the following year.
On July 25, 2001, Phûlan Devi was shot five times a stone's throw from her home, as she was returning from a session in parliament. She was declared dead on arrival at the hospital. A few days later, Sher Singh Rana, a Thâkûr, surrenders to the police and claims the murder of Phûlan Devi in response to the Behmai massacre.