Bluestocking Oxford

By Shreya Ganguli

Rani of Jhansi was an Indian female fighter, best known for her role in the events of the Indian Rebellion in 1857. Despite her exceptional status as a queen, soldier, and “rebel,” she has attracted little scholarly attention. In this article, I explore both the life and legend of Rani of Jhansi, highlighting how, despite her limited presence in the historical archives, she remains a powerful figure in Indian national memory. I argue that even with the scarcity of primary sources and limited secondary literature, it is possible – and necessary to read and write about this remarkable woman beyond the British perspective – an approach that has rarely been pursued.

The Rani was reportedly born around 1835 and married Gangadhar Rao, the Raja of Jhansi – a region in the south of modern-day Uttar Pradesh – in 1842. During this time, British influence in India was expanding, primarily through the East India Company (EIC). In the decade leading up to 1857, the British annexed several states under the policy of “lapse,” led by Governor-General Dalhousie. As part of this policy, any state without an heir upon the death of the current ruler would be turned over to the British. When the Rani’s husband passed away in 1853, the couple adopted a son whilst the Raja was on his death bed with the intention of the Rani continuing to rule Jhansi as the regent of this adopted son. The British, however, refused to recognise the adopted heir as legitimate and declared Jhansi to be under British control.

 It is in the context of the Rani’s altercation with the British and her ongoing plight to retain control of Jhansi that conflict broke out all over India in the name of the “Indian Mutiny.” In June 1857, records indicate that the Rani received confirmation she held Jhansi ‘in trust’ on behalf of the EIC following her diplomatic negotiations. In April 1858, however, Jhansi was attacked by Sir Hugh Rose’s army, and this formed the backdrop of the Rani’s fight with the British and her eventual demise in the same year. From 1857 until her death, Rani of Jhansi successfully led her troops and defended Jhansi against EIC attacks. It is primarily for this feat that she is remembered and celebrated as an Indian female warrior of justice.
 

Of course, this historical context must be approached with caution. There are no written records of the Rani’s life until the events at Jhansi, and even then, most accounts come from British sources including official documents and correspondence. For example, in texts written for and by the British, she is referred to as “the horrible Ranee,” the “Jezebel of Indian,” and a “perpetrator of the most heinous crimes.” Maria Jerinic highlights this British-centric focus in her article which juxtaposes the life of Queen Victoria with that of Rani of Jhansi. Her implication is that “written by a Western pen, the Rani’s story is, then, not about India but about Britain.” In her article, Jerinic situates the life of both queens amongst the broader British imperial project and its male-centric agenda. Notably, Jerinic highlights how Rani of Jhansi was understood in relation to Britain’s own female monarch, revealing a broader discomfort with women in positions of power. Although a provocative piece on these two women, ultimately studying the Rani alongside Queen Victoria centralises the British perspective in Jerinic’s narrative on Rani of Jhansi.

Two historians in particular have written about the Rani: Joyce Lebra-Chapman and Harleen Singh both made a significant dent in this literature. Lebra-Chapman first wrote about the Rani in 1986. In the introduction to her full-length book titled The Rani of Jhansi: A Study in Female Heroism in India, she writes “it is surprising that so little has been written about her…[a] few novels, plays, and biographies of the Rani have been written in Indian languages, but the better part of Indian sources on the Rani are unpublished.” Lebra-Chapman suggests that “the study of the Rani is viewed as sacred,” especially in India and given that “we are far better able to document the life and career of the Rani from the British perspective than we are from the Indian viewpoint.” It is this proposal that I engage with in this article by suggesting that although challenging, there is potential to read the Rani’s life outside of the official British documentation that is often cited. In 2008, Lebra-Chapman updated her portfolio with a second book on this topic titled Woman Against the Raj: The Rani of Jhansi Regiment. This book engages less with the Rani’s life and more with her legacy. In particular, it examines the Rani of Jhansi Regiment of the Indian National Army: an all-women’s regiment established in 1943 by Subhash Chandra Bose under the leadership of Captain Lakshmi Sagal. By concentrating on the immortalisation of the Rani through this regiment, Lebra-Chapman fuels discussions of the Rani’s legacy and her military significance nearly 100 years after her own martial campaign.

Singh added to the scholarship in 2014 with another book-length work on the Rani. Much like Lebra-Chapman, Singh writes about the scarcity of sources on the Rani and especially highlights the lack of non-fiction literature to draw on. Singh’s work, therefore, is primarily a reading of the Rani’s life through fictional sources: as she suggests, “fact and fiction, rationality and imagination, are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them from the Rani’s life: fiction, in this case, has literally formed the historical.” Using symbolic understandings of the Rani as depicted in fiction, not fact, Singh situates her work on the Rani amongst broader historiography of “what constitutes the gendered subaltern historical archive.” This lays a strong foundation in understanding the Rani’s life beyond the British perspective.

In terms of sources then, crucially there are two pieces of non-fiction on the Rani from inside India – that of S.B. Hardikar and D.B. Parasnis, written in Hindi and Marathi respectively. As Lebra-Chapman suggests, both these sources rely on local oral traditions and legend, rather than archival sources in an attempt to provide an Indian narrative on the Rani. Whilst this could be considered a weakness of the sources, as Singh suggests the Rani’s life is mainly chronicled through fiction; it would be erroneous to dismiss these sources purely for their supposed fictive influences, disregarding the value of an Indian approach to writing a history of the Rani. Where a critical lens is applied to the analysis of these sources – in particular through reading them through Singh’s framework of a “gendered subaltern historical archive” – new and significantly non-British accounts of the Rani appear. Additionally to these written sources, the Rani also appears in popular art forms such as oral literature and visual arts. Lebra-Chapman details various poems, ballads, and songs referring to Rani of Jhansi that have been passed on generationally. In the visual arts, though no portraits were produced of the Rani during her lifetime, artworks created consequently show Rani of Jhansi in a heroic pose, often on horseback riding into battle. Statues and miniatures found in Jhansi, Gwalior, Pune, and Nagpur present the Rani in a similar position and are a physical depiction of her and her legacy. These accounts of the Rani in both visual and oral form should not be omitted from the body of sources that are considered when conducting a study on the life and legend of Rani of Jhansi; they serve as a reminder of the impact this woman made. Moreover, their situation outside of the Western cannon is useful is providing an approach to the Rani outside of the British perspective which tends to be overdone in the limited literature there is on her.

 Ultimately, this article suggests that there is potential and scope to write a history of the Rani of Jhansi from beyond the British perspective. Whilst it may be more archivally challenging, there is much to be gained in engaging with subaltern sources to write about this subaltern woman who shocked both Indian and British contemporaries alike with her bravery, determination, and defiance of the status quo.
 

References

Hildebrand, Vera. Women at War : Subhas Chandra Bose and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India: HarperCollins Publishers India, 2016.

Jerinic, Maria. “How We Lost the Empire: Retelling the Stories of the Rani of Jhansi and Queen Victoria.” In Remaking Queen Victoria, edited by Margaret Homans and Adrienne Munich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Lebra-Chapman, Joyce. The Rani of Jhansi: A Study in Female Heroism in India. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986.

Lebra-Chapman, Joyce. Women Against the Raj: The Rani of Jhansi Regiment. ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, 2008.

Singh, Harleen. The Rani of Jhansi: Gender, History, and Fable in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Tahmankar, D. V. The Ranee of Jhansi. London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1958.