55 Facts About Phoolan Devi

Phoolan Devi, popularly known as the Bandit Queen, was an Indian dacoit who later became a Member of Parliament, before being assassinated.

Phoolan Devi was a Mallah woman who grew up in poverty in a village in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where her family was on the losing side of a land dispute which caused them many problems.

Phoolan Devi's gang robbed higher caste villages and held up trains and vehicles.

Phoolan Devi became a heroine to the lower castes for being a Robin Hood figure who punished her rapists and evaded capture by the authorities.

Phoolan Devi was charged in absentia for the 1981 Behmai massacre, in which twenty Thakur men were executed, allegedly on her command; afterwards the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh resigned and calls to capture Devi were amplified.

Phoolan Devi surrendered two years later in a carefully negotiated settlement and spent 11 years in Gwalior prison, without facing trial.

Phoolan Devi was released in 1994 after her charges were set aside, then she became a politician, standing as a Member of Parliament for the Samajwadi Party in 1996.

Phoolan Devi lost her seat in 1998 then regained it the following year; she was the incumbent at the time of her death in 2001.

Phoolan Devi was assassinated outside her house by Sher Singh Rana, who was eventually convicted for the murder in 2014.

Phoolan Devi's life has inspired several biographies and her dictated autobiography was entitled I, Phoolan Devi.

Phoolan Devi was born on 10 August 1963, in the village of Gorha Ka Purwa in Jalaun district, Uttar Pradesh, India.

Phoolan Devi's family was poor and from the Mallah fisherman subcaste, which lies towards the bottom of the Hindu caste system in India, Mallahs being a subcaste of Shudra.

Phoolan Devi's family survived by collecting dung cakes to burn as fuel and growing chickpeas, sunflowers and pearl millet.

Phoolan Devi's family was compelled to live in a small house on the edge of the village; the uncle and son continued to harass the family and to steal their crops, aiming to drive them away from the village.

At the age of 10, Phoolan Devi decided to protest against the injustice by going to the disputed land.

In 2018, Phoolan Devi's mother told The Asian Age that she was still fighting to regain the land which Maiyadin had stolen from the family.

Phoolan Devi was married to a man called Puttilal, who offered 100 rupees, a cow and a bicycle as a dowry.

When Phoolan Devi returned home to Gorha Ka Purwa, the second son of the village leader became infatuated with her and when she did not return his affections, he attacked her.

Again, Phoolan Devi needed to leave the village and Maiyadin pressured the family to ask Puttilal to take her back, so Devi returned to her husband; in the meantime he had taken another wife who enjoyed mistreating her.

When Phoolan Devi threw stones at him and wounded his face, she was arrested by the local police and detained for one month.

Phoolan Devi later told The Atlantic that she was arrested because Maiyadin accused her of robbing him.

Vikram and Phoolan Devi fell in love and became a couple.

The gang returned to punish Puttilal and Phoolan Devi beat him up.

Phoolan Devi became wildly popular with the poor, who called her Dasyu Sundari and was celebrated by most of the Indian mainstream media as a Robin Hood figure, who robbed the rich to give to the poor.

Phoolan Devi was seen as an incarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga and a doll was produced of her in police uniform wearing a bandoleer.

Phoolan Devi managed to escape and formed another gang with Man Singh.

When she was later arrested in 1983, Phoolan Devi claimed that she had not been present at the time of the shooting.

For Dalits, Phoolan Devi was to be celebrated for fighting back against her abuse by men of a higher caste and when she eluded capture by the authorities her fame grew.

Phoolan Devi was nearly caught by the police on 31 March 1981, and had to shoot her way out.

Phoolan Devi's mother was held for five months in Kalpi prison to pressure Devi to give herself up.

In 1983, Phoolan Devi surrendered to the authorities after long negotiations led by Rajendra Chaturvedi, a police officer from Bhind.

Phoolan Devi had set conditions regarding her surrender, which included: no death penalty for anyone from her gang; a maximum custodial sentence of eight years; no use of handcuffs; being imprisoned as a group; being imprisoned in Madhya Pradesh and not Uttar Pradesh; her family being given land with their goat and cow; her brother getting a government job.

The others, including Man Singh, agreed to trials in Uttar Pradesh and were all acquitted, but Phoolan Devi refused to make a deal and remained convinced she would be murdered if she went there.

Charges against Phoolan Devi were dropped in 1994 by order of the central government of Mulayam Singh Yadav, from the Samajwadi Party.

Phoolan Devi won with a majority of 37,000 and had over 300,000 votes in total.

Phoolan Devi was not the only illiterate MP, joining others such as Bhagwati Devi and Shobhawati Devi.

Phoolan Devi campaigned with limited success for the rights of women and to provide better amenities for the poor.

Phoolan Devi visited her constituents in their villages and listened to their concerns.

In 1996, Phoolan Devi lost her Supreme Court appeal to have the charges dropped.

Phoolan Devi did not attend the court date in Kanpur, to the outrage of the widows of Behmai; after several months of legal machinations, the Supreme Court ruled that Devi did not need to be jailed before trial.

Phoolan Devi lost her seat to the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in the 1998 elections, then regained it the following year.

Phoolan Devi was holding the position at the time of her death, at the age of 37.

Phoolan Devi dictated her autobigraphy I, Phoolan Devi which was published first in French and then in other languages, including English, Japanese and Malay.

The income from book sales supported Phoolan Devi and enabled her to pay her legal fees.

Phoolan Devi married again to Umed Singh and appeared in a film with him called Sholay Aur Chingari.

Phoolan Devi attempted to block the release, commenting "It's simply not the story of my life".

When Phoolan Devi discovered Singh had taken this payment, they became estranged, before later reconciling.

At 13:30 on 25 July 2001, Phoolan Devi was shot dead by three unknown assailants outside her house at 44 Ashoka Road in New Delhi.

Phoolan Devi was shot nine times and her bodyguard was hit twice; he returned fire as the attackers escaped by car.

Phoolan Devi was rushed to Lohia Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival.

Days after the murder, Sher Singh Rana was arrested and claimed he had shot at Phoolan Devi, saying the assassination was revenge for the Behmai massacre.

Phoolan Devi escaped from Tihar Jail in 2004 and was recaptured two years later.

Phoolan Devi's life has inspired biographies by Roy Moxham, Mala Sen, and Richard Shears and Isobelle Gidley, and novels by Irene Frain and Dimitri Friedman.

Phoolan Devi has been represented in fine art by painters such as Rekha Rodwittiya.

Phoolan Devi's life has been commemorated by folk singers, making her into a mythical outlaw figure.