# Rani of Jhansi

The Rani of Jhansi (born Manikarnika Tambe; 19 November 1828 — 18 June 1858), also known as Rani Lakshmibai, was the queen consort of the princely state of Jhansi in the Maratha Empire from 1843 to 1853 through marriage to Maharaja Gangadhar Rao Newalkar. She was one of the leading figures in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and remains a national hero and symbol of resistance against the British rule of India.
Born into a Marathi Karhade Brahmin family in Banares, Lakshmibai married the Maharaja of Jhansi, Gangadhar Rao, in 1842. After his death in 1853, the British East India Company, under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie, refused to recognize the claim of Rao's adopted son to the throne and annexed Jhansi under the doctrine of lapse. Unwilling to surrender control of her kingdom, the Rani joined the rebellion against the British in 1857.
She led a successful defense of Jhansi against Company allies, but Jhansi ultimately fell to British forces under the command of Hugh Rose in early 1858. The Rani escaped on horseback and later joined the rebels in capturing Gwalior, where they declared Nana Saheb as Peshwa (ruler) of the revived Maratha Empire. She died in June 1858 after succumbing to mortal wounds sustained during the British counterattack at Gwalior.

## Biography

Little is known for certain about the Rani's life before 1857, because there was then no need to record details about an as-yet ordinary young girl. As a result, every biography of her life relies on a mixture of factual evidence and legendary tales, especially when concerning her childhood and adolescence.

### Early life and marriage

Moropant Tambe was a Maharashtrian Karhada Brahmin who served the Maratha noble Chimaji, whose brother Baji Rao II had been deposed as Maratha peshwa in 1817. In the city of Varanasi, he and his wife Bhagirathi had a daughter, who they named Manikarnika, an epithet of the River Ganges; in childhood she was known by the diminutive Manu. Her birth year is disputed: British sources tended towards the year 1827, whereas Indian sources generally preferred the year 1835. According to legend, the astrologers attending her birth foretold that she would combine the qualities of the three principle Hindu goddesses: Lakshmi, deity of wealth; Durga, deity of strength; and Saraswati, deity of knowledge.
Both Manikarnika's mother Bhagirathi and her father's employer Chimaji died when she was a young child. Moropant moved to the court of Baji Rao at Bithur, who gave him a job and who became fond of Manikarnika, whom he nicknamed "Chhabili". According to uncorroborated popular legend, her childhood playmates in Bithur included Nana Sahib and Tatya Tope, who would similarly become prominent in 1857. These stories relate that Manikarnika, deprived of a feminine influence by her mother's death, was allowed to play and learn with her male playmates: she was literate, skilled in horseriding, and—extremely unusually for a girl, if true—was given lessons in fencing, swordplay, and even firearms.
It is presumed that Baji Rao brought Manakarnika to the attention of Gangadhar Rao, the old raja of Jhansi who had no children and greatly desired an heir. The ambitious Moropant accepted the unexpectedly prestigious marriage offer, and the couple wed, according to Indian sources, in May 1842. If the traditional chronology is correct, Manakarnika would have been seven years old, and the marriage would not have been consummated until she was fourteen. Accorded the name Lakshmi, after the goddess, she was thereafter known as the Rani Lakshmibhai. Both Indian and British sources portray Gangadhar Rao as an apolitical figure uninterested in rulership—thus increasing the scope for depicting the Rani's leadership abilities—but while British sources characterise him as debauched and imbecilic, Indian sources interpret these traits as evidence of his cultured nature. According to popular legend, he turned blind eye to Rani Lakshmibhai's equipping and training of an armed all-female regiment, but if it existed, it was likely formed after Gangadhar Rao's death.
   God willing I still hope to recover and regain my health. I am not too old, so I may still father children. In case that happens, I will take the proper measures concerning my adopted son. But if I fail to live, please take my previous loyalty into account and show kindness to my son. Please acknowledge my widow as the mother of this boy during her lifetime. May the government approve of her as the queen and ruler of this kingdom as long as the boy is still under age. Please take care that no injustice is done to her.
In 1851, Lakshmibhai gave birth to a son amid much rejoicing, but he died at a few months old to the great grief of his parents. Gangadhar Rao's health deteriorated and he died two years later on 21 November 1853. As was customary, he adopted a young boy on his deathbed—in this case, a five-year-old relative named Anand Rao, who was renamed Damodar Rao. Two days before his death, Gangadhar Rao wrote a letter to East India Company officials, pleading them to recognise Damodar Rao as the new ruler and the Rani Lakshmibhai as his regent.

### Widowhood and annexation

The East India Company administration, led by Governor-General Lord Dalhousie, had for several years enforced a "doctrine of lapse", wherein Indian states whose Hindu rulers died without a natural heir were annexed by Britain. This policy was quickly enforced on Jhansi after Gangadhar Rao's death, to the Rani's dismay. She wrote a letter to the Company protesting the annexation on 16 February 1854. Dalhousie issued a lengthy minute in response eleven days later. He argued that since the British had conquered the Marathas, Jhansi's former overlords, the Company was now the "paramount power" with the authority to decide the succession. Dalhousie characterised Gangadhar Rao's rule as one of decline and mismanagement, and asserted that Jhansi and its people would benefit from direct British rule.
Lakshmibhai fought the decision through diplomatic channels. She initiated conversations with Major Ellis, a sympathetic local Company official, and engaged John Lang, an Australian lawyer, to represent her. She wrote multiple appeals to Dalhousie, outlining previous British treaties with Jhansi in 1803, 1817, and 1842 which recognised the rajas of Jhansi as legitimate rulers. She also cited specific terminology and Hindu shastra tradition to argue that Damodar Rao should be entitled to the throne. Dalhousie bluntly rejected these appeals without refuting the arguments contained within, but still the Rani peristed: her final appeals concluded that the annexation constituted a "gross violation ... of treaties" and that Jhansi was reduced to "subjection, dishonour, and poverty".
None of these appeals came to fruition, and Jhansi lapsed to the Company in May 1854. Granted a lifetime pension of five thousand rupees per month (or six thousand pounds yearly) by the new Company superintendent of Jhansi, Captain Alexander Skene, Lakshmibhai was required to vacate the fort but allowed to keep the two-storey palace. She disagreed with the Company in the following years over various matters: on taxation and debts, the 1854 lifting of the ban on cattle slaughter in Jhansi, the British occupation of a temple outside the town, and of course the continued foreign rule.
Later songs and poems retell Lakshmibhai's defiant mantra, "I will never give up my Jhansi!", which she is traditionally said to have cried during this period. She continued to train her all-female regiment, and paraded them on horseback through the town.

### 1857 Indian Rebellion

On 10 May 1857, native sepoy troops stationed in Meerut mutinied against their British officers, sparking the Indian Rebellion. The nascent rebellion swiftly grew as towns and troops across northern India, including Delhi, joined in. Nana Sahib organised massacres of the British at Kanpur, while similar events occurred in Lucknow; news of these killings had not reached Jhansi by the end of May. The garrison, commanded by Skene, consisted of native troops of the 12th Native Infantry and the 14th Irregular Cavalry, and oversaw a strategic position at the junction of four major roads: northwest to Agra and Delhi, northeast to Kanpur and Lucknow, east to Allahabad, and south across the Deccan Plateau.
Skene was not initially alarmed, and allowed the Rani to raise a bodyguard for her own protection. However, on 5 June, a company of infantry took control of the ammunition store, and shot their British commanding officer when he attempted to reassert control the next day. The remaining sixty British men, women, and children took refuge in the main fort, where they were besieged. According to a servant of a British captain, the Rani sent a letter claiming that the sepoys, accusing her of protecting the British, had surrounded her palace and demanded she provide assistance. On 8 June, the British surrendered and asked for safe passage; after an unknown someone acquiesced, they were led to the Jokhan Bagh garden, where nearly all of them were killed.
The Rani's involvement in this massacre is a subject of debate. S. Thornton, a tax collector in Samthar State, wrote that the Rani had instigated the revolt, while two somewhat questionable eyewitness accounts reported that she executed three British messengers and gave the rest false promise of safe passage. Other contemporary reports claimed the Rani was innocent, while the official report by F.W. Pinkney came to no clear conclusion. Lakshmibai herself claimed, in two mid-June letters to Major Erskine, commissioner of the Saugor division, that she had been at the mercy of the mutineers and could not help the besieged British. She wished damnation upon the mutineers, asserted that she was governing only while Company rule was absent, and asked for government assistance to combat prevalent disorder. Erskine believed her account, but his superiors in Fort William were less trusting. Even if the Rani was not involved with the mutiny, its outcome had spectacularly coincided with her prior aims, and items belonging to the massacred were later found in her palace.
After the rebels left, Erskine authorised the Rani to rule until the British returned. In this capacity, she collected taxes, repaired the fort, and distributed donations to the poor. One of her generals named Jawahar Singh defeated Sadasheo Rao, a cousin of Gangadhar Rao, who tried to claim Jhansi for himself. This skirmish led the Rani to focus on re-establishing military authority, and so she ordered the recruitment of troops and the manufacturing of cannon and other weapons. With this larger force of approximately 15,000 troops, Jhansi saw off an attack by the nearby kingdom of Orchha, who had remained loyal to the Company and whose leaders judged that the British would turn a blind eye to the war. Orchha invaded on 10 August and besieged Jhansi from early September to late October, when they were driven off by the raja of Banpur's troops.

### British hostility and Siege of Jhansi

In September 1857, with Jhansi under Orchha siege, the Rani requested that Major Erskine send forces to help, as he had earlier promised when authorizing her rule. On 19 October, he replied in the negative, and further added that the conduct of all at Jhansi would be investigated. Even though she feared the British regarded her as an enemy, the Rani was not yet ready to take the rebels' side, although she was dismayed by the British failures to reply. Unable to persuade the Rani to commit to the rebellion, the raja of Banpur left Jhansi in January 1858. Some of her advisors advocated for peace with the Britis; others, including her father, for war. Remaining rebel leaders had begun to gather at Jhansi, including the raja of Banpur, who returned with 3,500 men on 15 March. This encouraged the Rani, who was still of two minds: she continued to send unanswered conciliations to the British, while at the same time militantly preparing arms and ammunition. Her position may have eventually been decided by her troops, who demanded to fight.
Because of her conflict with the Company-loyal state of Orchha and her rescue by the rebel raja of Banpur, the British had likely decided that the Rani was an enemy. Kanpur had been retaken on 16 July, followed by Lucknow and, on 22 September Delhi. Their attention now fell on the remaining pockets of resistance in Central India: Jhansi, a pivotal strategic location and the home of a ruler now seen as a "Jezebel", was a prime target. Command of the Central India Field Force of 4,300 men was given to the capable Hugh Rose, who set out from Indore on 6 January 1858. He relieved Sagar on 3 February, defeated the army of Shahgarh and sacked Banpur in early March, and then marched on Jhansi.
Rose's army, by now numbering around 3,000 men, approached Jhansi from several directions. Reconnaissance found that not only were the defences in excellent condition, with 25-foot (7.6 m) loopholed granite walls topped by large guns and batteries able to enfilade each other, but the surrounding countryside had been removed of all cover and foliage. The inhabitants of the town, including 11,500 soldiers, had stockpiled hundreds of tons of supplies in preparation for the upcoming siege. It began on 22 March with consistent artillery fire against Jhansi's ramparts. Although the Rani's forces returned fire capably, her best gunners were soon killed, and the defender's situation became increasingly dire. A breach was made on 29 March, although it was quickly stockaded. Rose was making preparations for an assault when news reached him that the Rani's childhood friend Tatya Tope was marching to rescue Jhansi with more than 20,000 men.
Rose, unable to confront the new enemy with his whole force for fear that the defenders of Jhansi would sortie into his rear, detached just 1,200 men to confront Tatya Tope. Despite the numerical advantages of the rebel force, the vast majority of them was untrained, and they used old, slow guns. In the Battle of Betwa on 1 April, accurate British artillery fire repelled the first rebel line, and organisational mistakes meant the second line was unable to assist. In a comprehensive victory, the British lost less than one hundred men, and inflicted over 1,500 casualties on Tatya Tope's army. At 3am on 3 April, two columns assaulted the south wall of Jhansi—one through the breach and one using ladders in an escalade—and both penetrated the defences. The Rani personally led a counter-attack with 1,500 Afghan troops, but steady British reinforcement drove them back, and she retreated to the fort.
Rose's forces controlled the whole town, excluding the north-east quarter and fort, by sunset. The defenders fought stubbornly in hand-to-hand fighting, and killed several British soldiers through igniting trails of gunpowder. No mercy was given in return: the British killed around three thousand people. Some defenders, including the Rani's father Moropant, escaped the city and reformed on a nearby hill. Moropant was captured and, on 20 April, executed. Rose planned to assault the fort on the morning of 4 April, but received the unexpected news that the Rani had escaped.

### Escape and final battles

How the Rani managed to escape is not known fully—there are multiple accounts. One tradition tells that riding a horse, she jumped off the fort walls. One British account holds that a native soldier serving under Rose secretly arranged for a horse to be brought to the fort, so that the Rani could be lowered onto it with her adopted son. Another, told by Rose's aide-de-camp Anthony Lyster, suggests that Rose desired to avoid the extreme casualties that an assault of the fort would result in; he thus arranged a 400-yard (370 m) gap in the sentry line to bait the Rani into attempting an escape, whereupon she would be captured. Such a plan could only have been made if Rose was unaware of the Rani's skill on horseback—as he was certainly aware, Lyster's account is questionable.
Whatever the truth, accompanied by around three hundred soldiers, and with her adopted son Damodar Rao tied to her waist, the Rani managed to escape a very precarious situation. Legends say that her contingent rode the 102 miles (164 km) northeast to Kalpi in one night; more reliable sources state that she narrowly escaped a pursuing British detachment when stopping to eat a morning meal, and that she arrived at midnight on 5 April—still a feat of endurance. Kalpi, a strategic location on the Yamuna River, was the headquarters of Rao Sahib, the nephew of Lakshmibai's old friend Nana Sahib. By 27 April, an army of ten thousand soldiers had assembled there under the Rani, Tatya Tope, the raja of Banpur, and other leaders. To the Rani's disappointment, she was overlooked for command of the rebel force in favour of Tatya Tope, who likely resented her subsequent efforts to increase their force's discipline.
Rose's army advanced from Jhansi against Kalpi on the 26th, and Tatya Tope led his forces to confront the British at the town of Kunch. He failed to heed the Rani's advice to protect his flanks and Rose outmanouevred him, inflicting six hundred casualties, capturing all opposing guns, and causing severe infighting in the rebel army. Following the defeat, Tatya Tope headed to Gwalior, where he hoped to gain the allegiance of the city's eponynmous Contingent. Rose regarded the Gwalior Contingent as the best army in India, but thus far they had remained loyal to the raja of Scindia, whose allegiance was to the British. Meanwhile, the Rani and the other rebel leaders had prepared five lines of defence around the walls and ravines of Kalpi Fort, and attacked Rose's besieging force under a smoke screen on 22 May. Once again, the Rani's advice—to not attack on difficult ground—was ignored, and accurate musket fire followed by a bayonet charge repulsed the attack. Although Rose's army was severely weakened by the battle and the extreme heat, he did not have to attack Kalpi—the rebel leaders fled in the night.
One British officer gave the Rani credit for the idea to march to Gwalior, stating that only "she possessed the genius, the daring, the despair necessary for the conception of great deeds", although most evidence implies that it was Tatya Tope's plan. Around this time, Charles Canning, Dalhousie's successor as Governor-General, declared the Rani a rebel leader and announced a bounty of 20,000 rupees for her capture. After a brief skirmish on 31 May, the Gwalior Contingent turned on their raja, who fled to the British, and welcomed the rebels to the strategically important and well-defended fort. At a durbar on 3 June, Rao Sahib was proclaimed viceroy of his uncle Nana Sahib amid feasts and revelry. The Rani refused to attend, because she felt the rebels were celebrating when they should have been preparing for battle; she convinced Rao Sahib to focus on the coming warfare on 5 June. The following day, Rose's army left Kalpi, arriving before Gwalior ten days later; having studied the terrain, he ordered an attack from the south-east on 17 June.
At 7:30 am, units from the 95th Regiment of Foot twice engaged rebel forces commanded by the Rani on hilly ground between Kotah-ki-Serai and Gwalior. A charge by a squadron of the Eighth Hussars surprised and scattered her bodyguard; according to an eyewitness, the Rani, possibly accompanied by a woman companion named Mundar, charged at them. The exact manner of her death is unknown, but all accounts agree she died fighting.

### Aftermath

The Rani's body was likely cremated by her followers. Her death greatly demoralised the defenders of Gwalior, and Rose captured the city on 19 June, ending the last major battle of the rebellion. British reactions to her death were varied: one officer felt that the "beast of Jhansi [...] had too easy a death", while others expressed mixed pleasure and regret at the death of a worthy adversary. Rose's post-mortem assessment has been remembered, especially in India. He wrote that she was "remarkable for her beauty, cleverness, perseverance [and] generosity to her subordinates. These qualities, combined with her rank, rendered her most dangerous of all the rebel leaders." In his battle report, he wrote that she was the "best and bravest of the rebels". Others noted how Indian resistance collapsed after the death of their "most determined, spirited, and influential head", who had, as the commander of the Hussars put it, "fought like bricks".
After the fall of Gwalior, Tatya Tope and Rao Sahib continued to lead guerilla resistance against the British; eventually, both were captured and hung. Nana Sahib's fate is unknown; rumours of his death abounded, but he continued to be "sighted" until 1895. Because of the Rani's rebellion, her adopted son Damodar Rao was stripped of the 600,000 rupees held in trust for him, and was instead allocated a monthly pension of 150 rupees. In an 1898 court case aiming to increase this to 250 rupees, he argued that his adopted mother had been a faithful and misunderstood British subject, an argument that was received badly by Indian nationalists.

## Cultural legacy

The story of Rani Lakshmibai, an enigmatic figure central to the events of 1857, became a legend of immense potency in India; she has been called "the greatest heroine of Indian history". Many aspects of the Rani's life—the many unknown facts, her martyr-like death in battle in uncertain circumstances, and her unaccomplished goals—made her story easy to be made into myth, especially in the Indian peasant culture based around oral tradition. These traditions associate the Rani with the leitmotifs of deities of nearly all Hindu denominations: the bravery and ferocity of Durga and her aspect Chandi; the name of Lakshmi; the leaps of Hanuman; or the androgyny of Shiva. Most of all, she symbolised both the mother goddess and the primal female embodiment of reality, the Shakti. The universality of her legend's applicability contributed to its influence on generations of Indian nationalists.

### Rani of Jhansi Regiment

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment was a unit of the Indian National Army, which was formed in 1942 by Indian nationalists in Southeast Asia during World War II and named in honor of Rani Lakshmibai. The Rani of Jhansi Regiment was the first all-women regiment in the history of the Indian Army. It was composed of Indian women who were recruited from Southeast Asia, mostly from the Indian diaspora in Singapore and Malaya. The women were trained in military tactics, physical fitness, and marksmanship, and were deployed in Burma and other parts of Southeast Asia to fight against the British.
In 1957, two postage stamps were issued to commemorate the centenary of the rebellion. Indian representations in novels, poetry, and film tend towards an uncomplicated valorization of Rani Lakshmibai as an individual solely devoted to the cause of Indian independence.
* An equestrian statue of Lakshmibai in Solapur, Maharashtra
* The statue of Rani Lakshmibai, Shimla
* Birthplace of Rani Lakshmibai, Varanasi
* Rani Lakshmi Bai Park, Jhansi
* 1957 Commemorative postal stamp

### Songs and poems

Several patriotic songs have been written about the Rani. The most famous composition about Rani Lakshmi Bai is the Hindi poem Jhansi ki Rani written by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan. An emotionally charged description of the life of Rani Lakshmibai, it is often taught in schools in India. A popular stanza from it reads:
   बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी, खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।
Translation: "From the Bundele Harbolas' mouths we heard stories / She fought like a man, she was the Rani of Jhansi."
For Marathi people, there is an equally well-known ballad about the brave queen penned at the spot near Gwalior where she died in battle, by B. R. Tambe, who was a poet laureate of Maharashtra and of her clan. A couple of stanzas run like this:
   हिंदबांधवा, थांब या स्थळीं अश्रु दोन ढाळीं /
   ती पराक्रमाची ज्योत मावळे इथे झाशिवाली / ... / घोड्यावर खंद्या स्वार, हातात नंगि तर्वार / खणखणा करित ती वार / गोर्‍यांची कोंडी फोडित पाडित वीर इथे आली /
   मर्दानी झाशीवाली!
Translation: "You, a denizen of this land, pause here and shed a tear or two / For this is where the flame of the valorous lady of Jhansi was extinguished / … / Astride a stalwart stallion / With a naked sword in hand / She burst open the British siege / And came to rest here, the brave lady of Jhansi!"

### Film

Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, a film about Lakshmibai's life, was released in 2019.