The Bandit Queen of India: An Indian Woman’s Amazing Journey from Peasant to International Legend

Phoolan Devi with Marie-Therese Cuny and Paul Rambali
The Lyons Press (2003)
ISBN 101592286410
Reviewed by Mary Greenwood for Reader Views (8/06)

“The Bandit Queen of India” is a true story of Phoolan Devi, as told to French journalists Marie-Therese Cuny and Paul Rambali who transcribed the story for her since she was unable to read or write. Phoolan Devi was born into a family of boatmen called Mullahs, who were the lowest caste, in a small village in Ottar Pradesh, India. “The Bandit Queen of India” is unrelenting in showing the grueling life of low-caste girls in India. If written as fiction, one could not believe that all this tragedy, cruelty and degradation could come to one person. Phoolan and her sisters are beaten by their parents, mostly by their mother. Times are so bad that her mother was thankful when twin daughters died after birth. Later, when, yet another girl was born, her mother refused to nurse her and made the rest of the family find food for her. Mothers pray to have boy babies. There never was enough to eat. Their caste was expected to do the worst jobs such as picking lice from others’ scalps and not ask for anything in return. Her father told her it was her duty to do these things. Once when doing a menial chore, she saw mangoes and asked for a little piece. The upper-caste man slapped her very hard and said: ‘How dare you ask me for a mango! Today you want a mango. Tomorrow it will be something else!”

Devi was married at the age of 11 for a dowry of a cow and bicycle to a man in his 30’s she had met once. Her father asked his future son-in-law to wait to take the girl until she was older. Instead the husband takes her and beats and rapes her. Ever her new father-in-law, who pretends to help her, betrays her. Later she is able to escape and goes back to her village where she is ostracized because she did not stay with her husband even though she is only 11. Her parents could only protect her for a few years and finally the husband came back and claimed his wife and brandished his fury on her for escaping earlier. If that was not enough, she was also brutally gang-raped by bandits. Later one of the bandits, Vikram, saved her from sure death and fell in love with her. She became the Bandit Queen and Vikram was the Bandit King. They lived like Robin Hood taking from the rich and giving to the poor, sometimes even returning to the poor the same jewelry that had been stolen.

When Vikram was murdered by one of their gang members, Phoolan was able to escape and formed her own gang. She went back to her village and murdered 22 upper-caste men, some of whom were involved in torturing and raping her. There was a great hunt for her, but she was able to evade capture. Later she was able to negotiate a deal with Indira Gandhi who agreed that she would not receive the death penalty. She then turned herself in and spent 11 years in jail. She was released and her case never went to trial. She was well-known and was elected to the Indian Parliament. Her life has come full circle. However, in 2001, on the way to her home from Parliament, she was assassinated, supposedly for retaliation for the murders of the 22 men.

In the Epilogue of “The Bandit Queen of India,” Phoolan explains why she wants her story told: “So many times I reached out my hands and nobody helped me. They called me a pest and a criminal. I never consider myself to be someone good, but I wasn’t a criminal, either. All I did was make men suffer what they made me suffer. “Now for the first time, a woman from my community has been able to tell the truth about her life and testify in public to the injustice we all had to suffer. It was my hope that my testimonial would give help to others; other women, my sisters who have been humiliated, and my brothers who are being exploited.”

“The Bandit Queen of India” focuses on her early life and as she is subjected to more and more indignities, humiliations and degradations, it is not hard to see why she would want to get revenge when she had a chance. The reader does not have to condone the violence and murder in order to understand it. It is a harsh life and it is not hard to see why the legend of the Bandit Queen has endured. It is a true “rags to riches” story except that the riches are the power to effect political change. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the plight of women in India, the cruelties of the caste system and the story of a woman who had nothing and never gave up but was able to fight back. She is truly a modern Robin Hood and as such her legend lives on.

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