When we last left our heroine, she had been
removed from power by the British East Indian Company (BEIC) and her story was
about to become extremely muddy. In my limited research, I have not personally read any of the Rani’s
papers, and the sources I have looked at rely on the memoirs of her son, papers
by British company men who encountered her, and some letters that she wrote to
the British pleading her case. She does not seem to have left behind any of her
personal thoughts about the British or the events that followed (no diaries)
leaving much of what happened next up to speculation and interpretation.
Here is what we know.
The Rani was in the middle of
dealing with the Doctrine of Lapse nonsense and trying to be civil with the
British when the Rebellion began in 1857. We also know that a number of rebel
groups were championing local princes who had been ousted by the Doctrine of
Lapse, as well as the Mughal Emperor who had become little more than a
figurehead in Delhi. The degree to which these princes and the emperor
supported the insurgents is questionable, since most of the princes were part
of the British ruling apparatus.
What happened in Jhansi was not all
that different from what had previously occurred in other princely states. The
British had annexed the state, but Lakshmi Bai and her son continued to live
there. When Bengali Sepoys in the state began to rebel, the Rani – who had
every reason to be anti-British – was implicated as their leader, but insisted
she was loyal to the British, and that the mutinous troops had stolen her funds
and guns. She was also implicated when – similar to an earlier incident in
Kanpur – the rebels massacred British civilians that they were ostensibly
protecting. The Sepoys then abandoned Jhansi for Agra and Delhi, and since no
British troops were sent to replace them, the state was left unprotected.
In the words of John Keay, in Jhansi,
“old dynastic scores were being settled and new opportunities exploited under
cover of the Rebellion” (444). Rival claimants to the throne of Jhansi invaded,
and so Lakshmi Bai raised troops – many of them pro-Rebellion and anti-British
- and defended the kingdom – possibly on behalf of the British? Part of what
makes telling Lakshmi Bai’s story so challenging is that with the limited
research I have done, it is impossible to know her exact intent – and she may
not have left a paper trail to show it. My understanding is that when she first
raised these troops to fight the rival claimants, she was still hoping that British
troops would come to help, so naturally, she would be fighting on behalf of the
British. However, she is also a hero of Indian Nationalist history, which
naturally focuses more heavily on her antics against the British rather than her collaboration.
Regardless of her feelings towards
the British, the point is that the British didn’t make the Rani feel all that
warm and fuzzy. They didn’t send troops to help her, and they didn’t seem to
respond to her vows of loyalty to the British. Instead, the British sent a
section of the Bombay Army to re-capture Jhansi from her.
At this point, Lakshmi Bai firmly
joined the rebellion, joining forces with other rebel leaders. The British
besieged Jhansi, and despite her best efforts, the fortress fell and Lakshmi
Bai was forced to flee with her son.
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| A statue of Lakshmi Bai fleeing with her son on her back, in Solapur. Photo courtesy of wikimedia commons. |
But the rebellious exploits don’t
end there!
Lakshmi Bai and another rebel
leader – Tatya Topi – continued to give the British a run for their money and
in 1858 seized Gwalior, the capital of one of the princely states. This, alas,
was the Rani’s last stand as she was killed in the British attack – just 29
(ish?) years old. The rebels in Gwalior lost three days later, and the
rebellion itself had fizzled out by 1860.
The traditional narrative of the
short-lived “Sepoy Mutiny” (aside from leaving out Lakshmi Bai and the exploits
of other rebels) also glosses over how significantly the Rebellion changed
British India. The British did address
many of the issues that led to the mutiny in the first place: they became a
little more sensitive to the religions of their soldiers, and significantly
curtailed missionary activity in India so that the soldiers would be less
fearful of British intentions to convert them to Christianity – but the
military itself also became significantly less Indian and much more British.
Some Princes were allowed to
maintain their princely states and contracts with the British – the troublesome
Doctrine of Lapse was kicked to the curb. Other princes never got their lands
and titles back – the Mughal Emperor was exiled to Rangoon for the rest of his
life and the great dynasty ended. And, administration of India was finally
wrested away from the BEIC and assumed by the British government, making Queen
Victoria first Queen and later Empress of India. (What a babe.)
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| A statue of Lakshmi Bai in Agra. Photo courtesy of wikimedia commons. |
Something else that strikes me is
that while Lakshmi Bai’s actions still would have been noteworthy is she was a
man – especially in Indian national lore – there is something that makes her
more special because she was a woman. For centuries, conventional wisdom in
many parts of the world has been that women can’t or shouldn’t be in combat or
strategic roles in the military. Yet, women like Lakshmi Bai prove that women can be effective military commanders. I
personally don’t think that the Rani of Jhansi represents an exception – and if
more women were given the opportunity, there would be more female military
leaders of note.
Also, if the exploits of Lakshmi
Bai were included in history books, more students might remember the Great
Rebellion of 1857.
Next week, Gertrude Bell: Queen of
the Desert, Midwife of the Middle East, Curator of Outrageous Epithets.
Sources: India:
A History, by John Keay
