Rani Lakshmibai

- November 19, 2019

Rani Lakshmibai

Welcome to my blog and thank you for this much support. So let's start. Today's blog is based on "Rani Lakshmibai". Rani Lakshmibai was born on 19 November 1828 in the town of Varanasi into a Marathi Karhade Brahmin family. She was named Manikarnika Tambe and was nicknamed Manu. Her father was Moropant Tambe and her mother Bhagirathi Sapre (Bhagirathi Bai). Her parents came from Maharashtra. Her mother died when she was four years old. Her father worked for Peshwa Baji Rao II of Bithoor district. The Peshwa called her "Chhabili", which means "playful". She was educated at home, able to read and write, and was more independent in her childhood than others of her age; her studies included shooting, horsemanship, fencing and mallakhamba with her childhood friends Nana Sahib and Tantia Tope. Rani Lakshmibai contrasted many of the patriarchal cultural expectations for women in India's society at this time.

Rani Lakshmibai was accustomed to riding on horseback accompanied by a small escort between the palace and the temple although sometimes she was carried by palanquin. Her horses included Sarangi, Pavan, and Baadal; according to historians, she rode Baadal when escaping from the fort in 1858. The Rani Mahal, the palace of Rani Lakshmibai, has now been converted into a museum. It houses a collection of archaeological remains of the period between the 9th and 12th centuries AD.

History of Jhansi, 1842 - May 1857

Manikarnika was married to the Maharaja of Jhansi, Raja Gangadhar Newalkar, in May 1842 and was afterward called Lakshmibai (or Laxmibai) in honor of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi and according to the traditions. She gave birth to a boy, later named Damodar Rao, in 1851, who died after four months. The Maharaja adopted a child called Anand Rao, the son of Gangadhar Rao's cousin, who was renamed Damodar Rao, on the day before the Maharaja died. The adoption was in the presence of the British political officer who was given a letter from the Maharaja instructing that the child be treated with respect and that the government of Jhansi should be given to his widow for her lifetime.

After the death of the Maharaja in November 1853, because Damodar Rao (born Anand Rao) was an adopted son, the British East India Company, under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie, applied the Doctrine of Lapse, rejecting Damodar Rao's claim to the throne and annexing the state to its territories. When she was informed of this she cried out "I shall not surrender my Jhansi" (Main meri Jhansi Nahi doongi). In March 1854, Rani Lakshmibai was given an annual pension of Rs. 60,000 and ordered to leave the palace and the fort.

According to Vishnu Bhatt Godse, the Rani would exercise at weightlifting, wrestling, and steeplechasing before breakfast. An intelligent and simply-dressed woman, she ruled in a business-like manner.

Death

On 17 June in Kotah-ki-Serai near the Phool Bagh of Gwalior, a squadron of the 8th (King's Royal Irish) Hussars, under Captain Heneage, fought the large Indian force commanded by Rani Lakshmibai, who was trying to leave the area. The 8th Hussars charged into the Indian force, slaughtering 5,000 Indian soldiers, including any Indian "over the age of 16".

They took two guns and continued the charge right through the Phool Bagh encampment. In this engagement, according to an eyewitness account, Rani Lakshmibai put on a sowar's uniform and attacked one of the hussars; she was unhorsed and also wounded, probably by his saber. Shortly afterward, as she sat bleeding by the roadside, she recognized the soldier and fired at him with a pistol, whereupon he "dispatched the young lady with his carbine". According to another tradition Rani Lakshmibai, the Queen of Jhansi, dressed as a cavalry leader, was badly wounded; not wishing the British to capture her body, she told a hermit to burn it. After her death, a few local people cremated her body.

The British captured the city of Gwalior after three days. In the British report of this battle, Hugh Rose commented that Rani Lakshmibai is "personable, clever and beautiful" and she is "the most dangerous of all Indian leaders". Rose reported that she had been buried "with great ceremony under a tamarind tree under the Rock of Gwalior, where I saw her bones and ashes". Her tomb is in the Phool Bagh area of Gwalior. Twenty years after her death Colonel Malleson wrote in the History of the Indian Mutiny; vol. 3; London, 1878 'Whatever her faults in British eyes may have been, her countrymen will ever remember that she was driven by ill-treatment into rebellion and that she lived and died for her country, We cannot forget her contribution for India.