Episode 4 – Phoolan Devi: Outlaw Law Maker

Episode Summary

This episode is about Phoolan Devi, a poor girl from India’s low Mallah caste who fought the patriarchy with every ounce of life she had from the time she was a child until her untimely death.

Original Air Date: October 20, 2021

Episode Notes

Always outspoken against the patriarchy, in 1974 at age 11 Phoolan Devi is considered a trouble-maker. She is married off and sent several hundred miles away from her home in Ghura Ka Purwa, India. By age 17 she escapes her abusive husband and joins a gang of dacoits. She eventually forms her own gang and carries out Robinhood-type crimes.

In 1981, she survives an attack by rivals who beat, rape, and leave her for dead. She seeks revenge by executing her attackers in what comes to be known as the Behmai Massacre, and she is forced to go on the lam. But now she’s become a heroic outlaw figure of sorts—the underdog, the Bandit Queen— and she is protected by the lower castes. To many poor and brutalized women, Phoolan is a hero.

Episode Transcript

Opening

In 1979 Phoolan Devi is barely 17 years old but has already learned: trust no one; love no one. She’s found solace with a gang in the Bundelkhand region in north central India and started a bandit romance with Vikram, the new leader. Vikram teaches Phoolan to wield a dagger in the most lethal ways imaginable. To keep a firm grip and drive the blade deep into the victim with steady pressure and weight. To point the blade safely away to avoid cutting yourself in confined spaces and close combat. He shows her to twist and slice the knife to effect maximum bloodshed quickly because, “If you are going to kill, kill twenty, not just one. For if you kill twenty, your fame will spread; if you kill only one, they will hang you as a murderess.” A dagger always hangs ready at her waist.

When Phoolan convinces her gang of dacoits to raid her husband Puttilal Mallah’s, village, revenge is at hand. The gang strips Puttilal naked and drags him out of the house as his neighbors gather to watch. At first Puttilal doesn’t recognize his wife Phoolan. Standing less than five feet tall, Phoolan is kitted out in a khaki shirt and pants, her disheveled hair tied back with a red bandana. She stands above him with the magnetism of a rebel leader. Her formerly sweet frightened child’s face has turned dull and heartless.

“Phoolan,” Puttilal pleads when he finally realizes who she is. “Have mercy on me.”

Disgusted that she is lawfully still married to this man, Phoolan spits on Puttilal as he squirms in the mud like the dirty sadist pig he is. She takes out her dagger, eliciting a whimper from the oversized grown man, “You should have shown mercy on me.” As her fellow gang members hold Puttilal down, she slices him open like a pig—running the blade across his flabby belly, thrilled to hear his squeals.

Phoolan wants him to suffer so the gang leaves Puttilal on the side of the road, bleeding but still alive. With a giant scar emblazoned on his belly, Puttilal becomes a walking warning to older men in his village never to bind themselves to unwilling young girls in coerced marriages.

Introduction

I’m Rahaleh. And This is Violent Femme.

History is filled with hellbent heroines whose stories have yet to be told. We’re going to resurrect them, one brutally brave woman, one episode at a time.

This episode is about Phoolan Devi, a poor girl from India’s low Mallah caste who fought the patriarchy with every ounce of life she had from the time she was a child until her untimely death.

Story

Growing up in Ghura Ka Purwa—a small impoverished village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh—Phoolan Devi’s predicament is like any other girl child of the Mallah (boatmen) caste. She is expected to be seen, not heard and will be married off very young so that her destitute family has one less mouth to feed and she can be a burden on someone else. But somehow Phoolan did not get the memo. In fact, there is a wild fearlessness in her deep brown eyes, a steely courage in the way she talks to everyone, which even her mother, Moola, finds worrisome.

When not tending to the family’s buffalo, Phoolan makes it a habit to loudly air her opinions, completely unafraid of the consequences. She feels deep in her gut that the misery of her caste stems from the patriarchy. With a sharp tongue she refuses to tame, she calls out publicly much older men for whatever actions she deems to be fundamentally wrong. Phoolan makes many enemies and is disdained by her uncles and older male cousins. 

On this sweltering morning of her wedding in 1974, garbed in a ceremonial sari, her eyes red and swollen with tears shed overnight, her hands and feet intricately painted with mehndi body art, she can’t help but think that this arranged marriage is punishment for her outspokenness.

She is just eleven.

Her groom Puttilal Mallah, a widower of 34 who lives several hundred miles away from Ghura Ka Purwa, sits on the mat beside her. Puttilal’s imposing body looms large over Phoolan. A colossal yellow turban sits on his head and his face is obscured with a veil of flowers. Through the veil she can see his beady black eyes and is terrified for her future.

She glances at her cousin Maya Din Mallah—the rat who no doubt facilitated the marriage. He has a garland of flowers around his neck and a malicious smile on his lips.  As relatives toss rose petals around the wedding altar for good luck, Phoolan’s mind races back months ago when a nightmare tragedy befell her family.

Phoolan’s paternal grandfather and grandmother passed away in quick succession triggering a domino effect that gave rise to a wave of problems in the extended family. There wasn’t much of an inheritance—save an acre of farmland with an old, gargantuan neem tree on it. Phoolan loved that tree, each branch held memories from her childhood, and her grandparents had always deemed it sacred.

“That dead tree has to go,” Maya Din authoritatively told Devi Din Mallah, Phoolan’s father. “When it’s gone, we’ll have an extra field to cultivate more rice, wheat and coffee— profitable crops.” Knowing the tree to be a generational heirloom, Devi Din protested albeit mildly, according to his nature, but was forcefully dismissed by the combative Maya Din. The problem was Devi Din had no sons and no male child meant no authority in the family.

When news that the neem tree would be cut down reached Phoolan, she became enraged. That afternoon she roared venomous insults outside her uncle’s house.

“Come out, you thieves!” she cried, her voice loud enough to wake the whole community.

Maya Din burst out of the house, his body shaking with fury. “Shut up, you foolish girl!” Or I’ll beat the living daylight out of you.”

Her eyes sparkled. She welcomed the confrontation. She taunted him, mocked him, raining abuses down on him like jagged stones. Have some shame “kutte ka beej!” “Lund ke pasine!” For non-hindi speakers, that means dog semen and dick sweat, respectively. She publicly humiliated Maya Din and his father. Maya Din, in turn, hurled actual stones at her, but she was not deterred. She retaliated by kicking and punching him. This went on for several days until the day the neem tree was to be cut down.

In an effort to keep her away, Phoolan was sent to the market that day, but she took the opportunity to work her way through the village, gathering up an army of girls. She brought them back to the farm to stage a dharna— a sit-in protest—by the neem tree. Maya Din, some family elders and a group of men came out to chase the girls away but the girls wouldn’t budge. With her fists clenched, Phoolan screamed “I will not let you cut down this tree just because you think you have the last say.”

Maya Din charged the girls yelling, “You useless lump of flesh!” and the crowd of men followed. The girls braced themselves for the attack. Canes and sticks whooshed and lashed through the air, stinging fragile little arms, legs and faces—turning brown skin red— and all the girls fled, chased by the group of men. Only Maya Din and Phoolan remained.

Maya Din’s vicious gaze was that of a man who did not see Phoolan—a female—as human. Holding a large brick in his right hand, he laughed menacingly as he walked towards her. She retreated until her back met the trunk of the neem tree. Then without warning, he dashed forward and bashed the brick on her head twice. Warm blood gushed from her forehead. Her vision was a blur and her legs went weak as she fell to the ground.

“You think you matter in this world, Phoolan?” her cousin asked. “You’re a slave who will end up an old, ugly housewife—bear children and serve your husband until you die.” He dropped the brick stained with Phoolan’s blood and walked away.

Now just a few months later, the man who bashed her head in is smiling at her wedding as her sari is being tied to groom Puttilal Mallah’s scarf—sealing her fate.

Phoolan cries out and sobs openly as she’s carted off for the journey to the groom’s house hundreds of miles away. It doesn’t take long before she realizes Puttilal Mallah is a beast of another kind. A sadist. For weeks he ravages and humiliates her with unprovoked beatings. She is a child of 11 and he’s a fully grown man who leaves her with bruises, wounds and endless tears.

She tries to escape many times, but every attempt is foiled by his complicit family who lock Phoolan in a room, let her sleep in darkness until her husband returns to have his way with her. But one night she’s reached her limit. When Puttilal approaches she snaps, “Let me be, you pig!”

Miffed, he starts to remove his brown leather belt. As he moves closer she warns, “Touch me and I’ll kill you.”

He’s seen her cold and angry like this once before—on their wedding night when he raped the child. Remembering the struggle of that night, he resolves to set her straight again, like he did that night. He strikes quickly. His belt smacks her cheek, hard enough to rock her head back, and Phoolan’s eyes widen with pain.

“You get the belt when you disobey your husband, Phoolan. Didn’t your mother teach you that?”

“Pig.”

“You make me do this!” he says, tightening his fist over the belt.

“Pig,” she says again as she races to the door. It’s locked.

“Shut up, that’s all you have to do! Just shut up!” But the fear he needs to see on her face doesn’t materialize. As the belt swishes through the air again flying toward her, Phoolan ducks away and her shoulder bangs against the rickety door behind her. It miraculously swings open into the kitchen. Puttilal yells, “I’ll kill you with my bare hands,” as Phoolan dashes into the kitchen running straight toward the knives. He chases her swinging the belt. Her hair whips around as she turns to face him wielding a knife. She screams out as she cuts his forehead. Blood runs into his right eye, stinging and hot. He’s so stunned that he stops cold as Phoolan takes the opportuity to dash out into the night.

Back in Ghura Ka Purwa, her parents give her the silent treatment; won’t even look at her. Her mother eventually bursts out, “You’ve brought disgrace on our family and our name by running away from your husband.”  And the other village girls have either been instructed to or don’t want to talk to her because she’s considered defiled. For a few years she lives as an outcast.

When Phoolan is a teenager she finally finds some solace among the street urchins and vagabonds. But as soon as her cousin Maya Din, who still has it out for her, sees Phoolan roaming freely and relatively happy, he becomes hellbent on cutting her down again. He goes to the police and falsely accuses her of stealing his jewelry. Because she hangs out with drifters, the accusation sticks. Phoolan is arrested and dragged off to jail where she spends three days.

Once released, Phoolan’s parents decide to ship her back to her husband Puttilal Mallah. They actually send appeasement gifts to his family, and his family agrees to take her back. Unfortunately for Puttilal the now 16 year-old Phoolan is stronger, and street-hardened. Even considering his size, ego and sadistic nature, he’s no match for her now and Puttilal decides she’s more trouble than she’s worth. So his family sends Phoolan back again a few months later.

Back in her village, she is now the stereotypical example of a fallen woman, the object of infinite scorn and shame, a cautionary tale for young girls. She is even shunned by her family and since no one cares about her, she returns to her street friends. At age 20 she is somewhat willingly kidnapped by the dacoits—a gang of ravine-dwelling bandits who plunder more affluent villages and accost townsfolk on highways.

Once a full-fledged member of the gang, the rough and soulless gang leader Babu Gujjar sets his sights on her. One evening, after a day of marauding, the gang is holed up in the ravines of Chambal (CHAMbol) River and Babu makes his move. He gathers her in both arms and says, “You’ll be my woman. Don’t fight it and I’ll take care of you.”

She tries to escape, but Babu has back-up. Three men jump out of the bushes, hold her down, and strip her of her clothes. She cries out for help but they stuff her mouth with a rag and bind her hands and feet with chains. The animals take turns raping Phoolan, and beat her senseless until her face is bloody and purple, unreognizable. After three days of this horror, Phoolan is near death when Vikram Mallah, the gang’s second-in-command happens upon the scene and, without hesitation, slays Babu Gujjar and his crew.

The battle is so swift and decisive that Vikram is anointed the new leader of the gang and a bandit romance blossoms between Phoolan and Vikram, who happens to be from Phoolan’s Mallah caste. Together with her lover she exacts revenge on her husband Puttilal by having the gang attack his village. They torture him and Phoolan slices his stomach, leaving him scarred for life in more ways than one.

The gang swoops into other villages throughout the Bundelkhand, terrorizing and looting. As the only female member of the gang, Phoolan goes on adrenalin-fueled highway robberies and hijacks expensive cars. They rob wealthy members of the upper-caste and sometimes kidnap them for ransom, but this was no Robin Hood type situation. The dacoits stole for themselves.

When two former members of the gang, the upper-caste Rajput brothers Sri Ram and Lalla Ram, are freed from prison, they are incensed to find out about the murder of Babu Gujjar and blame Phoolan Devi, berating her with insults. Following the incident, Vikram forces Sri Ram to apologize to Phoolan which offends the Rajput brothers, who feel disrespected. From their perspective the Mallah caste of boatmen is much lower than the land-owning Rajput caste and they find taking orders from Vikram a bitter pill to swallow. In subsequent raids they make a point of targeting Mallahs, inciting Phoolan’s rage. They also recruit more Rajputs into the gang, and begin to shift the balance of power.

Vikram Mallah senses imminent chaos,and suggests the gang split up by caste but Sri Ram refuses. A dangerous gunfight ensues which ends with the whole gang, both Mallahs and Rajputs, turning on Vikram and Phoolan and the couple is forced to flee by jumping into the ravines of the Chambal River. Unfortunately, they only get so far before they are caught and to her horror, Phoolan is forced to watch as Vikram Mallah is torn apart by bullets.

She is then taken to a house in the Rajput village of Behmai, locked in a room, beaten, and raped by several Thakurs (who are elite Rajputs). For three weeks, they parade her naked around the village—shaming the Bandit Queen— as she alternates between moments of howling rage and desperate sobs for three weeks. Finally she is rescued in the dead of night, by Mallah members of Vikram’s old gang.

Phoolan vows revenge on the Rajputs and forms a new all Mallah gang, and they resume their raids across Bundelkhand. But Phoolan has more control now, this time it is more of a Robin Hood story. They target only upper-caste victims and share the loot with the lower-caste, spreading the wealth.

Once Phoolan Devi fully regains her strength, the gang decides to go to Behmai with the express purpose of exacting revenge on Sri Ram and Lalla Ram. On February 14, 1981, disguised as police officers, Phoolan and her gang crash a wedding ceremony, demanding the guests, all village folk, give up her tormentors the Rajput brothers, but the brothers are nowhere to be found. Aching for revenge Phoolan rounds up twenty-two Thakur men, some of her rapists among them, lines them up near a well and orders them to kneel. As she raises her hand, her men unleash a burst of gunfire and kill them all. The Behmai massacre, as it’s known, sparks outrage across India. The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh resigns and a massive police manhunt is launched to find Phoolan.

But now that she’s become a heroic outlaw figure of sorts—the underdog, the Bandit Queen— she’s protected by the lower castes. After two years on the run, the bulk of her gang members having been shot by police or murdered by rival gangs, she is quite ill and unable to stay on the lam, so she negotiates the terms of her surrender with the government.

“One. None of my gang members should get the death penalty and their prison terms are not to exceed eight years. 2) I need a plot of land with a house and protection for my family—that is my mother and sisters, while I serve time in prison. Three, I want my entire family present at my surrender ceremony.” In February 1983, in the Chambal ravines she rendervous with an unarmed Madhya Pradesh police to give herself up. The police officer takes her to the Bhind district of Madhya Pradesh and, according to one last condition of her surrender, she lays down her rifle before portraits of Mahatma Gandhi and the Hindu goddess Durga.

Her family is among the crowd of thousands,gathered to catch a glimpse of the Bandit Queen. Phoolan does not meet the gaze of the smug Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Arjun Singh. Nor does she look at her weeping mother and sisters, who weep with shame, not pride. Instead, she turns to the crowd and raises a fist as high as she can. The crowd cheers thunderously in response. To many poor and brutalized women, Phoolan is a hero.

The court charges Phoolan Devi with countless crimes and her trial spans 11 years. She is kept in prison the entire time. Diagnosed with ovarian cysts while in prison, a hysterectomy is quickly ordered and performed on her. The operating doctors words are: “We don't want Phoolan Devi giving us more Phoolan Devi.”

In an unexpected twist, in 1994 Phoolan Devi is released following an intervention by Vishambhar Prasad Nishad, the leader of the Mallah community. Soon after she starts a new chapter of her life, marrying a career politician named Ummed Singh and becoming a Buddhist.

She throws herself into Indian politics, and stands for election to the 11th Lok Sabha (the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament) from the Mirzapur constituency in Uttar Pradesh. And she wins! Phoolan serves as a Member of Parliament for two years, but loses her seat in 1998 only to be re-elected in 1999. She finally has power and a voice now and fights for young girls without the use of a rifle or a dagger. She even has a personal security guard named Balinder Singh.

One afternoon, a small car, a Maruti Suzuki 800, rolls up to her bungalow in Delhi. Inside the car are three masked men armed with a Webley & Scott pistol and an Indian-made short range .32 Revolver. Phoolan Devi steps out her front door on her way to a meeting, and spots the car. She knows instantly who they are. Even after all these years, the men want revenge for the Behmai massacre. There is no way out. She is cornered just as she was at the neem tree by her cousin Maya Din when she was just 11 years old and he bashed her head in with a brick.

The hit takes place in the blink of an eye. Her bodyguard Balinder Singh returns fire with his 9-mm service pistol, but the assassins have superior firepower—bullets tear through Phoolan and through Balinder’s chest and right arm. Blood splatters on her sari as Phoolan Devi, former Bandit Queen, current Member of Parliament, closes her eyes and waits for the inevitable—first unimaginable pain. Then darkness. She does not survive.

Commentary

All over the world little girls like Phoolan somehow sometimes find the strength to rise up, and fight back. More often than not, they are cornered, kicked in the face, violated, and crushed to teach them a lesson, to make them know their place in the world. Most eventually submit to survive. A few, like Phoolan, refuse to submit, and for that they are discarded by society. Occasionally, one will claw her way back up and redeem herself, but the world that cut her down does not have eyes to see her rise up again. They do not want hold her up as the hero she most certainly is for being brave enough NOT to abide violent misogyny. Instead she is dismissed, insulted, beaten, or killed.

At age 11 Phoolan gathered up the girls in her village and built herself a little army to fight back. How determined. How BRAVE! And how sad that no one around her could see that amazing girl as valiant at the time. Maybe it’s time we roam our global village, gather up our girls, and build an army to protect us. Women: stand back, and stand by.

Outro

Violent Femme is a production of HaiBrau Entertainment. It is written and hosted by Rahaleh Nassri.  Original Music by Ryan Rumery. Some characters depicted are fictional and some scenes and dialogue are invented for creative and storyline purposes. If you like this episode please leave us a review and rating.