Dates: 1828-58

A resourceful and courageous leader of her people, the Rani fought to the death against British forces bent on revenge and retribution.

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Brought up at the Bithur court of the Maratha Peshwa, where her father was an official, Lakshmi Bai enjoyed more independence than most 19th-century Indian girls. Well-educated, she also studied horsemanship, archery and became an expert with the sword.

In 1842 she married the aged Rajah of Jhansi who died in 1853 without a direct male heir. Applying the notorious ‘Doctrine of Lapse’, the British East India Company seized the kingdom, despite the adoption, in line with Hindu tradition, of another relative as heir. The widowed Rani attempted to regain her lands in the British courts, but failed. To add further insult, the Company then confiscated her state jewels and reduced her annual pension.

Soon after the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny (1857-59) the Bengal infantry and cavalry regiments stationed in Central India rebelled. The Gwalior Contingent, a force in the service of the pro-British Maharajah Sindia, joined them. This opposition to British rule soon focused on recently annexed Jhansi where many people supported the rising, hoping that their old state would be restored. Despite the arrival of mutineers on her doorstep, the Rani was initially reluctant to join the fight. Events however forced her hand.

At the first sign of unrest in Jhansi, the British superintendent Captain Alexander Skene had ordered all Christians in the city to take refuge in the fort. They remained under siege until 8 June 1857 when the rebels offered to spare their lives if they surrendered. Skene agreed, believing that the Rani had guaranteed their safety, but the Christians were all hacked to death. The Rani’s personal responsibility for the massacre is still hotly debated.

She now raised a volunteer army of 14,000 men and women and led it to victory over the Dewan of Orchha, who, taking advantage of the prevailing chaos had invaded Jhansi. The Rhani then strengthened her city’s defences, organised provisions of food and started a factory for the manufacture of ammunition and gunpowder.

Major-General Sir Hugh Rose’s Central India Field Force advanced from Bombay in December 1857, determined to avenge the massacre. Protesting her innocence, the Rani attempted a stand before the city but she was defeated at Madanpur. Rose then besieged Jhansi itself on 24 March 1858. Tantya Tope, a Maratha military leader, moved to the relief of Jhansi, but Rose defeated his force a week later.

On 3 April Jhansi was stormed and looted. At least 5,000 of its inhabitants were killed, including the Rani’s father who was hanged by the British. After personally leading a counter-attack in which she killed several soldiers, the Rani escaped with her adopted son and bodyguard.

Rose pursued her and Tantya, defeating them at Kunch on 1 May and Kalpi on 22 May 1858. The two rebels then took their remaining forces into Gwalior, hoping to overthrow its pro-British ruler. On 1 June at Morar, Sindia's troops defected to the rebels. Leaving Kalpi on 6 June, Rose marched through the summer heat to Gwalior. Surprising the rebels, he defeated them at Kotah-ke-Serai on 17 June. The Rani attempted to halt the flight of her soldiers, charging with a sword in each hand and reins in her teeth, but was shot by a trooper from the 8th (The King's Royal Irish) Hussars. Knowing death was near, and not wanting the British to capture her body, she told her followers to burn her corpse. The cremation ceremony was unfinished when the hussars drove away the mourners.

Personally brave, the Rani possessed military and administrative skills equal or superior to any other Indian commander of the uprising. Her conqueror, General Rose, called her ‘the bravest and the best’ of the rebels. For many years the Victorians portrayed the Rani in a sentimental and heroic light. In 1895 Sir Owen Burne described her as the ‘Indian Joan of Arc’. A later generation of Indian nationalists recognised her as a forerunner in the struggle for independence. In 1943 the Indian National Army established the all-female Rani of Jhansi Regiment in homage. Today, there are many statues of Lakshmi Bai across India and she is celebrated in song, literature and film as a national heroine who stood up to the British.