Bharat Singh and Madho Singh, both Mallahs, were automatically elevated to positions of authority and soon became his trusted “lieutenants”. In the long term this was to have far-reaching consequences but on that night in July 1979 it was not apparent as all the men, including the Thakurs and Gujars, cheered. They had probably seen his confrontation with Babu Singh in personal rather than caste terms. A fight between two men, involving a woman.

One of the dead men was slightly built and short, a youngster in his teens. Vikram told Bharat to remove the dead man’s shoes and uniform and give them to Phoolan Devi, instructing Madho to frisk them for money. To her he said, “We must move to another camp. This place has brought bad luck. Change your clothes.”

That was the day, somewhat confused and frightened, she had climbed into a dead man’s khaki police uniform and put on his running-shoes. There had been blood on the shirt and at first she felt revolted but, as they moved through the ravines, the comfort of walking in shoes and wearing clothes that were protective against thorn and shrub made her feel grateful.

That night, at another campsite, Vikram Mallah informed her that she was now his woman and therefore beyond the reach of other men. He instructed her to sleep beside him, under the awning that was now his. Although it had been a command and not an invitation, his attitude lacked the bullying authority of his predecessor and Phoolan Devi did as she was told. To her surprise, minutes after she lay down beside him, tense and afraid, he fell asleep, his hand on his rifle.

“There were about fifteen or sixteen people in the gang now,” she told the police. “The members of the gang warned me to stay without causing trouble, otherwise I would be killed. I was to be Vikram’s mistress or I would be killed. I consented to this and for six months I was kept under strict guard in case I tried to run away.”

When asked by a journalist, soon after her surrender, why she had become Vikram’s mistress so readily she replied: “A piece of property has no choice.”

Honour among Bandits
THE DAY AFTER her daughter had been kidnapped from their home, Moola went back to Kalpi police station, to report the matter and name some of the men responsible. The police, she told me, were not only dismissive but abusive, telling her not to waste their time over her good-for-nothing daughter. In their book, Phoolan Devi had jumped bail and Thakur Phool Singh would lose his 20,000 rupees unless she turned up in court when the time came. Moola returned home devastated, wondering how to break the news of this additional blow to her husband.

On he return she discovered that Maiyadin had been quick to spread word throughout the village that his cousin had run away with a gang of dacoits. It proved, he told the panchayat of village elders, that his suspicions about her involvement in the raid on his house had been correct. He wanted them to register her name with the police as a wanted criminal.

We were talking in her brother Shiv Narain’s police quarters in Gwalior, surrounded by several members of the family and one or two sympathetic neighbours. My main aim at this point was to try to understand Phoolan Devi’s relationship with Vikram Mallah and the events that had followed the killing of Babu Singh Gujar. I was told that members of the family would take turns spending time with Phoolan in jail in order to elicit the answers I needed. What follows is based on what I was told over a number of days by various people who were free to communicate with Phoolan Devi at the time. Later, Phoolan made her own comments, through letters and her diary, which I received over a period of months and I have incorporated these wherever they help the narrative account. Uncertain about her future, exhausted mentally and physically, Phoolan Devi woke up the next morning and saw the men counting a large amount of money. They argued among themselves, ignoring her. She remembers realizing it was the first day she had not been shaken awake and put to work. Someone had lit a fire and everyone in the gang was already awake. Bharat Singh gave her some tea. The night before, he had given her a pair of army socks so that she could make her newly acquired shoes fit.

Members of the gang listed things they needed to buy: more ammunition, blankets, a better radio, plastic sheeting for protection from the rain and so on. Vikram was adamant that no one should tough the money that came from the dead men. “We never quarrelled over money,” he said, adding that he had not killed them in order to gain a few rupees. If anyone in the gang used the money they would bring bad luck to all. He was for distributing it in a village: if they gave it to the poor it would enhance their reputation and win support for them in the region. Since he had nothing to gain, materially speaking, from his own argument, the others put up little opposition, although some suggested they save a proportion of it for future emergencies.

Not long after dawn they set off for Asta, a relatively poor village dominated by people of the lower castes, where Vikram Mallah had informers and supplies with whom he had dealt in the past. He was determined to establish himself as leader in his own right, switching the gang’s caste allegiance overnight.

It was an important move that would cause conflict in the future, but that day no one objected as they made their way to the village, avoiding known pathways used by the police and villagers alike. Phoolan Devi, now dressed in khaki like he rest, attracted little attention as she walked with the men.

As they approached the village, Vikram Mallah spoke through a loudhailer: “We are sympathizers of the poor and the sworn enemies of the rich,” he announced. “We have come to give no to take. Do not fear us.” A couple of shots were fired into the air by younger, more enthusiastic members of the gang but he didn’t seem to mind. As the gang entered the village he said, once again through the loudhailer, “We are not police. We are poor people like you. You have nothing to fear.”

The first to run towards them from the village, out o curiosity and excitement, were scores of children attracted by the megaphone and the sound of gunfire. Phoolan Devi walked with the dacoits as though she were one of them, observing her new master. He was young and flamboyant and seemed popular with the men. He walked with a confident swagger, casual in his manner, as he talked to members of his gang and the children who surrounded them, lifting up a young girl who was thrilled by his attentions.

In the village, the first adults they encountered were two old women sitting on a string bed drinking tea. They watched the approaching posse with curiosity rather than alarm, probably reassured by the response of the children who accompanied them, jubilant and noisy. Catching sight of the women, Vikram Mallah detached himself from the rest and went up to them, holding his hands together in a respectful Namaste. He touched their feet in the manner of tradition, then called out to Bharat Singh, telling him to give them money. To the two women he said, with exaggerated humility, “Please accept this offering from one of your sons.”

Bharat handed them a bundle of notes, much to their amazement. The women in urn insisted that the gang accept the hospitality of their home. Younger women from the family made tea for everyone, charpais were brought out for people to sit on and it seemed to Phoolan that half the village must be gathered around them, excited and fascinated by the presence of a baghi gang in their midst.

Stories and legends of baghis abound in the area. They are both feared and idolized. Scores of Hindi films have been made about them, enhancing the romantic rebel image they project, songs have been written describing their exploits and endless stories are told about particular bandit leaders. They are an intrinsic part of both myth and reality in the Chambal Valley. Vikram Mallah, having grown up in the ravines, was proud to have been integrated into this tradition and the role he played in this respect had become a fundamental part of his nature. Phoolan says he called himself “Vikram Singh Mastana”, projecting himself as a man already satisfied by all earthly desires and therefore able to give rather than to take.

That day, in the village of Asta, he was the star of the show. Having removed the bullets, he let young boys play with his rifle, much to everyone’s amusement. He discussed problems of water and land, crops, pesticides and fertilizers with the farmers who sat around him. He visited the village temple, a small primitive shrine painted white with limestone, where he placed a gold chain round the statue of Vishnu, god of preservation. He distributed money to many in the village. A young bride-to-be was presented to him and he gave her another gold chain. The village had taken on the atmosphere of a mela (a festival), with hordes of children and young men accompanying Vikram Mallah and his gang through the streets.

Phoolan Devi observed all this from her inconspicuous position among them. Few spoke to her but there was no hostility in their attitude.

When they left the village, almost three hours later, they stopped once again at the hut of the two old women. The older o the two blessed Vikram Mallah by putting a streak of yellow across his forehead and offering him two rupees, a token of gratitude which he accepted graciously, bending down to touch her feet. Phoolan Devi was impressed.

All dacoit gangs throughout history have had to rely on a network of social support from villages around which they live and operate. Without this, they could not survive. The legendary Mansingh, who was born just before the turn of the last century, in 1896, is the example providing modern times’ link with an age-old tradition. His father was a small farmer and a moneylender in the village of Khare Rathore, in the district of Agra in Uttar Pradesh. It is said that he had contacts with local baghi gangs and did “business” with them but in such a clandestine fashion that the authorities were never able to collect any evidence against him. In those days, rebel gangs were also engaged in a fight against the Empire and the British, so wielded an enormous amount of social support. The family belonged to a line of Tomat Rajputs who had traditionally opposed state power from the days of the Moghul Empire, and the British merely represented a different race of invaders.

Being a moneylender, Mansingh’s father, Bihari Singh, was a powerful man in the village but also feared and disliked by those who found themselves in his debt. The Brahmin landowners in the village, who were of a higher caste but lacked his power, decided to cut him down to size in order to re-establish their own authority. They sided with his enemies and tried to involve the British authorities, who began to investigate various aspects of his life and obvious wealth, infuriating the whole family.

The final straw was when the Brahmins paid a carpenter in the village, a man called Chhidda whose home had been plundered by dacoits over some personal vendetta, to indict Bihari Singh and allege his involvement with the robbery in a court of law. Efforts to cajole Chhidda, to prevent him from making false statements, proved futile. So on 30 July 1928, Mansingh, eager to defend his father’s reputation attacked one of Chhidda’s relatives, triggering a caste war between Brahmins and Thakurs in the village. Several were killed, houses were burnt and granaries were ransacked, until eventually the authorities stepped in and arrested Mansingh. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. At the time he had four sons, all of whom absconded on his arrest because of their involvement in the violence that had erupted in the village.

By the time Mansingh was released from Agra Central Jail, in March 1939, he was deeply embittered. Two of his sons had been killed because of the same village feud and the other two had taken refuge in the ravines, afraid to even visit their mother. He wanted revenge, and his wife Rukhmini encouraged him by speaking of the tyranny they had all been subjected to after his arrest by the Brahmins in the village under the leadership of a landowner called Tulfiram.