Phoolan Devi says she moved towards her bundle of belongings in a daze, thinking Vikram Mallah had decided to let her go. She had felt panic.

But then he shouted out to her, “If you attempt to leave, I will kill you.”

She realized in an instant that this way his way of protecting her from having to say anything or make any decisions. He had made the choice. When she heard him instructing Bharat to pay Thakur Phool Singh her bail money, she says she felt as if he had just paid a bride-price for her. That night she felt like his wife, elated by his gesture of commitment, thanking Durga for the unexpected happiness she had found. Vikram, she recalls, was unusually quiet.

The next morning Ghanshyam announced that he was moving on. Almost all the Thakurs and Gujars in the gang left with him and Vikram’s gang was reduced to seven, including Phoolan Devi.

Speaking of these days she says:

“Vikram and I slept away from the gang but there were always two guards on duty, doing a two-hour shift, one for Vikram and me and another guarding the gang.

“He was very fond of me and spent a lot of time teaching me how to fire and how to run. He said the ability to run was very important when the police were after you! We lived in a relaxed atmosphere, in camaraderie, and there were no quarrels or jealousies in the gang. He always considered my needs. When we walked through the behad (the ravines) hungry and thirsty, he would give me water first. He would insist that I eat even when I said I was not hungry. When he washed his clothes he would wash mine too. He even plaited my hair before I cut it short.

“Whenever we had an encounter with the police and shots were fired, Vikram would hold my hand and reassure me that all was well, that I should not be afraid since he was with me. He would then shout and abuse the police saying, ‘Remember, you police dogs, Vikram Mallah is not alone. I have with me the reincarnation of Putli Bai, so why do you court death?’”

Putli Bai remains one of the most famous and revered figures in the history of rural banditry. She too had been called “Bandit Queen” by police, politicians and pressmen alike throughout the 1950s, attracting a great deal of public attention during those early years of independence from British rule. Born into a Muslim family of prostitutes in Agra, she first acquired fame as a dancer. Her mother, Asghari, ran a lucrative business a traditional Nauchghar a brothel of dancing girls, and Putli was among the best, drawing huge crowds and many clients who travelled from all over the state to attend Ashgari’s nightly Mahfil (gathering). Putli had been trained by skilled “gurus” as a child and her mother employed some of the best musicians in town. She became so famous in Agra that rich landowners and other wealthy people from surrounding villages and small towns hired her on special occasions, to entertain their guests.

One day she was invited to the princely state of Dholpur, now in Rajastan, to dance at the wedding of a rich landlord’s son. It was a lavish occasion and hundreds of guests had travelled from neighbouring villages. The celebrations carried on into the early hours of the morning, with liquor and money in abundance. People say that so much money was thrown at Putli, in appreciation of her performance, that she was literally dancing on money! This may or may not be true but it is what people say today.

Then shots rang out. As drunken guests scattered in all directions, probably thinking that a dacoit gang had come to raid the wedding party for money and jewellery, which was a frequent risk, there was the sound of many horses. In those days, it was common for gangs to move on horseback, as the British had done. Later, horses were abandoned and both police and dacoits travelled by foot, making themselves less conspicuous and better able to negotiate the interior of the ravines, where thick sandy ridges broke the skyline but would have crumbled under the weight of a horse.

It was indeed the most notorious dacoit gang of the time, led by a tall, extremely good-looking Muslim bandit leader who called himself Sultan. Unknown to Putli, he had seen her dance in Agra and had fallen in love with her, or so he thought. From all accounts, Sultan was strange and convoluted man who essentially had no respect for women. He thought they represented evil temptation and brought bad luck. In many ways he despised his own desire, seeing it as a weakness he ought to conquer. Yet the fact that Putli danced in a brothel incensed him because he wanted her for himself and could not stand the thought of other men in casual contact with her every day. Having heard of the wedding in Dholpur, he had decided to kidnap her.

Their relationshop was never peaceful and, although Putli escaped on at least two occasions, she eventually chose to return, bored and violated by the life she led in her mother’s brothel in Agra. During the time they were together, Sultan and Putli had a child. She named her daughter Tanno and within months had her sent to Ashgari in Agra, unable to cope with a baby in the ravines.

Sultan was killed in an encounter with the police, leaving Putli free to join up with Kalyan Singh, alias Kalla, to whom she had always been attracted. The Kalla-Putli gang became one of the most feared and hunted of all gangs operating in the Chambal Valley in the 1950s, second only to the gang of Mansingh. After Mansingh’s death, his lieutenants, “Roopa”, Rooplal Sharma, and Lakhan, nicknamed “Lakhan the Terrible”, were considered to be of secondary importance in police circles.

Putli became known as the “Bandit Queen” and even in herlifetime an enormous legend grew around her. Stories of her exploits were told and retold, songs were written about her life, and villagers who claimed to have seen her took pride in describing every little detail they could remember of their encounter with the “reincarnation of Kali”.

After Putli was injured in a gun battle with the police one day, her left arm was amputated at the elbow by a village doctor. During the period of her recovery, Kalla ensured that on each raid one of his men dressed as a woman, in a sari, in order to flout police rumours that she had been killed. Newspaper reports stated there had been a long trail of blood which made it unlikely that she had survived. The constable who claimed to have shot her was on the verge of being promoted or decorated.

A few months later, Putli was seen in villages again, wielding a rifle, held steady with the stub of her left arm, her aim still accurate. A police constable, injured in a gun battle, stated that he had been shot by Putli, whom he recognized, and added that she had lost half her left arm, confirming rumours that she was still alive.

On 23 January 1958, Putli was shot dead, trying to escape a police ambush by crossing the Kunwari River, which runs parallel to the Chambal. She was twenty-nine. Her body was dragged to the left bank of the river and, I was told, villagers still pray at that spot.

When I spoke to senior policemen later, I was shown a police report written soon after her death which stated:

In the villages of Central India, people will sing folk songs for years about the exploits of a willowy dancing girl who became a dacoit, and terrorized the countryside with murder and robbery. Death has wiped out our scores against her. Her cruelty and ruthlessness will be forgotten, but what will be remembered is the fearless courage of this woman, who endured much and suffered much, but lived her own life as the gang leader of a desperate band of outlaws. This brave but misguided woman lived her life without regret, dancing girl, dacoit, nurse, she had drunk life to the dregs within the short period of 29 years.

I also learned that when the police sarched her rucksack, they had found a half-empty bottle of rum and a copy of the Koran.

Being Muslim, Putli was excluded from the Hindu caste structure, whereas Phoolan was trapped by it. Theone thing they had in common is that they both belonged to the class that was powerless at the time. After 1947, when Pakistan was created, Muslims who remained in India had become “a minority”, lacking their former influence and power; low-caste Hindus have never commanded any authority throughout history.

Bad Omens

AT THE TIME when Vikram Mallah killed Babu Singh Gujar, two other leading members of the gang, Sri Ram and Lala Ram, were serving a term of imprisonment on charges of theft. Sri Ram was the elder of the two Thakir brothers and Vikram, who had known and admired hm for many years, referred to him as his “guru”. As a Mallah, recruited into a gang dominated by Gujars and Thakurs, Vikram’s rise to prominence had been exceptional. During the early years of his apprenticeship, Sri Ram had apparently been protective and supportive of Vikram’s interests, winning his affection and loyalty. Now that Babu Singh was dead, Vikram Mallah was anxious not to anagonize Sri Ram, who would eventually rejoin the gang on his release from prison. With this in mind, he had already sent Sri Ram a written message, explaining the circumstances in which Babu Singh had been killed, telling him about Phoolan Devi and asking if she could remain with the gang as his woman. Sri Ram had responded by sending his “blessings” from prison, much to Vikram’s relief.

Phoolan Devi says in her diary: “For some months we lived in peace until we received a letter from Sri Ram. He complained, saying now that Vikram had become leader of a large gang he had forgotten all about them. ‘Will you let me rot in jail all my life?’ e had written. ‘My young granddaughter sits in the village unmarried: shame on you for not even trying to find her a husband.’ On reading this, Vikram called all the gang together and said, ‘Brothers, we must all help. Next time, the money from the work we do will not be distributed. It will be used for the marriage of Thakur Sahib’s granddaughter.’

“Vikram had a plan. One evening, we got ready and put up a road block on the Kanpur Agra highway. We stopped a truck and told the driver we were policemen and that we had information that his truck carried narcotics. We said we had a search warrant. In this way we looted twenty-six trucks between 6.30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Since we were all dressed as policemen, no one suspected us. Some of us were dressed as S Ps, some as TIs and some as thanedars.

“Vikram then wrote a letter to the police, addressed to the S P, saying: ‘You are all dogs! Your father Vikram Mallah has looted these twenty-six trucks. Don’t put the blame on poor, innocent people. Don’t implicate anyone falsely. Come and look for Vikram Mallah and Phoolan Devi.’ Sticking the note on one of the trucks all the tyres had been deflated we left. I remember, that day we walked 30 kos and arrived at the house of Sri Ram’s daughter at 4 a.m.

“Vikram asked what caste her daughter could marry into and she said they were Mayo Thakurs and could only marry into the Chaurasi caste. Having gathered the information, we moved on again, crossing the Jamuna at 6 a.m. It was bitterly cold and difficult to keep waliing. However, by 10 a.m. we arrived at a village called Nibhana. It was a large village and the pradhan of the village was a very rich man. Vikram summoned him and asked him how many sons he had. He said he had two, the older being married and the younger studying in Class 12. Vikram said, ‘Don’t be frightened; ask your younger son to come here.’ When the boy was brought, Vikram asked him to relax and said that from that day he had been accepted as the son-in-law of a ‘good family’!

“In front of many villagers, Vikram placed 85,000 rupees in his hands and distributed the loot from the trucks among the villagers. Some received watches, some gold chains, some rings. Then Vikram warned them not to say anything to the police, to avoid being implicated in the crime. He said they should go to the village of Jagaiyyapur in Sikandra thana in order to perform the ceremony and asked when they could go. They said they would go in the month of Chait, in spring, and solemnize the marriage. So, Sri Ram’s granddaughter later married the pradhan’s son.

We had a meal with the villagers and then went off into the jungle.”