INDIA’S BANDIT QUEEN

  • 25 Jan - 31 Jan, 2025
  • Mag The Weekly
  • Fiction


“On hearing this the pradhan of this Thakur village caught the two men and locked them up in a room. When we reached his house, the pradhan pleaded with us, saying he should be rewarded for his assistance to the police. He would not be safe, he said, the village would not be safe is Phoolan Devi ever got to know that he assisted with the arrest of two of her men. He wanted extra licences for arms. We consented but asked him to show us the licences already in his possession. He summoned his servant and told him to show us the guns and the licences. These included five rifles, three .315s, .306s and three double-barrelled 12-bore rifles, which we confiscated. Then I took off my police cap and let down my hair. When he recognised me, the pradhan told us to take all his gold and silver but to spare his life. I untied our gang members, tied up the pradhan with the same rope and locked him in a room, leaving a note by his side saying, ‘Ill-gotten wealth, accumulated by sucking the blood of the poor will always be lost.’

“While my companions ransacked the house, I stood on top of it with a loudhailer. I announced to the village that this was Phoolan Devi’s gang. I reassured them that we were only interested in the pradhan and his wealth and would not touch anyone else. We were in a good mood and sang as we worked. Not a soul moved or spoke. The village was like a ghost town. Even the bus-stop was quiet.

“When we had taken everything we could, we left the village, talking to villagers on the way. The pradhan, some said, was also the moneylender and charged double the interest others did in the area. Hearing this, I distributed some of his wealth among them.

“But just as we crossed the road, we saw two truck loads of P A C jawans. They opened fire and, since the surrounding area was flat land without any hiding-place, we had to start shooting back. Whenever we wee surrounded without any hope of escape, we followed the same strategy we would throw all our loot on the ground and run. The police, being as they are, would fall upon the gold and silver, each man for himself, instead of following us. This is what we did now and managed to make our escape. That was the closest I ever came to being shot by the police in a face to face encounter.

“After travelling for a few days, we came to Etawah district and were on our way to the temple when I was told that Baba Ghanshyam wanted to meet me and had been waiting in the area for many days. It was reassuring to be in touch with other gangs so I said I was eager to meet him too. I sent two of our men with this messenger, to lead him to our camp. They came back accompanied by five men Baba Ghanshyam, his brother Karan Singh and three others whom I did not recognize. We were very happy to see each other and even fired a few rounds in celebration. Baba Ghanshyam’s father had been arrested by the police and he wanted us to help set him free. I vowed in the name of the goddess Bhagwati that we would give him all the help we could. In the evening, we took leave of each other and left for the district of Bhind in Madhya Pradesh. Then one day we heard over the radio that Baba Mustaqeem had been killed. Both Man Singh and I flet devastated.”

The name Mustaqeem means “the firm one”, “the strong, stable, unbending one”. Mustaqeem had been their mentor and, Phoolan says, the news of his death made them feel the sudden weight of loneliness and fear. At first, she tried to comfort Man Singh, as she had comforted Vikram when Bharat and Madho were killed. “Newspapers lie,” she said, but Man Singh paid little heed, pointing out that even the police couldn’t get away with reporting such a fact unless it was true. The whole gang became despondent and their spirits plummeted.

Recalling these times in her diary, Phoolan said: “We decided to confirm the news by going to Baba’s village, Galauli. We travelled the whole night and reached Galauli at 4 a.m. and hid in the jungle till 6 p.m. Then one of Baba’s trusted men, Sunan, came to us. He had been in charge of all Baba’s wealth. He started weeping as soon as he saw us and said it was our duty to avenge his death. I asked him where all the other baghis were. He said that Baba’s brother, Muslim, had taken over the gang and they were somewhere in the district of Agra. Then he fed us and took us to hide in his house. He said we should stay for a couple of days to plan our next move. He said he had collected a pile of weapons for us. Somehow I became suspicious and said we preferred to sleep in the forest, adding that we were jungle-dwellers by habit. After he left, I discussed him with the rest of the gang but they thought he was all right and reminded me that he had been one of Baba’s most trusted friends. After some discussion, we decided to show good faith and accept his offer. We also wanted to enter the village in order to pay our respects to Baba’s relatives.

“That night, after we had offered prayers with the rest of the family, Suntan came to see me around midnight, wanting to know how much money I had. I told him I had about 50,000 to 60,000 rupees, a gold chain and a ring. I asked him why he wished to know. He said Baba had been killed at the village of Dastampur and that we could not possibly go there on foot. The driver of the car that was to take us wanted money, not just for the journey but for the car. He was prepared to sell it to us. He said it was worth two lakhs (200,000 rupees). I had no idea about car prices, so I handed him all the money I had, the gold chain and the ring. Man Singh gave 20,000 rupees and Baladin 15,000. I did not know that he had already collected money from other members of the gang, telling them I had asked him to. I was still suspicious and told Man Singh that he was up to something. Both Man Singh and Baladin disagreed. They said he was a good, straightforward man and would work in our interest, pointing out that owning a car would be useful and when we had finished with it, we could get our money back by selling it in Kanpur.

“A little later the village pandit came and handed me a gun, saying that I should keep this self-loading rifle and hand over my semi-automatic rifle, for safe-keeping, because it was too heavy. I thanked him, saying I would give him my rifle in the morning, and I kept both. He left for Kalpi, saying he was going to arrange for the car we had paid for since he was the one who knew the owner.

“I wanted to run as soon as he left but Man Singh and Baladin refused. The pandit returned at 4 a.m. bringing some men with him. He introduced them as the owners o the car and said he had brought them so that we could discuss the details with them ourselves. I was suspicious and told the men they looked more like police officers to me. It was now 6 a.m.

“The pandit and the men said they wanted to have a wash and relieve themselves in the fields and would return soon so that we could eat together. I was extremely worried and restless so went up to the terrace roof for some fresh air. In trees, on roof tops, in helmets and full gear, well prepared, I saw policemen everywhere. In a state of shock and fear, I rushed down and told Man Singh we were surrounded and now only Durga Mata could save us.

“Hurriedly, we changed out of our khaki clothes. Man Singh and Baladin got into the pandit’s kurta-pajama and I wore a sari belonging to his sister. Fortunately, there was no one in the house, otherwise I would surely have killed them. I was furious that the pandit had betrayed us to the police. On our hands and knees, we reached the other households where other members of our gang were hidden and managed to warn them or at least those who were there. I am sure we were seen by police many times but since they expected us to be in khaki, they did not recognize us.

“After about half an hour, the police started firing at the pandit’s house. Over a loudhailer, they asked me to come out of the house, swearing that they would not kill me. The voice identified itself as the Inspector-General of Police. When there was no response from the pandit’s house, the police laid siege to the house next door, where three of our gang members had been staying. They kicked in the door and started firing into the house. Then more police entered the house but they came out empty-handed and the three of us decided to more further away.

“Around 1 p.m. the voice of the I GP came over the loudhailer again, telling all the women and children to come out of their homes for safety. He said they were going to blast the village with a volley of fire so that not even a dog would be left alive. When the village was emptied of all its inhabitants, the police set fire to one of the huts, hoping to smoke us out. We could see the police everywhere, many still on rooftops and in trees. At one stage they even brought a helicopter, which we watched as it circled over the village and its surrounding jungle. At night, the police lit up the whole village with special lights, bright enough to read by.

“We thought this time we could not possibly be saved. It was the next day, eight 0’clock at night and we were all desperate for a drink of water. I noticed a pitcher in a corner of the Masjid (mosque): there was some water in it. So, calling on Durga Mata, I crawled to it and we managed to quench our thirst. While looking for the water, I had also seen the ruins of a house just behind the Masjid. I told Man Singh and Baladin that our chances of survival were very slim and suggested we build a trench in those ruins and hide ourselves as long as we could. Man Singh said he would rather die fighting than be killed in hiding. I said there were too many policemen for us to contend with and we should use our intelligence. There was no glory in death. Eventually, I persuaded them and we made our way to the ruins. We dug a deep pit and I made them lie down in it. Then I covered them with sand and dry shrubs, over which I pulled columns of stone from the ruins, laying them across the trench. Then I did the same for myself.

“By the morning, the police had started a house-to-house search. Several policemen walked over us without discovering our hiding-place. The search went on for hours as we crouched there in the rubble. Eventualy, the villagers started returning, as the main body of police were pulling out. At one point, an old woman arrived and began squatting over our hiding-place to relieve herself. We all sat up and asked whether the police had left the village. She started screaming that the place was haunted! She made such a noise, we were sure we would be discovered, so we climbed out o the trench and moved to another place.

“We could see policemen drinking water from the well. When they walked away in the opposite direction, we ran for our lives and within half an hour we were also drinking water, from the Jamuna. As we started towards the jungle, I told Man Singh and Baladin that we should not leave without offering a salutation to the Inspector-General of Police. So we stood on top of a small hill, on the outskirts of the village, and fired about fifteen rounds into the air. It was now around 10 a.m. After that we started to run.”

For Phoolan Devi, Man Singh and Baladin it was a lucky escape. Other members of their gang were not so fortunate. Escape

LIKE MUSTAQEEM, Malkhan Singh had been furious about Behmai. A massive police presence in the ravines meant that his own operations had been seriously hindered. He cursed Phoolan Devi many times over, knowing that Vikram Mallah’s death had been central to the vengeance wreaked on the Thakurs of Behmai and he associated that vengeance with Phoolan Devi, regardless of what her actual role in it had been. At the council meeting of gang leaders, towards the end of 1980, he had endorsed the decision on the basis that the Singh bothers were suspected of being police informers, on the UP side of the border. He could not have done otherwise, given his own status as the “Godfather”, known to support just causes. He had not anticipated such carnage and began to refer to Phoolan Devi as “that Sudra whore”.

to be continued...

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