Rani of Jhansi

Lore & Background

Born into a Marathi family in Varanasi, Manikarnika Tambe was married to the raja of Jhansi, Gangadhar Rao, in May 1842, taking the name Rani Lakshmibai. The couple had one son but he died young, and so when Gangadhar Rao was on his deathbed in 1853, he adopted Damodar Rao, a young relative, to be his successor. The British East India Company refused to recognise this succession and annexed Jhansi under the Doctrine of Lapse. In May 1857, Indian troops at Jhansi mutinied and massacred most of the British; the Rani's complicity is contested.

She took over rulership and recruited an army. Major General Hugh Rose attacked and captured Jhansi in March and April 1858. The Rani escaped the siege on horseback and joined other rebel leaders at Kalpi, where Rose defeated them on 22 May. The rebels fled to Gwalior Fort, where the Rani died in battle on 18 June 1858.

Reader's Guide

Little is known for certain about the Rani's life before 1857. Her birth year is disputed: British sources tended towards 1827, Indian sources towards 1835; historians Tapti Roy and Rudrangshu Mukherjee place her birth between 1828 and 1830. Her mother died when she was four. Her father Moropant moved to the court of Baji Rao at Bithur.

Popular legend says her childhood playmates included Nana Sahib and Tatya Tope, and that she was skilled in horseriding, fencing, swordplay, and firearms, but these stories are uncorroborated. She married Gangadhar Rao in May 1842. In 1851 she gave birth to a son who died at a few months old.

Gangadhar Rao died on 21 November 1853. After annexation, she was granted a lifetime pension of five thousand rupees per month and allowed to keep the palace. She fought the annexation through diplomatic channels, writing appeals to Lord Dalhousie, who rejected them. Later songs and poems retell her defiant mantra, 'I will never give up my Jhansi!'

Did You Know?

• She is said to have trained an all-female regiment, but if it existed, it was probably formed after her husband's death.