Phoolan Devi Had Zero Mercy for Her Abusers.

[00:00:00]On February the 14th, 1981, a young woman led an armed gang into the village of Baymine, northern India. It was Valentine's Day, but Pulan Davyy wasn't there to find love. She was seeking revenge. Months earlier, she had been abducted to this same village and [music] by a group of uppercost men that also killed her lover. That afternoon, when she realized her attackers weren't among the terrified captives, Fulan rounded up all of the men in the village, 22 in total. They were led to a river and executed. This was one of the most violent attacks in the history of Utar Pradesh. News of the massacre spread like wildfire across the country and so did the infamy of Fooland Navy.

[00:00:38]See, Fooland defied every stereotype.

[00:00:40]She was a poor, illiterate woman leading a gang of male bandits in a highly patriarchal society. She challenged the cast system, defended the poor, and stood up for women's rights. Since her gang often targeted uppercass people during their robberies and kidnappings, Fulan had been likened to Robin Hood.

[00:00:55]But there's another side to that image.

[00:00:57]Time magazine aptly describes her life as quote an extraordinarily violent Indian Cinderella story. This is how Char bride became India's most wanted bandit and later one of the country's most popular politicians. In some ways, you could tell where Pulan's story was headed before it even began. See, long before Pulan was born, her family was being ravaged by the sort of injustices that would see her dedicate her life to fighting. Pulan's family was from a lower cast. Her father, Devodine, was an illiterate farmer. However, his brother Baharal was an educated man. When Pulan's grandfather died, Devdan was still quite young and oblivious to his brother's greedy machinations. So, he continued to work the family's land as he had always done. According to the book India's Bandit Queen by Marasen, Baharal secretly bribed the village chief to put all their father's properties under his name, effectively disinheriting his younger brother. It was only when Devodim was around 19 or 20 that he learned of his brother's betrayal. send quotes from Pulan's diary where she writes, "They took over the land and my father did not get any share of either the 80 big of lands that we had in the village or the two-storyried family house that my grandfather had built." For context, a beager is a unit of measurement traditionally used in South Asian countries like India. One bigger is equivalent to just over 27,000 square ft or about6 acres. When [music] Devid tried to protest, Birhalal and his son Maidin kicked him out of the family house, forcing him to settle in a small hut on the outskirts of the village. In order to cut him off completely, Biral even denied that Devodine was his brother, claiming that he was only a servant. Devodine sought assistance from the village council and sued his brother. But the case went nowhere because he couldn't afford good lawyers.

[00:02:32]Meanwhile, Behal could bribe his way out of trouble. Whenever Devodine was making headway with the case, Biril and his son would harass him. They often stole the grain from his farm before he could harvest it. This intimidation persisted even when Devodine was renting other people's land. This is the sort of volatile world that Pulan was born into.

[00:02:49]The date of her birth is widely debated.

[00:02:50]According to multiple sources, Bilan was born sometime in August 1956. At the time of her birth, her family lived in a small village on the banks of a river in Utar Pradesh. The village where she was born is so small and in some ways insignificant that it's not even listed on maps. Pulan was the second of six children. Her name Pulan Davyy could be translated to mean blossoming goddess.

[00:03:12]From a young age, seeing the grave injustice her family experienced [music] had a huge impact on her. In her diary, she writes that her family was so poor that her father would work all day and only when he returned home did they have some food to eat. When Pulaman was 10 years [music] old, she repeatedly begged her mother, Moola, to show her the lands her uncle had usurped from her father.

[00:03:30]Reluctantly, Müller pointed out one of the farmlands. Pulan jumped into action.

[00:03:34]She convinced her older sister, Rakamini, to join her to harvest some chickpeas from the farm. This was the first time Pulan stood up against injustice, and the consequences, they'd be dire. Her escapade to [music] the farm ended with a tussle involving Maadine and his servants. The incident was reported to the village authorities and as punishment, Pulan's parents were beaten. Pulan later recalled her mother saying, "It was as if they wanted to break [music] every bone in my body."

[00:03:58]Mula was convinced her daughters had no future in the village, so she pleaded with her husband to marry them off so they could at least stand a chance of making something of their lives.

[00:04:07]Rukamini was the first to be married off. Despite Mayadin's attempts [music] to sabotage the process, the marriage went ahead. Next it was Pulan's turn to be married. She was 11 years old. The man chosen as her husband Putilal was 31, a whole 20 years older than she was.

[00:04:21]Again, she was 11. Mulan was the first to speak up about the huge age gap between them. But Devodine felt Pulan needed what Sen describes as a firm hand. They reached a compromise [music] though. Pulan would continue living with her parents for 3 years after the marriage before moving in with her husband. Despite this agreement, she was shipped off to Patal's house 3 months later after he threatened to end the marriage and take back the dowy of a bicycle and a cow that he had provided.

[00:04:46]And predictably, that was the start of a horrific experience. Sen cites a passage from a diary where she writes, "I did not understand the [music] meaning of husband. And when he made passes at me, I would scream and shout, not knowing the meaning of these gestures. My fear angered him and he would hit me. He treated me like an animal. He would touch my breasts and say that I was like a baby teeter, a partridge, and asked when I would mature. He was a pervert in my eyes. And I soon learned that his first wife had died at childbirth at the age of 14. The child also died.

[00:05:16]According to Pulan, she lived [music] in so much fear during her time with Palal, that she was often sick. It was during one of these bouts of sickness at 13 or 14 years old that Palal decided he'd had enough. He sent Pulan packing to [music] her father's house. Now, you'd think that her parents would be happy to have her back, but no, they sent her back to Palal, concerned about their family's honor. Pulan's second stint at her husband's house did not last long. By the time she returned, Pilal had married another woman who disliked Pulal with a passion. Over the next 3 years, she treated the young girl more like a maid than a fellow wife. When Pulan was 17, Palal finally decided to end things.

[00:05:51][music] He convinced her that they should visit her parents, and Pulan agreed. However, when they arrived at the bank of the Jamuna River, he told her that he was going to find a boatman and simply ran away, leaving her waiting. This was effectively the end of their marriage. Now, back then in the 1970s, leaving your husband's home carried a lot of social stigma, especially in rural parts of India.

[00:06:10]Pulan had to confront this alone. Müller even suggested that she commit suicide [music] to erase the shame she had brought on her family. But Pulan obviously didn't follow that terrible advice. She faced the disgraced stoically despite being shunned by the villagers. She eventually started working with her father and took up the case of his inheritance dispute. Thanks to her knowledge of the details of the dispute and her eloquence, Bulan was able to have the case transferred to a high court in the city of Pragaraj or Alalabad. In the much larger city, Bharal and Madin didn't have as much sway over the courts as they did in their small village. So for once, Pilal was going to get a fair trial. This obviously angered Biral and his son who took it out on Pulan and her family. On a faithful morning in January 1979, Pulan's father called his family to the farm where he found that cow hooves and the wheels of a cart had trampled over the grains that he had planted. There was little doubt who was behind the vandalism. But Mayadine and his thugs didn't think that that was enough. A few days later, they attempted to cut down an old neem tree that Devodine and his family depended on for medicine and shade. Pulan rushed to the site where the tree was being cut down and in a fit of rage threw rocks at the men. One of these rocks hit Madine just above his eye drawing blood. As a result, Pulan was arrested. This was another stain on her reputation. According to Sen while Pulan was in custody, a police officer chided her saying, "You have brought disgrace to your family. You have made enough trouble already. I'm told your husband deserted you because of it. Have you no shame? Have you no respect for others?" Now, Kulong was in police custody for [music] a month before a friend of her father bailed her out.

[00:07:44]While in prison, she was reportedly raped and abused by the officers. When Sen asked about her time in prison, Pulan talked about feeling terrified and vulnerable and the deplorable conditions that she had to contend [music] with. In response to the reports that she was abused, Pulan simply told her they had plenty of fun at my expense and beat the hell out of me, too. Now, though, Pulan was free, but her family was in debt.

[00:08:06]Her bail was set at $20,000 rupees. At the time, this was around $1,000 to $1,500, and they needed to pay this money back to the man who bailed her out. Pulan's parents worked their wits end at this point. So they gathered some of the little money that they had and sent it to her to live with her sister Rkamini for a while. At the time Pulan arrived, Rukamini was on the way to a hospital for an operation. So she tagged along. A few days later, police showed up at Rrookamini and her husband's home, claiming Pulahan had sent bandits, or what they called decoits [music] to India to attack Mardin's house. She was summoned to appear at the police station back in her village. Although Pulon showed up with a letter from the hospital stating that she was with her sister when Mardin's house was attacked, it did little to prove her innocence.

[00:08:46]The entire village turned on her and so did the police. She was beaten by the same police officers who had abused her.

[00:08:53]This time in front of her parents. It was only after her mother found a lawyer to intervene in the case that she was released. Once again, Bulan's family was made to pay a sum to secure her freedom.

[00:09:02]It's unclear if the money was a fine or if it was her bail. She was finally back at home, but her troubles persisted.

[00:09:08]Koulan started receiving threats that she would be kidnapped by gangs of bandits and mutilated by having her ears and nose cut off. Although she and Müller tried to report the threats to the police multiple times, even showing them a letter with the stamp of a well-known bandit who was friends with Maadine, the police didn't take it seriously, labeling Pulan as a bit of a troublemaker. One night, about 25 armed men showed up at Pulan's family home and threatened to disfigure her if she didn't go with them. [music] So, she did. Now, in the first few days, life with the bandits was pretty dreary.

[00:09:39]Pilan was bound and barefoot. She accompanied the armed group as they walked over a long distance, crossing rivers and stopping to camp each night.

[00:09:46]This was the same gang that had sent letters to her family home, threatening to kidnap a mutilator. The leader of the [music] gang, Babu Singh Gajar, was a brute. Everyone knew of the barbaric exploits of him and his gang. Now, Bulan was at their mercy. Babar Pulan repeatedly in the first few days after his gang kidnapped her. Eventually, he invited others to abuse her as well.

[00:10:05]However, Vikram Müller, his left tenant, [music] protested, saying that no one was to touch her. The two men reached an uneasy truce. No one would do anything to Pulan for the next 8 days. Just 3 days later, Vikram killed Babajar and two members of the gang. He effectively became the group's leader. According to Pulan, Vicram told her that she was now his woman. Although she was a bit uneasy, she grew to love him, or at least enjoy his company. Vikram taught her the ways of the bandits, including how to use weapons and ride horses. She was now a full-fledged decoy. According to Time magazine, legend has it that Vicram told Pulan, "If you're going to kill, kill 20, not just one. For if you kill 20, your fame will spread. If you only kill one, they will hang you as a murderer." Now, back in a village, Mula went to the police to report the Pulan being kidnapped. But of course, they brushed it aside. Great work, police.

[00:10:53]Meanwhile, Maine had started a rumor that she had actually run off with the bandits and was one of them. Müller told Sen during an interview that Vicram once hijacked a truck from a neighboring village and rode it to their village in broad daylight. He came all the way there just to tell her that Pulan was doing okay and to ask for their blessings as he considered himself her husband. Although Vikram was a violent man, he treated Pulan kindly. Send quotes describing how Vikram treated her. When we walked through the Bahhat 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 platted my hair before I cut it short. See, while Babu Gajjar and other members of the gang were from higher casts, Vikram, Pulan, and a few others were from lower casts. As the group's leader, Vicram effectively ended its loyalty to the higher casts. Instead, they now targeted the privileged classes and gave to the poor. Sen highlights an instance where the gang approached a village and Vikram spoke to the villagers saying, "We are sympathizers of the poor and the sworn enemies of the rich. We have come to give, not to take. Do not fear us.

[00:11:58]According to Pulan, Vikram portrayed himself as someone who had satisfied all his materialistic desires and was now able to give freely to others rather than take from them. Villagers, especially the lowcast ones, loved Vikram. He respected women and the elderly, didn't drink alcohol, and he gave freely to people. He handed money, gold, jewelry, food, clothing, and other valuables to poor villagers, asking nothing in return. One of the ways Vicrim and the gang made money was by hijacking commercial vehicles and kidnapping high-profile targets for ransom. At some point when they hijacked vehicles, Vikram started putting both his and Pulan's names on the notes that they left on the trucks, indicating who was in charge of the attack. During shootouts with the police, Vicram would reassure Pulan, telling her not to be scared. In at least one instance, he told the [music] police he was the reincarnation of Putly Bay, referring to Pulan. B was a legendary female bandit who operated in Utar Pradesh in the 50s.

[00:12:47]Soon newspapers started reporting on the exploits of Vikram and Pulan. And things seemed to be going well for the gang until two new people came into the picture. Sri Ram and his brother Laam were two of the gang's top ranking members when Vikram first joined the bandits. However, they had been caught by the police and were serving a sentence. Somehow Shri Ram managed to send a letter to Vikram chastising him for not reaching out to them or taking care of their families now that he was in charge. Eventually, Shriram convinced Vikram to secure his and Laam's release from jail. Their return changed the dynamic of the gang. Shri Ram and Lalam were much like Babagar, doineering and narcissistic. Pulam was suspicious of Shri Ram and his brother, believing they might pose a threat to Vicram. But he dismissed her concerns, urging her to stand her ground with them and not be docsile and demure around them or other men. Taking this advice, she requested permission to visit her husband Putalal's home while they were traveling near his village. Initially, Putal tried to hide, but he was caught. Pulan unloaded her anger and frustration over the mistreatment she had experienced at his hands. beating him with both her hands and the butt of her weapon. When she'd had enough, she ordered Pilal and his wife to be tied up and took them along for the journey. She planned to kill them close to a police station, but at some point, Kan changed her mind.

[00:13:57]Instead, she violently beat them, leaving Potal with a broken arm and leg and two of his teeth missing. She then tied them up and left a note addressed to the police claiming responsibility for the assault. It's safe to say that at this point, Pulan had really come into her own. But little did she know that she was about to face one of her biggest challenges yet. When Pulan and the rest of the gang were taking refuge in a forest, Vicram got word that Shri Ram and Lalam were once again on the run from the police and they needed his help. Despite strong objections from the other members of the gang, he sent someone to guide the duo to their hideout. It didn't take long for Shri Ram to start stirring discontent after he rejoined the gang. He was sending group members on personal errands, having people massage his feet, and defying victim's commands. As the tensions grew, Shriram and Laam decided they needed to kill Vikram and take over the gang. So one day, while Vikram was bathing along by the river, Shriram [music] shot him in the back. Vikram didn't die immediately. Puland and others came to his rescue, but the bullet lodged in [music] his body, he caused his temperature to rise and the wound kept bleeding. Pulan managed to get him to a doctor, risking her freedom in the process. Luckily, he survived, but not for long, because Shriram made another attempt on his life, and [music] this time he was successful. As Pulan cried over Vikram's lifeless body, Shirram attacked and knocked her unconscious with chloroform. The brothers took Pulan to the village of Bemay where she was locked up in a hut. Over the next 3 weeks, she was beaten and by several uppercass men. To complete their humiliation of Pulan, one [music] day, Shriram and his men stripped her naked and forced her to fetch water from a well. They watched as she limped to the well, jeering and spitting at her.

[00:15:31]Eventually, she was dragged back to the hut and her torture continued. Nearly a month after she was captured, a priest from a neighboring village came to Pulan's rescue in the middle of the night. He told her that Shri Ram and his brother had left the town. However, she was briefly recaptured. This time, Shriram paraded her through different villages. Sen signs a paragraph from Pilan's diary where she says, "I was treated like an animal. Every passer by insulted me and many assaulted me physically. I pleaded with them to kill me and not torture me anymore."

[00:16:00]Eventually, Shriram arrived at a village to visit a scholar who knew Vikram and Pulan. This scholar Shiv Swarub secretly freed Bulan. She went on the run through different villages exchanging gunfire with upperccast men allied to Shirram and hiding from the police. When she reached safety, she reached out to Man Singh, a bandit she knew who would later become her husband. Pulan also sought support from the heads of the other gangs who were lo. Soon she partnered with Man Singh and took up a leadership role in his gang. During this period, the only thing Pulan was concerned with was revenge and she began planning an attack on Shri Ram and Laam. She learns that the brothers would be attending a wedding in Bai and decided that that would be the perfect time to strike. On February the 14th, 1981, Pulan and her gang attack the village. She demanded that the villagers hand over Shri Ram and Laam. But after the gang searched the entire place thoroughly, they found that the brothers were not there. Still, Pilan wanted blood. She suspected someone had tipped them off so they could escape. [music] So all the men in the village were taken to the banks of the Jumna River and shot in the back.

[00:17:00]Only two of the 22 men survived the massacre. Interestingly, it's on the banks of this same river that Putalal abandoned Pulan years earlier when he sent her packing from his house. Pulan always insisted that she was not present when the men were killed. In a letter to send, she explained, "All I can tell you is that I wanted to kill Shri Ram and Lalam, but they were not among the dead.

[00:17:20]As you know, I do not believe in killing people without a positive reason. But the situation got out of control.

[00:17:24][music] And in the eyes of Durga Mata, I am innocent of these deaths." Now her proclamation of innocence counted for little in the eyes of the law. The Bai massacre took Pulan's notoriety to new unprecedented levels. Before the attack, her name was already wellknown in Utar Pradesh. She even had a bounty on her head. Now she was the most wanted bandit in all of India. At the same time, she was the undisputed hero of millions of lowerass people in the country who had suffered abuse at the hands of the upper casts. Confronted with the full force of the law, Palan went on the run and the police were hot on her heels. Sometimes she only managed to escape the authorities by a hair's breadth.

[00:17:59]Hundreds of bandits were killed in the ensuing crackdown and thousands were arrested. For the next two years, Pulan remained out of the grip of the police, hiding in the mountains of Atar Pradesh and Matia Pradesh. The authorities did everything they could to get her, including torturing, imprisoning, and bribing Müer to reveal her location, but all to no avail. Pan's ability to evade justice for so long only added to her legend. It [music] was at this time that she became widely known as the bandit queen and sightings of her reported in local newspapers, most of them no doubt spurious because very few people actually knew what she looked like. All the while pressure mounted on local authorities to apprehend Pulan and bring her to justice. The fallout from the Bai massacre was so intense that VP Singh the chief minister of Pradesh was forced to resign in February 1981. Pulan and a gang were charged in absentia. Even India's president at the time Indira Gandhi got involved with the hunt for Pulan costing the government huge amounts. Gandhi was advised to negotiate with Pulan to surrender. This was the start of a new chapter in her life.

[00:18:56]After months of negotiations, Pulan officially surrendered to the police in a ceremony in the town of Bahind Madar Pradesh in February 1983. She insisted that she would only surrender to the superintendent of police with whom she had been negotiating. She also requested that images of Mahatma Gandhi and the warrior goddess Durga be hung on the 23-foot stage where she would surrender.

[00:19:17]One of the terms of Palan surrender was that neither she nor any members of her gang would be hanged or extradited. She also agreed to serve just 8 years in prison and requested that her family and their livestock be moved to Gualor, the same city where she would serve her sentence. A huge crowd turned up to see Pulan surrender. By some accounts, there were up to 8,000 people, most of them from lower casts. Pulan wearing a red shawl and a red bandana raised her gun toward the images of Gandhi and Durgger in a symbolic gesture before handing it to the officers. By this time Pulan had earned such a larger than-l life reputation that some journalists were disappointed to find that the legendary bandit queen was a simple 5-ft tall lowerass [music] woman. While serving her sentence, Pan exchanged letters with British writer Roy Moxom. According to Mox, at one point, Pulan was worried that she'd be hanged. Although she agreed to an 8-year sentence, Pulan ended up spending 11 [music] years in prison, she never stood trial. In 1994, Pulan was released after the government withdrew the case against her, citing public interest. Now free from prison, Pulan was determined to turn over a new leaf. She wrote to Moxom about the new journey she was embarking on. Quote, "A new battle began the day I left the prison, but it was going to be different. I still hardly knew how to read or write, but I knew better how to see, hear, and understand [music] the people and things in this world. I had survived in the villages and jungles and I prayed to God I would be able to survive in the city to help those who still suffer the way I suffered. Bulan was now a champion for the poor, the disenfranchised and people from lower casts. Just 2 years after her release from prison in 1996, she was elected to parliament. Beside the jump from bandit to politician, Pan's life had changed in other ways too. She married Man Singh and became a Buddhist. Instead of the wild gunslinging image associated with her, Pan now cut the figure of a simple housewife. And she wasn't just advocating for the poor women and marginalized casts in parliament. She was supporting them in more immediate ways too. For example, she founded Eclava Sena, an organization that [music] helped to combat gender and car space violence. Speaking about this during a visit to Japan in 1999, Pulan told the Kyoto Journal that the organization was teaching girls to box and fight with sticks. [music] She explained some other ways the organization was supporting women, saying, "I also tell women to get themselves educated. I tell them that when they get married, they shouldn't simply [music] have many babies, just one or two, then educate them well and let them determine their own lives. When Bulan was elected to parliament in 1996, some critics vehemently opposed the move. She momentarily lost her parliamentary seat in 1998, but was reelected a year later. During her tenure as a member of parliament, Pulan's actions were always under the spotlight. She often advocated against child marriage and for the rights of the underprivileged. [music] However, she was criticized for failing to do more for the poor. In one popular incident in 1999, the South Asian Coalition Against Child Servitude noted that about 300,000 children were working illegally in carpet manufacturing plants in India's carpet belt. According to the group, up to a 100,000 of these children were being exploited in Pulan's constituency.

[00:22:10]Nonetheless, she allegedly sided with the carpet manufacturers. She even went as far as to call for a repeal of the Child Labor Prohibition and Regulation Act, India's primary child safety law.

[00:22:20]Now, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. For Ban, that end date was Wednesday, July 25th, 2001.

[00:22:26]Pilan had just arrived at a home in an upscale neighborhood in Delhi around lunchtime. As she walked to her front gate, three masked gunmen in a nearby car opened fire on her. She was shot five times, including twice in the head.

[00:22:36]Pulan's body immediately dropped to the ground, limp. Her guards exchanged fire with their asalants as they zoomed off, leaving one member of the security team injured. Pulan was rushed to the hospital, was pronounced dead on [music] arrival. News of her death reverberated across India and the world. India's parliament suspended its proceedings.

[00:22:52]While the country mourned Pulan, security agencies were tasked with bringing the perpetrators to justice.

[00:22:57]The killers had abandoned their getaway car in a commercial center in Delhi before making off in Nor Rick Shaw.

[00:23:02]Investigators checked [music] the car fingerprints. Meanwhile, rumors swirled about her murder. There was a long list of potential suspects. Some believed it was a politically inspired murder, while others insisted it was probably payback for one of Pulan's many atrocities during her time as a bandit. Several suspects were arrested in the days following Palan's murder. On July the 27th, 2001, the police announced that a suspect had confessed to the murder.

[00:23:24]Sher Singh Rana told the police that he shot Palan six times and drove the getaway car. According to Rana, he murdered Palan as retribution for the Bai massacre. The press trust of India quotes him saying, "I am proud of what I have done. It was in my mind for quite some time." Rana confessed that he had procured guns from a friend who had a gun shop. He revealed that he and his co-conspirators arrived in Delhi on the same day that they killed Pulan. They had apparently been tracking Pulan's movements during the course of the day and had waited for her to come home for lunch before laying an ambush for her.

[00:23:55]In October 2001, the police officially charged Ron and 11 other suspects with murdering Pulan and they were remanded to the Thiar jail in [music] Delhi. The trial for Pulan's murder lasted years.

[00:24:05]During this time, on February the 17th, 2004, Rana escaped from prison with the aid of an associate disguised as a police officer. He remained on the run until April 24th when he was recaptured.

[00:24:15]Police described RER as being very calculated. One officer told the Times of India, quote, he is an eccentric man, but whatever he plans, he executes it meticulously. As many as 79 wardens were transferred following Rana's failed escape, and four senior officials at the prison were suspended. In 2014, at the end of the protracted trial, a judge acquitted 10 of the suspects in Pilan's murder. One suspect had died of a heart attack while in prison. Rana was the only person found guilty and [music] sentenced. He fell short of getting the death penalty during his sentencing in August 2014. Instead, he received life imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 rupees, about $1,500 to $1,600. Bulan's legacy has been the subject [clears throat] of intense debate. There have been several movies, documentaries, and books about her. Some were released while she [music] was still alive. One of the most popular and also the most controversial books is Sen's India's [music] Bandit Queen. Sen had Palon's relatives interview her while she was in prison and eventually wrote a book about her based on handwritten interview notes, letters, excerpts from her diaries, and information from various sources. Sen would later write the screenplay for a 1994 movie about Pulan titled Bandit Queen. The movie is primarily based on the book she authored. It was a big hit from the moment it was unveiled at the Khan Film Festival in France and it took Pan's story to an international audience. Some believe it even helped seal victory for Palan during her first run for a parliamentary seat. However, Plant didn't like the movie. She even tried to stop its release. According to her, it was too graphic and admitted key events from her life. Speaking to The Atlantic, she said, "In the film, I'm portrayed as a sniveling woman, always in tears, who never took a conscious decision in her life. I'm simply shown as being over and over again." In 1996, Pulan released an autobiography titled I, Pulan Davyy, the autobiography of India's Bandit Queen.

[00:25:56]In the book, she addressed the various [music] books, news articles, and movies about her life, saying, "So many people had spoken for me without me ever having to been able to speak for myself. So many people had taken my photo and distorted [music] it for their purposes.

[00:26:08]So many people disdained the little village girl who was tortured and humiliated, but still not crushed.

[00:26:14]Journalists had tried to get my story.

[00:26:16]Movie directors had tried to capture me on film. They all thought they could speak about me as though I didn't exist, as though I still didn't have any right to respect." Although Pulan was never arraigned in court for the Bai massacre, the case was very much active while she was alive. See, after the government withdrew the case against Pulan in 1994, a court overturned that decision. While she was a member of parliament, Pan tried to have the case dismissed, but India's Supreme Court rejected her request. Four decades after the Mumbai massacre in 2024, a court sentenced one of the men charged with the crime to life imprisonment. Another man was acquitted for lack of evidence. In total, 35 people were implicated in the massacre, including Pulan. All except two are still alive today. Would Palan have been sentenced if she were alive?

[00:26:58]Well, your guess is as good as mine. For what it's worth, it would have been a good test for India's justice system. In many ways, Palan Davyy was ahead of her time. She took a stance against violence in the cast system way before others picked up the mantle. Unfortunately, the fight against violence and cast discrimination continues in India. A study published in the Lancet in 2025 revealed that up to 32% of girls and 13.5% of boys in India have experienced sexual violence. What's even more disturbing is that marital rape is not considered a crime in the country. A study published last year revealed that up to 23% of women aged 15 and above in the country have experienced some form of violence from an intimate partner.

[00:27:37]Pulan has been compared to Robin Hood, Cinderella and even the counter Monte Cristo. A lot's been said about what made her unique. An article in the Guardian quotes Indian critic Silthi saying, "Plan's two great gifts are rapid cunning and fatal charm. An irresistible combination and a great achievement in a woman who is so brutal.

[00:27:56]Given the world that Pulan was born into, you could almost predict the suffering that she experienced. What you couldn't predict is what she did with it. Having seen some of the worst things this cruel world had to offer, Pulan committed herself to creating a new reality. She pursued this single goal in various ways throughout her adult life until she died. During her interview with the Kyoto Journal, Pilan always asked what she wanted most to achieve in her lifetime. She told the reporter for myself I don't want anything God has given me so much for people I really want the most important thing is equality so that people can get employment they can get proper food and drink and also to be educated and especially women now they are really treated very lowly like shoes they should be treated on an equal basis and like other countries that have progressed and have comforts I also want my country and people to progress that way to this day Pulan is considered a hero by She's an inspiration for marginalized and oppressed women and girls worldwide. Her image is likely to continue to evoke courage and admiration for decades to come. Thank you for watching.