326. India’s Greatest Rebellion: The Indian Joan of Arc – Rani of Jhansi (Part 5)

27:27They are killed when they are sent out. And the few remaining soldiers with them go over to the other court. They go over to the sipahis who are uprising. So the situation becomes very desperate very quickly. It is said that they send a messenger to the Rani's palace at the time she is holed up in her palace outside Jhansi Fort. And this messenger is arrested by some of the Rani's servants and killed. So whether the Rani herself is getting a direct message, we don't know. Whether she doesn't want to or is not able to is something we will never know, but she doesn't do anything. So these people eventually after three days come out of the fort having been promised safe passage.

28:10Now this is an interesting phrase as well. We are told they are offered, they would not have come out if they hadn't been offered safe passage. Now who offers them safe passage? Is it the Rani? Is it the mutineers in the name of the Rani? Are they using her name? Because immediately after this happens, of course, we know they are taken to Jokhan Bagh, the men are separated from the women, and all are slaughtered. After this, Rani immediately writes the same day or the next morning, she writes to Major Erskine, the commissioner of the area, she says what's happened. She says these violent, faithless, cruel and violent people have killed all the Europeans.

28:47They have behaved with much violence, both against the Europeans and against myself and my servants, they have been extremely threatening. They have threatened to blow up the palace. They have threatened all sorts of aggressive actions. They have taken money from me. I had no option. And please come and help me because I don't know how long I can keep the peace at Jhansi after all of this has happened. So she asks for help from the British and tells them that she is desperately in need of some kind of aid. And right at the start, I mean, the British accept this. They say, OK, we believe you. If anything, it's a proof of loyalty, proof of concept, you know, that you can have her as your person, your woman, not your man on the spot, but your woman on the spot.

29:32It doesn't last long, though, this faith in the Rani, does it? No, it doesn't last long at all. So they said that they have never found, even Robert Hamilton, who was an agent to Dalhousie, said that he never found a single piece of paper incriminating the Rani. So, you know, that is what we have, that there's absolutely no evidence that she was behind the massacre. On the contrary, she was probably pretty scared herself for her life and certainly for any chance of remaining in Jhansi. and for a little while it seems like the British believe her. They tell her to take over the running of Jhansi, that things are in a turmoil and she must do what she can to maintain the peace and look after the state and then it sort of goes silent.

30:16So Lakshmi Bhai at this day comes back into the fort, she claims the fort again and she resumes the running of Jhansi for a little while. But very soon the vulnerability of her position becomes clear because she is attacked not by the British, but by her own neighbours. So as we were discussing in the beginning, Jhansi is a small Maratha kingdom in a sea of Bundelkhand Rajput territory. These are the guys who've been in charge of this area for many generations. And the Marathas have only come in in the last 30, 40 years. That's right. So since the 17th century, you know, our friend Bir Singh Deo, who was a friend of Emperor Jahangir before he became Jahangir when he was Prince Salim, So they established these forts, the Bundelas.

31:02So these guys invade her territory and she is forced to raise an army herself to defend herself. That's right. So she is almost immediately attacked by the Rani of Urcha, the neighbouring state, much bigger. She's run by Bundela Rajputs. It's a catfight. And they figure this is the best time. It is a catfight. Oh, don't say it's a catfight. That's so awful. These are two very strong women. Bloody catfight. It's too entirely powerful. female rulers who are trying to do the best for their own interests. Cat fight. The patriarchy is at work here. I can't bear it. Carry on here. So look, this neighbouring woman-led assault is taking place.

31:42Assault is taking place. But what's interesting about the Rani of Jhansi is that she trains a female regiment. Well, apparently she does. Apparently she does. She does a lot of warlike things at this time. I must say Jhansi is very well prepared for a small little principality in the middle of nowhere in India, in the very centre of India. So she starts training her soldiers. She makes sure there's enough ammunition. And it is said that she trains a group of women soldiers, though, you know, this is not entirely unheard of in India. You do see it, you know, in various states. In Hyderabad, I came across the Zafar Puthan who defeat the Marathas at one point.

32:27The women come down the hill when they're least expected and see the Marathas off in 1780-something. That's right. And often the company of troops who are guarding the harem and who guard the palanquins of the royal women are all women fighters themselves. So it is not entirely unheard of. Cat fight. So the women's regiment sees off the invasion. Rani Jantzi is left in charge of Jantzi. The sepoys have gone off to fight elsewhere. But the British mood is hardening. Having initially cleared the Rani of any collaboration with this uprising and her letters have arrived and established her innocence.

33:10However, this is not how it's beginning to look to the British. And they stop responding to her letters and she notices this and she realizes that the British, far from coming to reinstate her, are actually now wanting to hang her. More after the break.

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35:34have something to do with both the massacre and this defiance that the East India Company is seeing everywhere, like these little fires breaking out. So Ira, how quickly before the British decide she's the one who has to go, she's the one who has to pay for the Jhokin massacre? So by 1858, I think things have changed a great deal. And the Rani census is the mood in England has changed a lot from earlier having some sympathy, perhaps for the Indian cause. Now having heard of all these various massacres, the mood has changed completely. And there is a real loathing for these people who will just massacre innocent women and children.

36:14People like Charles Dickens himself launched themselves into criticizing the Hindus. And he says, imagining himself addressing a group of Indians, he says, I have the honor to inform you Hindu gentry that it is my intention with all merciful swiftness of execution to exterminate the race from the face of the earth. So it has now become the epic of the race. So things have changed completely. And now I think it matters very little how responsible or not you actually are. Now it's about who will pay the price for these massacres. And very soon in 1858, the Rani realises that there are no answers coming.

36:53Nobody's coming to help her or to even communicate with her. She's on her own and she is going to have to defend herself. And the person that the British send against her is actually quite an interesting character. We've met already on this series a whole variety of British buffoons, but Hugh Rose is not one among them. He is a highly professional, cold, ruthless, and extremely efficient soldier. And he's marching on Jansi in March 1858 with unambiguous orders, crush the city, sweep through Bundelkhand, crush the rebellion. And on March the 21st era, he arrives before Jansi. What happens? So up till this time, Hugh Rose has been, as you are saying, he has been pretty much crushing everybody and everything that he sees in front of him.

37:48And he is quite scornful when he arrives at Jhansi saying, you know, I doubt they will be able to hold out much longer. Though when he starts coming closer to Jhansi, he notices that a lot of preparation has already taken place because Lakshmi Bai has carried out a scorched earth policy all around the city of Jhansi. But Hugh Rose does comment on this fact that they seem to have made preparations. Not only that, but the fort is actually a very decent, well-built structure with many crenellations, with many loopholes. And all of them have muskets and cannons and batteries on all those heights and all those loopholes are manned.

38:30There's not a single one which is just, you know, has been left to chance. And she issues Ira a proclamation. Tell us about that. the proclamation um i'm not sure it is you know it is true i'm not sure that she actually says it's too good to be true it's too bloody good to be true shall i read it and then you knock it down and make us all very depressed this is what we're told she says you know when when surrounded by the inevitability that the british are coming okay even though she's made all these decisions to make it very difficult for them to take jansi she says to her people we fight for independence in the words of Lord Krishna, we will, if we are victorious, enjoy the fruits of victory.

39:10If defeated and killed on the field of battle, we shall surely earn eternal glory and salvation. And now you're going to tell me she never said it. She never said it. Go on, Ira. I doubt she said any of that. I really do. I really do. She was not. I think even at this point with the men, you know, with the forces lined in front of her, I don't think she was looking for a fantastic death and battle and salvation. And I doubt, you know, Durga and Lakshmi were her deities. I doubt she would have invoked Krishna. He's a bloke. And I'll tell you why. He's a bloke. And I'll tell you why. In the months leading up to the siege, she does a lot of what I would call morale boosting in the city.

39:51And she carries out this huge ceremony called the Kumkum Haldi ceremony when she learns of the people fleeing from the city before the arrival of Euros' forces. and she thinks she needs to find a way to get the people to stay, to be behind her, to live in their city so that she has something to defend. And she holds this enormous celebration in which married women are invited into the fort. There's a whole dozens and dozens of women line up next to the Rani to greet them with rose petal with perfumes and they come into the fort and they feast and they celebrate this occasion. Every day they are Durga puja.

40:27So she arranges for a puja to the deity Durga, who is the goddess of power. Right. If you don't know who she is. Exactly. So she is praying to Shakti. So if she were to make any proclamation, it would be in the name of Durga or Shakti, you know. So I'm very suspicious about this proclamation. But nonetheless, no doubt she gallivants, you know, she gets her forces to gather around her. She's very good at this. She has done this for months to inspire her leadership. She is there amongst the men. We are told that the besieging forces see her on the ramparts once the fighting starts. She is there encouraging her men, making sure the batteries are repaired, making sure breaches are repaired as fast as they can.

41:12So she is in the thick of the action. And I think that is the greatest encouragement that she can give her people rather than a declaration, which is quite suspicious. She is there. she has shown her people that she's willing to live and die alongside them. Yeah. And I mean, the imagery of the comic books and everything that we started is that she's dressed as a warrior. She puts away the diaphanous saris and veils and all of that's gone. She's dressed like a fighter. But still, you know what? This is difficult. Rose, what we haven't mentioned is that he is a veteran of the Crimean War. This is a fighter who is a good fighter, who knows his business.

41:52So it really does look as though, you know, she will be crushed. And if she's crushed, then she'll be executed. It'll be the end for her. One of the soldiers writes that there's no longer day or night, that fighting can continue for 24 hours because now there are fires being lit up everywhere. So when, you know, a shell falls onto, say, firewood or grass, then that it bursts into flames. There are lots of little flames all around Jhansi Fort and the city of Jhansi. So the place is lit up day and night. So it's a vision of hell by this point. And suddenly the Rani hears because she has been sending out, you know, signals for help for various people to come and help her.

42:30And a few of the smaller parties do come to her side, which then she hears about the arrival of Tantya Tope, who is this great guerrilla general who has already had enormous success and who has become a folk hero of sorts. Who's also a Maratha too, very much on her side rather than the Rajputs of Orcha and so on. Exactly, very much on her side. So when the forces being besieged inside Jhansi from the parapets, in the distance, they can actually see Tantya Tope's forces. And he has an enormous force. And apparently, according to the soldiers, again, a huge hurrah or celebration rings out from the fort because the people are so delighted to see Tantia Tope.

43:12They know that he is their ally. He has come to rescue them. And there's this huge sense for a little while of relief of having somebody else they can count on. But it doesn't go well. Rose, in this very tricky position with enforcers in front of him, pulls off a remarkable strategic manoeuvre. Remarkable, really remarkable. He is able to turn around, outflank them, and with lightning speed, he basically pushes them away. I think despite Tantia Toppe's forces being very substantial, most of them, 90 % are raw recruits. So they are very scared when they face this massive barrage of Hugh Rose's guns and officers and men, and they are dispersed.

43:56And it is a moment, I think, of utter desperation at this time for the Rani and her people, because initially having thought, okay, we will be rescued, we can do this together. There is utter, utter despair because not only have they been dispersed, but they have seen again the power of this British army that they feel now that they will really not be able to withstand much longer. But there is clearly this consensus amongst the entire population of Jhansi that they will fight to the end, you know. So it's really this fight unto the last of everybody concerned in Jhasi. And they meet this resistance at every point.

44:36It is hard work for them to get up to the fort. And also, let me just describe what hard work actually means. Because again, as we've seen, the devil's wind, as they call it in Delhi, or this red mist, this flow of blood through the streets basically the British are bayonetting anyone that they find civilians it doesn't matter whoever doesn't matter it does not matter at all and you've got sort of the Rani's personal guards and this is sort of testament to you know her charisma as a leader they form this you shall not pass war and to a man they are cut down at this point though this is where many of the comic books kind of you know really sort of build the part here and if you tell me again so so as the story goes and as the sort of comic book picture is on the night of april the fourth she takes her adopted son the mother and she straps him to her back and she escapes the fort she jumps from a parapet onto a waiting horse and the horse jumps over all of these you know sort of bits of debris and ramparts and gallops off for taking our heroine to freedom.

45:49The horse even has the name, doesn't he? Badal. Badal Cloud. That's right. Badal the Cloud. All right. How much of that is bullshit? If I may put it that way. Most of it, Anita. Okay. Great. All the best bits of this story are rubbish. No, it's not sad. It's not sad. Go, tell us that. It's even better. It's even more heroic because it's one thing to just blindly, you know, kind of jump off the fort like this. but it is another thing to face despair. And we are told by the same young Brahmin Vishnubhad Gautse, who is passing through Jhansi at this time, they are all holed up inside Jhansi Fort, all the non-combatants, if you like, the Brahmins, the women, they are all in this underground shelter of the fort.

46:31And he says that when the walls are breached, when they hear this huge noise deafening roar of the battle, when they hear the cries of the cattle who are dying, the dogs are howling and all this, you know, this vision of hell. There's a moment that night that the Rani is desperate and desolate and she has given up all hope and she gives up hope and she suggests to her followers that they escape as well they can and that she will blow herself up with her thought that she refuses to go on any longer. And to me, this seems very poignant because this is a human frailty. We can all empathize with this, that we are not all born magnificent warriors.

47:12We have to find it within ourselves. So she has a counsellor who advises her against this. And then so what she devises then instead is that while the British soldiers are at this point, apparently drunk on loot, because they have come upon, of course, the palace of the Rani, they have found all this jewelry, all this, the statues of the gold and the bronze and all the the enormous amount of wealth that they see around them. It is a day of absolute anarchy and plunder and mayhem and bloodletting. And they are in this state of stupor. And so the Rani with a few hundred followers is able to, at the middle of the night, tiptoe out from a gate and basically walk over the fallen stupor ridden soldiers and make their way out of the fort.

48:01And the next morning, Hugh Rose is absolutely horrified to discover this. Ira, what's your source for that? Bonkers. How do you do that? It's the Vishnubhad Ghotse. So he gives this much more human version. Much more, yes. And he says that she was that night extremely disheartened, crestfallen, desperate, and she has a moment of complete despair. So that's the long night of the heart. but I'm just trying to imagine how you tiptoe with a few hundred people over sleeping soldiers. I mean, to me, you know, jumping over a wall on Badal, the horse, you know, the flying horse. I mean, that seems almost as credible as leading these people over sleeping soldiers.

48:48Poor Badal would have definitely broken all four of his legs and the Queen would have died as well. It is a very high wall. It is a much larger floor than we imagine when we look at the Amarchit Sakatha comics. So that is patently impossible. And as well for her followers to have done the same thing like an Olympic sport. So instead, what is much more likely, and we can imagine that this would be true, when we understand the sort of plunder, the sort of madness that came over the men, whether in Lucknow, whether in Kanpur, when they come into this mode of retribution, you can read it in the soldiers' accounts, that they become almost demonic in their search for justice and vengeance.

49:29And they become drunk on the sense of them having achieved victory. And I can fully imagine that they would be drunk also literally and lying in the state maybe one of the entrances. This is a very huge fort with many, many gates. One of them had fewer alert sipahis or men guarding it. The fact is she left in the middle of the night with a number of followers and they were horrified. The lesson I'm taking from you, Ira, is don't get your history from a comic book. And I hear you. That's fine. It's fine. So where does she go? Where does she and her followers go? And what happens next? So things at this point for the Rani, of course, she has, you know, given up everything.

50:13This is the time, I think, in my mind, where she has finally given up Jhansi. Having left it in this manner as a warrior, she knows there is no going back. The British now will never forgive her. There is nothing to be saved. They keep riding on through the day. A few of them, because obviously Hugh Rose, when he discovers this, he is horrified and furious and sends off a party to capture her. And they come very close because they kill some of her men and they find her tent, which almost in those spy thrillers, the person comes up to see whether the cup of tea is still hot or not, whether the person has just left.

50:49And it is still hot. It is still hot. The tent is very beautiful. It clearly is a woman's tent and she has just left. Luckily, she kept her pearls. So she goes on and goes on to towns where there are still, you know, a bunch of rebels holding out. So she goes to Conch and then Kalpi. In both of these cities, there's a last desperate stand along with Tantia Topi. Tantia Topi's turned up again at this point. She's joined up with him. Better late than never. Yes, OK. That's where he had, in fact, retreated to. And after having been defeated twice, Hugh Rose and his men, you know, whose heads are now spinning with the sun.

51:29One shouldn't mention these things, but they have diarrhea from the heat. They are really, really unwell men. And they think this is the end of it, because with Kalpi having fallen a very, you know, a substantial defeat at this time, they feel it is now all over. But it actually is at this point that the rebels make this incredible decision that nobody is expecting. So they have been going on a path from Jhansi headed northeast vaguely towards Lucknow. So it is as if Hugh Rose is sort of herding them, you know, like a sheepdog, herding them along a northward path, clearing all of Bundelkhand up to Lucknow.

52:07But instead at Kalpi, they do a hard left and they head west, straight across the country to Gualia. Now, nobody was expecting this. I think the British certainly were not expecting this. It's a fantastic fort. It's one of the great forts of India. Exactly. It is not a fort to be lost to this bunch of, you know, vagrant rebels as far as the British are concerned. But they do land up in Gwalior. And this astonishing thing happens is that while the king Jayaji Rao Sindhya is very loyal to the British and he, in fact, escapes to the British in Agra, all his troops, Tantya Tope, is able to charge them up to the extent that they come over to the side of the rebels.

52:53This, importantly, is another Maratha army. So, Tantya Topi is appealing to his own people at this point, as is Lakshmi Bhai. Exactly right. So, these people now have this very important army. They are delighted. The rebels, obviously, Tantya Topi… Fortune favours the brave. Yes, Raoul Sahib, they can't believe their luck and they spend a few days feasting and banqueting inside the fort of Gwalior. Meanwhile, Lakshmi Bhai has a very bad feeling about all of this. She doesn't think that Hugh Rose is going to let this go so easily. And she decides not to stay within the fort of Gwalior. It is also said that these rebel leaders do not give her the sort of authority that she would want, that she perhaps asked for units to command.

53:44She wanted to fight at the head of her forces, and they wouldn't allow that. So she stays away from the fort. They stay inside the fort. She is outside in an area called the Fulbagh. And with 300 of her, I think these are the Velayati forces, the Afghan forces, they keep patrolling Gawliar. And that's when they come across a force sent by Hugh Rose. I think it's the eight Hazars and they are the ones who finally kill her in action. Hang on. No, wait. And I'm not taking it from a comic, but you can't just say killed in action because this is one of the big things that lends itself to her iconography.

54:22Another set piece. Absolutely. Exactly. Okay. So tell me, I mean, what do we know about the manner in which she died? Because again, And there's so much that's been slapped onto this idea that right till the end, bleeding and broken, she's still defiant to her very last breath. I mean, what do we know about how she was killed? So what we know about her now at this point is that she is very much the warrior queen that we imagine from legend. She is wearing her jodhpurs. She is wearing her kamabhan. She's got her taloirs, you know. She does have a beautiful pearl necklace that is given to her from the treasury of the Sindhya's.

54:59But she is on her horse and she is continuously patrolling. So she has her tents where she spends her days outside of Gualier Fort in a condition, you know, which would have been very difficult for her as a queen who has been raised as a queen in Jhansi. But she lives in her tents and she keeps patrolling the area because she is very anxious about the arrival of any British forces. Is she effectively acting as the first line of defence? Is it a small force or is this Hugh Rose's sort of enormous army? It is not the whole huge force. It is a reconnaissance army. It is the Eighth Hassas. So these cavalrymen have been sent out to see what is happening and to see the lay of the land.

55:41And she is kind of doing the same thing, patrolling at her end. And she has run right into them. And they think it's a party come to attack them. They attack immediately. And we have several accounts. Difficult to say which one is exactly correct because the Hazas themselves at this point, even after they have killed her, don't know that they have killed her. They think she is a man. She is dressed like a man. One of the accounts say that all we could make out was that this little force of rebels was fighting and then they start to retreat in chaos, in absolute mayhem. And there's only this one small figure who tries to encourage them to remain.

56:21we couldn't make out who that figure was. That's interesting. So they do say that there's one tiny thing who they think is just one of the young soldiers who's there is rallying the troops saying do not run, turn around, stand and fight. Okay, either she is sabred through or she is shot by a pistol. We don't know whether but she's wounded. She doesn't die immediately, Ira, because I mean that's important. So she does have last words, right? No, no, no, no. We don't know if she dies. I'm so sorry, Anita. I seem to be disappointing you at every stage. Your comic is going to be very disappointing.

56:56Wow. I've learned a valuable lesson. All right. Okay. So what do we know then? What a witness, a Hussar from the time who was part of this battle, says that she gets one wound across the thigh or across the back. We are not sure which. She turns around possibly and tries to shoot at her assailant or reach out for him. and then she is hit point blank on the head. So possibly she may have died very immediately or very soon afterwards. Her body is taken away immediately by her soldiers and it is burnt on a pyre almost immediately to maintain the sanctity, not of her parda because she was not in parda, but of her body that it should never be violated by any enemy.

57:41So we don't know anything about last words. I'm afraid she was probably too wounded by the time she then died to have said very much. Hugh Rose, when he hears about her death, he says, the Indian mutiny has produced but one man, and that man was a woman. Remarkable for her beauty, cleverness, and perseverance. The most dangerous of all the Indian leaders. That's quite a recommendation. Yeah, we've come to the end of our time together. But I mean, it's talk like that from Hugh Rose and the whole sort of mythology of this woman who's standing alone telling people to turn around and fight that has led to her even now becoming, being a nationalist icon and becoming politicised.

58:29I mean, let's just spend one minute before we leave Ira just talking about how this has played into politics even now. Because when you see a poster of her, you see this cry, this dying cry that supposedly... In the Second World War, there was a whole regiment, the Rani of Jhansi regiment, the INA. Right. But I mean, you know, this cry of, I'm never going to give up my Jhansi, you know, that then becomes a huge slogan for the independence movement in the 40s. Where does all this stand now? And do people still fight over her legacy? Or is it just accepted, you know, she is who Indians want to be?

59:04I think the whole imagery, iconography of Bharat Mata, of India as this warrior goddess, is politicized because it feeds into this Brahminical patriarchal mode of how women can be. So if you cannot be a pious daughter and a pious wife, if your destiny is to be something else, then you must be Bharat Mata. But if you look behind the layers, it is a Bharat Mata, It is a warrior queen very much within the confines of brahminical patriarchal norms. So you will be a woman who will fight. Yes, but you will give birth hopefully to valiant sons who will fight just like you, but only for a certain cause and against us.

59:49Nach der Krise beginnt nicht die Ruhe, sondern die Veränderung. Es läuft wieder, aber anders als früher. Wer scheitert und wieder aufsteht, führt anders. That show us the affected people, the experts and the experts. In episode 5 of Endstation Insolvenz, it's about how a real power can be found. Now listen to the podcast channel Good Things from Credit Reform. Everywhere, where there are podcasts.

1:00:29Listen, depressing, but so not depressing talking to you, Ira. Really wonderful. Thank you so much for being with us. And where are we going next in this series, Willie? We are heading next back to Delhi, where the siege of Delhi is reaching its peak. And we're going to see horrible, horrible things happening in Delhi. But it's one of the great stories of Indian history. If you don't want to wait, you know what you can do. Just go to empirepoduk.com. if you become a member of the club, you get all these episodes in a miniseries all together to listen to at your pleasure and at your convenience.

1:01:02It just remains for us to say thank you very much to Ira Mukherty. It's been quite the ride, if not on a flying horse. I'm very disappointed about the flying horse. Nice. Me too, mate. Me too. Till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. And goodbye from me, William de Rimpel.

1:01:26Thank you.