Early life
She was born into a family of the shudra sub-caste of boatmen called mallahs in the small village of Gorha Ka Purwa, Uttar Pradesh, India. At 11 years of age she was married to a widower 20 years her elder. He already had six children.
Beaten by her husband, the high-spirited and intelligent girl defended her father in a court case over a land dispute. She won, was arrested by police on questionable charges and raped in detention.
Bandit Queen
Devi ran away to the deep jungle of her native region south of Agra and became the mistress of a bandit leader. A rival gang from the powerful land-owner caste caught them, killed her lover and dragged her to their village. She was publicly raped for days. She would never bear children. After three days she escaped, went back to the jungle and gathered a gang. A year later, 20 of her tormentors were dead.
Pursued by the law enforcement authorities, for over two years, she proved difficult to capture. The government of Indira Gandhi and the police finally made a deal with her that she and members of her gang would not face the death penalty. As a part of this arrangement, in 1983 she surrendered on a stage before a crowd of 10,000 people.
Imprisonment, and Political Career
Imprisoned without trial for eleven years, she was released in 1994, after Mulayam Singh Yadav, the newly elected populist chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh, directed lawyers for the state to withdraw all charges against her. This occurred at a time when many lower-caste Indians were organizing among themselves and becoming more politically active; Devi was thus tremendously symbolic to this group, and this may have factored in Singh's dismissal of charges against her. After her release, Devi converted to Buddhism as part of the Indian Buddhist revivalist movement.
In 1996 she was elected to Parliament with a 50,000-vote majority on the ticket of an Uttar Pradesh State socialist party.
Death
On July 25, 2001, she was shot in front of her house in New Delhi, allegedly by one Sher Singh Rana, which he claims was retribution for the Behmai massacre. The police, however, are sceptical of his claims.
She is survived by her husband, Ummed Singh.
Film
The 1994 Indian film Bandit Queen, by the director Shekhar Kapur is about her life up through her 1983 surrender. Although Devi is a heroine in the film, she fiercely disputed its accuracy and fought to get it banned in India.
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~pm9k/gifs/ZoForth/Pholan/phoolan.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1456441.stm
http://www.despardes.com/people/phoolandevi.html
http://website.lineone.net/~jon.simmons/roy/st_onbq.htm
