Phoolan Devi
The Bandit Queen; Goddess of Flowers
ORIGIN:
India
Phoolan Devi (10 August 1963–25 July 2001) was born in a tiny village on the Yamuna River to a poor low-caste family. At age eleven, she was married to a man more than twenty years older. Phoolan’s family had assumed that her husband would let her stay with her family until she was older. Instead, he insisted on taking the little girl home, where she was raped and beaten repeatedly. She eventually escaped and returned to her family, but as unprotected “damaged goods” she was now at the mercy of every man.
During a family land dispute, she was raped. When she complained to the police, they raped her, too. In the late 1970s, she was kidnapped by a band of dacoits (bandits) but she eventually emerged at the head of the gang. It was payback time for Phoolan. The gang attacked the village that had stood by when she was raped as an eleven-year-old. Phoolan stabbed her husband and left him for dead with a note warning that this was the punishment for old men who married young girls.
She robbed, stole, and killed but also prevented sexual assaults on women. On entering a town, she would ask women to identify their tormentors, and she would have them tortured and killed. Phoolan Devi became the most notorious woman in India. She was a woman attacking men, a low-caste person targeting upper castes. Some compared her to Robin Hood; others loathed and feared her.
In February 1983, she negotiated the terms of her surrender with Indira Gandhi, who guaranteed that she would not receive the death sentence. Phoolan Devi was charged with forty-eight crimes. She later regretted her surrender. Her trial was delayed for eleven years, which she served in prison. While in prison, she was hospitalized with a bleeding ovarian cyst and given an involuntary hysterectomy. When a biographer later asked the operating physician whether this had been necessary, the doctor laughingly said that they didn’t want any more Phoolan Devis being bred.
Phoolan refused to lay down her arms before anyone except the goddess Durga and Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948). This was finally accomplished by having an unarmed police officer escort her as she laid down her weapons before portraits of Durga and Gandhi.
Paroled in 1994, she began a group to teach self-defense to lower castes and won a Parliamentary seat in 1996. Phoolan Devi did not participate in the making of Bandit Queen, Shekhar Kapur’s 1995 film inspired by her life and she disliked the movie intensely. Phoolan Devi was assassinated outside her residence after returning from Parliament.
Phoolan Devi was deeply devoted to Durga during her lifetime. While alive, she was perceived as an avatar of Durga and is now venerated in that capacity.
MANIFESTATION:
She was a tiny, round-faced woman with long hair.
ICONOGRAPHY:
During her lifetime, dolls of Phoolan Devi dressed as Durga were sold in markets.
Spirit ally: Phoolan Devi is worshipped alongside Durga.
COLOUR:
Red
Further Reading: Her autobiography, The Bandit Queen of India by Phoolan Devi with Marie-Thérèse Cuny and Paul Rambali
OFFERINGS:
Phoolan Devi accepts whatever would be given Durga as well as toy or miniature weapons.
SEE ALSO:
Durga; and the Glossary entry for Avatar
SOURCE:
Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses – Written by : Judika Illes Copyright © 2009 by Judika Illes.