Question

Mention role play by the rani of jhansi in this great uprising of 1857

Answer 1

On May 10, 1857 the Indian Rebellion started in Meerut. This began after rumours that the new bullet casings for the Lee Enfield rifles were coated with pork and beef fat; British commanders insisted on their use and started to discipline anyone who disobeyed. During this rebellion sepoys killed many British soldiers and officers of the East India Company.

Unrest began to spread throughout India. During this chaotic time, the British were forced to focus their attentions elsewhere, and Lakshmi Bai was essentially left to rule Jhansi alone. During this time, she was able to lead her troops swiftly and efficiently to quell skirmishes breaking out in Jhansi. Through this leadership Lakshmi Bai was able to keep Jhansi relatively calm and peaceful in the midst of the Empire's unrest. For example, she conducted the haldi-kumkum ceremony with great pomp and ceremony before all the women of Jhansi to provide assurance to her subjects and to convince them that Jhansi was under no threat of an attack.

Up to this point, she had been hesitant to rebel against the British, and there is still some controversy over her role in the massacre of the British HEIC officials and their wives and children on the 8th June 1857 at Jokhan Bagh.[4] Her hesitation finally ended when British troops arrived under Sir Hugh Rose and laid siege to Jhansi on 23 March 1858. She rallied her troops around her and fought fiercely. An army of 20,000, headed by the rebel leader Tatya Tope, was sent to relieve Jhansi and to take Lakshmi Bai to freedom. However, the British, though numbering only 1,540 in the field so as not to break the siege, were better trained and disciplined than the raw recruits, and these inexperienced soldiers turned and fled shortly after the British began to attack on 31st March. Lakshmi Bai's forces could not hold out and three days later the British were able to breach the city walls and capture the city. Lakshmi Bai escaped by jumping from the wall at night with her son and fled from her city, surrounded by her guards, many of them women.

Along with the young Anand Rao, the Rani decamped to Kalpi along with her forces where she joined other rebel forces, including those of Tatya Tope. The Rani and Tatya Tope moved on to Gwalior, where the combined rebel forces defeated the army of the Maharaja of Gwalior after his armies deserted the rebel forces. They then occupied a strategic fort at Gwalior. However, on the 17th of June 1858, while battling in full warrior regalia against the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars in Kotah-ki Serai near the Phool Bagh area of Gwalior, she died. The British captured Gwalior three days later. In the British report of the battle, General Hugh Rose commented that the Rani, "remarkable for her beauty, cleverness and perseverance", had been "the most dangerous of all the rebel leaders".

However, the lack of a corpse to be convincingly identified as that of Lakshmibai convinced Captain Rheese that she had not actually perished in the battle for Gwalior, stating publicly that:"[the] Queen of Jhansi is alive!". It is believed her funeral was arranged on the same day near the spot where she was wounded.