Question

Ppt maharaja Ranjit singh and rani of Jhansi

Answer 1

the almost 150 years since she belatedly committed herself to the revolt known as the Indian Mutiny, Lakshmi Bai, the rani of Jhansi, has been the only leader to be described in positive terms by her adversaries. True, some reviled her as a villainess, but others admired her as a warrior queen. Indian nationalists of the early 20th century were less divided in venerating her as an early symbol of resistance to British rule.

The future rani was born to a prominent Brahmin family in Benares (now Varanisi) in northern India on November 19, 1827. Formally named Manikarnika, she was called ‘Manu’ by her parents. Her mother, Bhagirathi, died when she was 4. Under the care of her father, Moropant Tambe, her education included horsemanship, fencing and shooting. In 1842 she became the second wife of Gangadhar Rao Niwalkar, the childless raja of Jhansi, a principality in Bundelkhand.

Renamed Lakshmi Bai, the young rani bore one son in 1851, but he died four months later. In 1853, following a serious illness, Gangadhar Rao adopted a distant cousin named Damodar Rao as his son — similarly, Gangadhar and the brother who had preceded him on the throne were adopted heirs. The adoption papers and a will naming the 5-year-old boy as Rao’s heir and the rani as regent were presented to a Major Ellis, who was serving as an assistant political agent at Jhansi on November 20, 1853. Gangadhar Rao died the following day. Ellis forwarded the information to his superior, Major John Malcolm. Ellis was sympathetic to the rani’s claims, and even Malcolm, who did not support her regency, described the young widow in a letter to Governor-General James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie, as ‘a woman highly respected and esteemed, and I believe fully capable of doing justice to such a charge.’

Under Lord Dalhousie, the British government had adopted an aggressive policy of annexing Indian states. Charges of mismanagement often offered an excuse. Another justification, applied with increasing frequency after 1848, was the Doctrine of Lapse. The British already exercised the right to recognize the succession in Indian states that were dependent upon them. As a corollary, Dalhousie claimed that if the adoption of an heir to the throne was not ratified by the government, the state would pass by ‘lapse’ to the British.

In spite of the rani’s arguments for