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The caste and class system of India is mind-boggling — more complex and more deeply entrenched than social stratification among American teenagers.

Recently, I tried to learn something about India’s social landscape, and I couldn’t scratch the surface. It was like reading a paper by Einstein and striving to really, really understand Special Relativity.

I mention this because you can’t fully grasp the story of Phoolan Devi, “the Bandit Queen of India,” without understanding the castes, classes, and other divisions in Indian society.

Fortunately, the facts about her life are so amazing, dramatic, and unlikely that even fools like me — and you, of course — can appreciate her story, albeit superficially.

Phoolan came into the world as an impoverished member of the Mallahs, a low social caste in India. By the time she was killed by assassins at age 38, she had become a champion of the poor and oppressed — and quite a prosperous one, at that. She is as famous to her countrymen as Robin Hood is to the English.

Not surprisingly, the facts about the Phoolan Devi story are sometimes elusive, sometimes in dispute. The following version is, I think, accurate enough to warrant a retelling.

Phoolan was born in a small village in northern India in 1963. Although her family was poor, her father owned an acre of land that boasted a huge Neem tree, a hardwood in the mahogany family. The tree was the family’s nest egg.

When Phoolan was 10, through the mysterious workings of India’s social system, her cousin Mayadin became head of the family. He took possession of the family’s acre of land and sent workers to cut down the tree, intending to sell the wood and pocket the proceeds for himself.

Phoolan’s father did not resist, but Phoolan did. She confronted her cousin, publicly accused him of thievery, and staged a sit-in at the tree.

The protest didn’t work, and Cousin Mayadin was not forgiving. He arranged for the pesky Phoolan to be married to a man far away who was three times her age.

The man was already married, and Phoolan, then age 11, was relegated to household labor. She reportedly was mistreated and beaten by her husband and his other wife. Before long, Phoolan ran away and returned to her village.

But the act of leaving her husband brought shame to the family, and her parents rejected her. She became a social outcast and was not allowed to live in the village.

By the time she was 16, against her family’s wishes, Phoolan began to challenge Mayadin in court.

Phoolan Devi.

In a series of lawsuits, she accused him of unlawfully holding her father’s land. The court proceedings were often interrupted by her dramatic outbursts.

In 1979, Mayadin accused Phoolan of stealing from his house. She denied it, but was arrested and jailed.

For three days, Phoolan was beaten and raped by police, who were members of the Kshatriya, a caste of the military and ruling order. The experience further inflamed her hatred of the caste system and the men who took advantage of it.

Shortly after her release — or escape, by some accounts  — Phoolan was abducted by a gang of armed bandits. The leader, a man of a higher caste, attempted to rape Phoolan, but his deputy, Vikram, who belonged to Phoolan’s Mallah caste, intervened and protected her.

Inevitably, Vikram later killed his boss and became the leader of the gang. He and Phoolan became lovers — or were married, depending on the version of the tale.

Phoolan learned to use a rifle and gladly participated in the gang’s activities, which usually consisted of ransacking higher-caste villages and kidnapping upper-caste landowners for ransom.

The Bandit Queen.

One village they ransacked was that of Phoolan’s first husband. Phoolan stabbed him, and the gang dragged him away as the villagers watched. They left him lying by the road, near death, with a note of warning to old men who marry young girls.

Some say that Phoolan and the gang targeted only upper-caste victims and shared their loot with lower-caste people. Others insist this is a myth.

The gang grew larger, and by late 1979, the membership had tilted from primarily men of the Mallah caste to those of the higher Thakur caste.  The Thakur newcomers rebelled, killed Vikram, and abducted Phoolan.

She was held captive in the Thakur village of Behmai, where each night, she was gang-raped by a group of Thakur men. After three weeks, with the help of lower-caste villagers, she escaped.

Phoolan immediately reassembled her old gang. She led them in a series of violent robberies across northern India, targeting upper-caste victims.

On February 14, 1981, Valentine’s Day, Phoolan and her gang entered the village of Behmai disguised as police. They took control and assembled the villagers. Phoolan demanded that her kidnappers be produced.

Phoolan recognized two of the men who had murdered Vikram and raped her repeatedly. But the Thakur villagers would not identify any of the other men who had assaulted her.

Phoolan ordered her men to line up every Thakur man in the village and shoot them. They complied. 22 were killed.

A massive police dragnet followed the “Behmai Massacre,” but the gang eluded capture. Phoolan outsmarted her pursuers with relative ease, and the gang continued its marauding ways. She began to be glorified by the lower castes and much of India’s media.

Two years later, the Indian government sent word that they wanted to negotiate. Phoolan was ill, and she agreed to surrender if certain conditions were met:

– She would not get the death penalty.
– Other gang members would get no more than eight years in jail.
– Her father’s acre of land would be returned to him.
– Her brother would get a  government job.
– Her entire family would be present at the surrender.

The authorities agreed. In February 1983, before a crowd of 10,000 onlookers, she placed her rifle on the ground before a portrait of Gandhi, and her gang surrendered to 300 waiting police.

The surrender of Phoolan and her gang.

Phoolan was charged with 48 crimes, including 30 counts of kidnapping and banditry. She remained in prison for 11 years, while her trial was repeatedly delayed by bureaucratic and political disagreements.

She never came to trail, but instead was paroled in 1994. Insisting that she was a reformed person, she worked to establish a reputation as a champion of the oppressed.

In 1994, a film was made about her life. The film ended with her 1983 surrender.

In 1996, she was elected to the Indian parliament. In an interview shortly after her re-election in 1999, she explained her political objectives:

My main goal is that things that only the rich and privileged have enjoyed should also be given to the poor — for example, drinking water, electricity, schools and hospitals.

I’d like there to be seats reserved for women in government posts. Women should be educated in schools. And people should not be forcing them to get married at a very young age.

The most important thing is equality, so people can get employment, get proper food and drink, and be educated. And especially women – they are now treated very lowly, like shoes! They should be treated on an equal basis.

Hard to argue with that. Still, she was harshly denounced during her election campaigns by the widows of the Behmai Massacre and others of the higher classes.

Campaigning for parliament.

Phoolan published her autobiography in 1996. It was entitled, The Bandit Queen of India: An Indian Woman’s Amazing Journey from Peasant to International Legend. The book was reprinted in 1997 as I, Phoolan Devi: The Autobiography of India’s Bandit Queen.

On July 25, 2001, Phoolan Devi was shot and killed in front of her home in New Delhi. Three gunmen escaped.

One of the men accused of her assassination, Sher Singh Rana, was captured and confessed to the murder. He said he was avenging the deaths of the 22 men in the Behmai Massacre.

Across India, millions in the lower castes mourned Phoolan’s death.

But many honored her assassins. They were praised for “upholding the dignity of the Kshatriya community” and “drying the tears of the widows of Behmai.”

The Indian Constitution of 1949 outlawed caste-system discrimination. Today, in most of the larger cities, caste barriers have fallen.

Nevertheless, the caste system remains entrenched in India’s rural areas, where 70 percent of the population lives.