Queeny Pradhan’s ‘Ranis And The Raj’: Six queens up against might of the Raj

Raaja Bhasin

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AT some point, almost everyone dealing with the past mentions that history is written by the hunter and not by the lion. Allow me to take this moment to make the line mine. Further, let me add that if the story has to do with women and not men, then the singular narrative becomes doubly tricky. The story worms deeper into the cave, forest or savannah as the case may be. Manoeuvring or coaxing out that lady and her piece of history — while fending off both the hunter and the lion — takes much more doing.

Queeny Pradhan’s ‘Ranis and the Raj: The Pen and the Sword’ researches and re-examines the stories of six Indian queens who, apart from all else, had one thing in common — all had to contend with the deviousness or avarice, or both, of the British in India. Only a couple of these six are familiar names and this has as much to do with their appropriation by history’s linear masculinity and its clear dominance, as much as by the paucity of reliable sources.

Down the decades, these ranis have either been labelled as ‘brave and fearless’ or ‘loyal and trustworthy’, even ‘undependable and cowardly’. In the primary narrative that searches for an appropriate female counterpart for the glorious male hero, a female worthy enough to become an icon, much of her story is subsumed. Yet, Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi may well be treated as the ‘desirable and acceptable’ counterpart of Subhas Chandra Bose. In the yin and yang of writing this part of our past, both have roles to play in nuancing the narrative of our freedom struggle. In the endeavour to neatly tie up loose ends, the complexity of their lives, situations — circumstances, if you will — is often palmed off in a few trite phrases.

This is what Pradhan has steered clear of. Her narrative is neither militant feminist nor apologist. She allows an analysis of the available sources to take her to whatever conclusion emerges. This ‘due process’ makes it easier for me, as a male, to review a book by a woman who writes of exemplary women. The word ‘balanced’ comes to mind. Pradhan has divided her narrative into three sections, each with two ranis. The first section titled ‘Fighting with Pen and Sword’ features Rani Chennamma of Kittur and Maharani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi. The second section is appropriately called ‘Queens in Controversy’ and has Maharani Jindan of Punjab — who was Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s youngest wife.

It is, perhaps the third section, which is titled ‘Queens in the Margins’, that truly stands out as the protagonists are virtually unknown. The section is remarkably instructive. Here are Queen Menchi of Sikkim and Guleri Rani of Sirmur — the latter’s name is lost to the past and she is simply known by her original home, Guler, which she left as a young bride bound for Sirmur.

If these well-researched and diligently analysed narratives of the ranis did not make the book complete, then the fine introduction does so. In her opening pages, Pradhan notes that she seeks to ‘…explore the vulnerabilities of these queens as women and their strengths as women and sovereigns’. She wonders if their struggles can only be seen in the frames of nationalism and patriotism. Did they fight for simply the survival of their territories and thrones? Did they question the established norms of their times?

In a text that is enjoyably readable, Queeny Pradhan has placed these ranis in the wider context of their times and in the sharply altering social and political landscape that surrounded them. She has done an admirable job of bringing marginal, lost or even absent historical narratives into a historical mainstream.