The Bandit Queens

India is the world’s largest democracy, with over 1.4 billion inhabitants, and it harbors a multiplicity of traditions and legacies that overlap, interconnect, and contradict. On the one hand, India fosters an increasingly sophisticated and lucrative technology sector and features a growing middle class. On the other hand, India is also a land defined by ancient traditions and sometimes rigid social rules, especially in rural areas. For example, the practice of dowry, wherein a woman’s family pays the family of the husband-to-be to take the bride, is still followed in many places. This, along with entrenched limitations on gender roles, often functions to objectify and oppress women. As the novel also demonstrates, violence against women is pervasive in many facets of Indian society, and there are few laws in place to protect them. For example, women cannot prosecute their husbands for rape. In many places, as well, the mostly Hindu majority adheres to the traditional caste system, which enforces rigid social divisions between classes and is inherited upon one’s birth. Thus, if one is born into a low caste, there is no way to achieve any social mobility. When gender and caste intersect, the risks to women’s safety and autonomy are heightened, as the story of the Bandit Queen illustrates.

Within the context of the novel, the caste system ultimately exposes Ramesh’s lie about being blind. He works at a tea stand, and Geeta watches him serve a Dalit in the disposable plastic cups that are only offered to those of the lowest caste. (All other customers are permitted to drink from reusable glass or ceramic cups). She remembers, later, that Ramesh never asked the man about his caste but recognized his status as a Dalit by his bare feet; Dalits are not allowed to wear shoes in public spaces. Therefore, as Geeta finally realizes, Ramesh is not blind. Even today, the caste system remains firmly entrenched within Indian society and has implications far beyond its intersection with gender roles, for it also governs the complex rules of social interaction and acceptable behavior at all levels of society. In The Bandit Queens, for example, it not only exposes Ramesh’s lie, but it also hastens the defeat of Bada-Bhai, who panics when he learns that he has eaten food prepared by Khushi, who is a Dalit. This sudden horror at becoming “polluted” short-circuits his ability to reason. He is angered and caught off-guard, which gives the women leverage.

Early in the novel, the author demonstrates how the caste system and accepted gender roles can lead to danger and assault. Geeta notes that, even though many villagers now have pit latrines, they often do not utilize them for fear of becoming polluted. She also acknowledges that attempts to force the Dalits—the lowest caste—to take on this job are illegal. The new public facilities are welcomed, however, especially by lower caste women, who are regularly assaulted by men when they have to take bathroom breaks in the nearby fields. Because of their status as low-caste women, these assaults go unreported and unpunished. Geeta and her friends learn that both Darshan and Samir once often victimized young women in this way. Geeta also remembers the story of the hanging tree, which she and Karem pass on the way to Kohra: “two lower-caste girls—thirteen and twelve—were found lynched by their dupattas, their pants pooled around their ankles” (53). While the parents believe they are signing a statement authorizing the police to investigate the crime, the police trick the illiterate couple into signing a confession. As a result, they are jailed for their own daughters’ murders.

The story of the Bandit Queen herself further illuminates how caste and gender are often intertwined in deadly ways. She was a real woman who survived multiple assaults and rapes by upper-caste men. Because of her social status, she realized that she would not find justice via any legal route, so she joined a band of dacoits (robbers) and returned to the village to seek vengeance. According to lore, she killed 22 upper-caste men. Geeta initially sees the story as a woman’s triumph over the rampant violence of men, but later in the novel, she reconsiders the Bandit Queen’s story through the lens of caste: Geeta now saw that caste had marked Phoolan’s story as much as, if not more than, gender had. She’d been born […] a Dalit and a woman, therefore twice-trodden” (232). Her legend is secured after the murders, and she becomes, instead, Phoolan Devi (“Goddess”); her original surname marks her caste and is thus discarded. The rest of her history rounds out the legend. Ultimately, after serving 11 years in prison for her various crimes, the Bandit Queen was released and successfully ran for Parliament before being assassinated in 2001. Her brave yet tragic story still serves as an inspiration to Geeta and her friends.