Ranis & The Raj (The Pen and the Sword)

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Back of the Book One is confronted with many challenges while tracing the history of the queens discussed in this book. There are not just silences around them; they are invisible. Finding out their names in the archives became akin to solving a puzzle. While the men were all named, the constant use of the term 'rani' or 'maharani' without these women's names made it difficult to understand whom the imperial records were referring to. In recent years, the forgotten names of women, such as Uda Devi, Azizan Bai, Rani Draupadi of Dhar, Habiba, Bhagwati Devi, etc., many of whom belonged to marginal castes and communities and who played an important role in resisting the British Raj, have started to resurface. Women faced double exclusion, one because of gender and the other because of their social status.

About the Book History has been telling us the stories of kings. In the long tradition of history writing, 'his story' has always taken precedence over 'her story. Though stories of queens evoke a sense of romance and are told like fairy tales, quite often we find that these stories end in tragedy. In India's history, not all queens are remembered today. Some are celebrated, while others have been almost ignored by historians.

In Ranis and the Raj, Queeny Pradhan introduces us to six nineteenth-century queens who have all stood up against the British Raj, the East India Company and the Crown. Starting from the Rani of Sirmur (who was the earliest to deal with the British authorities), Rani Chennamma, Maharani Jindan, Begum Zeenat Mahal and Maharani Lakshmi Bai to the Queen Menchi, Pradhan has carved an engrossing historical narrative for each of these important figures in Indian history. Unlike the biographical convention in traditional history writing, the research in this book can be placed in the realm of 'microhistory'. The life stories of these queens are fragmented due to the 'silencing' and 'invisibilization' prevalent in the political history of the time, and this book aims to fill these gaps.

About the Author An alumna of Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Queeny Pradhan is a professor of history at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), New Delhi. She specializes in Indian history, legal history and women in history. She was awarded the doctoral scholarship from Teen Murti Memorial Fund. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. She was also an ICCR visiting professor at the University of Vienna. She is the author of the book Empire in the Hills: Simla, Darjeeling, Ootacamund and Mount Abu, 1820-1920, published by Oxford University Press in 2017. She has also co-edited a volume called Identities in South Asia: Conflicts and Assertions, which was published by Routledge in 2019. Presently, she is the dean of the University School of Mass Communication, GGSIPU.

Introduction Traditionally, history has been telling us the stories of kings. In the long tradition of history writing, "his story' has always dominated her story'. Though queens evoke a sense of romance, and their stories are told like fairy tales, in the annals of history, it has been observed that many times queens have met a tragic fate. There have been many important queens in the history of the world and India's history. Not all queens in the history of India are remembered today. Some are celebrated, while others have been almost ignored by historians. In the history of India, queens have been known for different reasons: Razia Sultan and the Maharani of Jhansi for their martial valour, Meera Bai for her spiritual quest and others for their regency and more. There are many queens about whom there are scant records, such as: Abbakka Chowta, the Kakatiya queen Rani Rudrama, Onaka Obavva, Rani of Sawunwaree, Keladi Chennamma, Belawadi Mallamma, Avantibai Lodhi of Ramgarh, Devi Durgavati and many others. Much historical research is needed to unearth information about them.

**Contents and Sample Pages**