Jumat, 15 Mei 2009

Phoolan Devi


Phulan Devi was born into a shudra family, sub-caste of boatmen called mallah[1] in the small village of Gorha ka Purwa, Uttar Pradesh, India. Her mother was Moola. She was the second child in a family of four girls and a boy.

Her family was very poor, but they were not the poorest in the village. Her father had an acre of agricultural land and a huge Neem tree on it. In her biography, Phoolan recalls that she and two of her sisters together could barely encircle the tree's large trunk with their arms. The valuable timber that could be derived from the tree was, effectively, the family's nest egg.

When Phoolan was ten years old, her cousin, Mayadin, became the head of the family and sent some workers to cut down the Neem tree and sell the wood, keeping the proceeds for himself. Her father did not protest, having lived so many years under subjugation and familiar with the futility of protesting. But Phoolan was young, fearless, and headstrong and confronted her cousin.

Despite his efforts to ignore her, she taunted him, publicly called him a thief, and her older sister and she staged a sit-in on his land. Eventually, Mayadin lost his patience and hit Phoolan with a brick, knocking her out. However, she continued to harass Mayadin, demanding justice. In an effort to rid himself of the little nuisance, Mayadin arranged to have her married to a man named Putti Lal, who lived several hundred miles away. Putti Lal was in his thirties; Phoolan was eleven.[2] According to an autobiography written with the help of Marie-Therese Cuny, first published in France by FIXOT in 2001, Devi said she was married to a man with a very bad character when she was only 11.

There are conflicting reports as to the events of Phoolan's life after this point.

Since she was so young, she could have had no idea what to expect of marriage or was expected of a wife.

Some accounts say that she feared her husband and refused to live with him. He was already married, so Phoolan was relegated to household labour. Miserable, she ran away to her village, much to the horror of her family. In the day, it was believed a wife simply cannot leave her husband. Phoolan's mother, Moola, was so ashamed that she told her daughter to go to jump in a well and kill herself.

Other accounts say her husband raped and mistreated her, according to this account she did not know what was happening, and she thought he was trying to kill her. Further claiming she became seriously ill and her father came to take her to the hospital. Her parents publicly declared the marriage ended in front of the villagers. She did not see her husband for two years, until she was 13. This account claims he then came and took her back to his house where he was living with his “second wife”, an older woman with a character as bad as his. The “second wife” beat Phoolan and treated her like a slave, restricted Phoolan's food, and made her sleep with cowshed. Eventually, the husband decided to take Phoolan back to her village and family.

However it came about that Phoolan's marriage ended, she was marked for life nonetheless. Rejected by her village and family, she had no place in society.

In time, Phoolan rejected her family's condemnations and continued to challenge Mayadin. She took him to court for unlawfully holding her father's land. Even during court proceedings, she seldom controlled her emotions, and her dramatic outbursts often left the courtroom stunned.

In 1979, Mayadin accused Phoolan of stealing from his house. Though she denied the accusation, the police arrested her anyway. In those three days in jail, she was beaten and raped repeatedly, then left in a rat-infested cell. She knew that her cousin was behind this injustice. The experience broke her body but ignited her hatred for men who routinely denigrated women.

When she returned to her village, she was shunned. She realised society could do nothing worse to her then what she had already experienced and became fearless and thus began the rebellion.
from wikipedia

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