What this woman had to endure is beyond imagination and is harrowing to watch, but her survival is an inspiring triumph. Shakhar Kapur handles the subject with great sensitivity and visible empathy towards the main character of Phoolan Devi, whose life story is impossible to even listen to. In the famous world of Bollywood's song and dance, this biographical feature is certainly a breath of fresh air in terms of storytelling and honest filmmaking. Although a high-caste young man was caught and admitted to shooting Phoolan as revenge for the Behmai massacre, many suspect her murder was engineered by powerful rival politicians.Bandit Queen is a difficult film to go through. On July 26, 2001, the Bandit Queen was assassinated outside her New Delhi home. But she didn’t realize the world of Indian politics could be even more dangerous than the world of outlaws and police. Once in parliament, she fought for the lower castes, particularly lower caste women. She ran for parliament, and despite the fact that she couldn’t read or write, was elected in a landslide.
Having lived with an outraged sense of justice for years and wanting to make sure that what happened to her would never happen to another woman, Phoolan entered politics and joined a newly formed party that ran on a ticket of helping the poor. Phoolan’s greatest transformation happened in jail where she renounced violence and became a Buddhist.Īfter spending 11 years in prison, she was released in 1994. To protect her family from police abuse, the Bandit Queen agreed to surrender. Desperate to catch her, the authorities took their frustration out on her parents – destroying their meager home, torturing, and imprisoning them. Phoolan became the most wanted outlaw in India, with a price on her head to match. For 4 years she roamed the countryside like a female Robin Hood, ransacking high-caste villages, giving money to the poor, and dispensing rough justice against men who abused women and girls. The massacre was sensational and shocking news because it was the first time in history that high-caste men were murdered by a low-caste woman.Īnd so, Phoolan’s story as the Bandit Queen began. A few months later she formed her own gang and manifested her revenge by returning to Behmai and shooting 21 men whom she thought were responsible for her rape. Miraculously she managed to escape, vowing revenge. When Vikram was killed a year later by upper-caste rival gang members, Phoolan was brutally gang-raped by the kidnappers as well as inhabitants of an upper caste village called Behmai where she was kept as a hostage. But in a strange turn of events, the second-in-command of the gang, Vikram Mallah, fell in love with Phoolan and saved her from the leader of the gang who wanted to rape and then kill her. The plan was to have her killed by the gang. When those whom she fought against in her village became desperate to force Phoolan into silence, they had her kidnapped by a group of bandits. As a child, she experienced the theft of her family’s small plot of land, and physical and sexual violence when she tried to do something about it. Phoolan Devi was born in 1963 to a poor, low-caste family in an Indian village so small it doesn’t appear on any map. Our multi-award winning team led by Hossein Martin Fazeli and Jack Silberman, who collectively have received 100 awards for their films, is working around the clock to complete the film. In a surprise victory that sent shock waves through India, Phoolan WON and became the first low-caste woman ever elected to that office. Phoolan captured the hearts and transformed the lives of hundreds of millions of poor Indian women and, like Gandhi, was a champion for their rights until she was assassinated in 2001. Upon her release from prison, she was convinced by the low-caste political party to run for a seat in Parliament.