16. Vengeance Was Sweet for Phoolan Devi
Phoolan Devi was the only female in her rural bandit gang. The gang leader decided to make her his concubine and began to assault her. Finally, another bandit stepped in, killed him, and took over the gang. He and Phoolan became lovers. Soon thereafter, she swept into her abusive ex-husband’s village at the head of bandits, determined to exact payback. She dragged her ex out of his house, gutted him with a knife, and pinned a note to him, that warned men not to marry little girls. In subsequent months, Phoolan developed a reputation as a Robin-Hoodesque type of bandit queen, who robbed upper castes and shared her loot with the impoverished.
That phase of her life ended when an internal gang struggle ended with the murder of her lover. He was replaced as gang leader by two upper caste bandit brothers. They seized Phoolan and imprisoned her in their out-of-the-way home village, Behmai. There, she was assaulted by many men, and subjected to sundry humiliations such as being paraded naked around the village. She eventually fled, but vowed to come back and wreak vengeance upon her tormentors. As seen below, she fulfilled her vow to eviscerate them, and how.