Princely State of Jhansi

A small Indian princely state annexed on a legal technicality, whose widowed ruler became the most enduring figure of the 1857 rebellion. Jhansi was a Maratha principality in what is now Uttar Pradesh. When its ruler died in 1853 without a natural son, the East India Company applied the doctrine of lapse - a policy under which the Company refused to recognise adopted heirs and absorbed the state instead - and took it, despite the fact that adoption was entirely normal in Hindu law and the succession would have been unremarkable. His widow Lakshmibai, then in her twenties, protested through the courts and through London and was refused, and was left a pension and a palace. When the rebellion broke out in 1857 the British garrison at Jhansi was massacred after surrendering, an event her role in which is still disputed. She took control of the state and defended it. The British stormed Jhansi in 1858; she escaped, joined the rebel leader Tantia Tope, took the fortress of Gwalior, and was killed in the fighting there in June 1858, reportedly in male dress and on horseback. She was around thirty. The British commander who defeated her described her as the most dangerous of the rebel leaders. Doctrine of lapse annexations were a major grievance behind the rebellion. The Company was abolished the same year and the Crown took over. She is a national figure in India today. The state covered part of the Bundelkhand region. Jhansi fort still stands above the town. The rebellion of 1857 is known in India as the first war of independence. Lakshmibai has been the subject of films, poems and a regiment named after her.

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