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"That movie transfixed me and changed my life," said the co-chair of the Hawaii Black History Committee, Tom Mountain, speaking of "Bandit Queen," the 1994 film biography of Phoolan Devi that will be screened tonight at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. ‘Bandit Queen’ tracks
rebel leader’s lifePhoolan Devi became a member
of India's Parliament before
she was shot to deathBy Scott Vogel
svogel@starbulletin.comPart of a program devoted to International Women's Day, "Bandit Queen" takes as its subject one of the more controversial women of our time and one whose saga didn't end with the film: Devi -- rebel leader, bandit, symbol of India's brutal caste system -- who was shot to death in front of her New Delhi home just eight months ago.
Unraveling the mystery of Devi's death may pose as difficult a challenge for future biographers as that of Devi's life, and it's worth noting that the subject herself once repudiated "Bandit Queen," although Mountain claims that "her criticisms of the film were made in the early days."
"Later on, she came to realize that the film is what made her famous internationally, and she came to be more supportive of (it)."
Ironically, the event on which her fame rests is one of the most disputed aspects of "Bandit Queen" -- the 1981 massacre of 22 men in the village of Behmei by a rebel band led by a woman who may or may not have been Devi.
"She denied that she was there," Mountain said. "She said it was another band of dacoits (bandits) that did it."
Presented by: The Hawaii Black History Committee and the Ambedkar Journal 'Bandit Queen'
When: 7:30 p.m. today, with question-and-answer session to follow
Where: Art Auditorium, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Cost: $6; $4 students
Call: 239-8112
Still, Devi could not deny that she'd had reason to exact revenge on the village. It was there that, in August 1980, she was captured by a rival gang and raped repeatedly by faceless strangers.
Every night for three weeks.
Throughout her life, Devi refused to speak about her period of torture, but others began speaking for her, the subsequent massacre initially framed as an act of female revenge, and then later as emblematic of the struggles of India's Dalit (Untouchable) caste.
"In some ways she's an example of the typical (Dalit) woman that's been abused -- child marriage at the age of 11, abused by her husband, abused by the men of the village, abused by the police, abused by the system. And yet, not only did she survive but she rose above it all and ended up in Parliament."
As an introduction to Devi's improbable rise, Shekhar Kapur's "Bandit Queen" is certainly a fascinating primer, the film opening with Devi's father selling his child into marriage (in exchange for a cow) and continuing through the 11-year prison term she received for leading the massacre, and on into Devi's election to India's Parliament as a champion of the oppressed.
Inaccuracies aside, the film has drawn praise for focusing world attention on the horrific crimes perpetrated against some Indian women, crimes that Mountain asserts are still occurring at epidemic levels.
"Last year in New Delhi," he said, "over 3,000 cases of bride-burning were reported, which is where women, whose families could not pay the entire dowry in marriage, were continually extorted by their husbands' families to the point where they couldn't pay, and they threw kerosene on the wife and burned her to death.
"If you divorce a woman, you have to give back her dowry. If she dies, you can marry and get a new dowry. What they claimed was that kerosene stoves blew up and killed the women.
"There were over 3,000 cases of exploding kerosene stoves last year in New Delhi alone."
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