HOLY SPIRIT OF INDIA ! = ACT 1 - SCENE 2 = MANIKARNIKA ! BRAVE RIDER & WARRIOR QUEEN ! FIGHTING FOR DIGNITY & JUSTICE AGAINST BRITISH RULE IN INDIA !

I composed this new original film in honor of a great warrior lady in India’s rich history, who came to be known as : Manikarnika !

What a woman ! Any real man would have loved to have her as his spouse, or his sister, or his mother, or his daughter; or among his ancestors or future descendants yet to be born …

In the almost 150 years since she belatedly committed herself to the revolt known as the Indian Mutiny, Manikarnika - whose real name at birth was Lakshmi Bai, the beautiful and mighty Rani Hindu queen of Jhansi -, has been the only leader in India’s history to be described in positive terms by her adversaries !

True, some reviled her as a villainess, a Jezebel, and more so a Joan of Arc.

But others admired her as a mighty warrior queen.

Indian nationalists of the early 20th century were less divided in venerating her as an early symbol of resistance to British empire’s tyrannical rule, which cost the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians and cast their country into poverty for over 150 years; out of which India in modern times is finally beginning to emerge from, especially under the guidance of its recent prime ministers.

Concerning Manikarnika, the future Rani was at first born to a high-caste, prominent Brahmin family in Benares (now Varanasi) in northern India on November 19, 1827.

Formally named Manikarnika, she was affectionately called “Manu” by her parents.

Alas, her mother, Bhagirathi, died when Manikarnika was but 4 years old.

Under the care of her father, Moropant Tambe, Manikarnika’s education included horsemanship, fencing, archery, hunting, close combat self-defense, and shooting.

In 1842, the strong and beautiful Manikarnika became the second wife of Gangadhar Rao Niwalkar, the childless Raja of Jhansi, a principality in Bundelkhand, who deeply fell in love with her.

Renamed Lakshmi Bai, the young Rani Hindu Queen bore them one son in 1851, but sadly he died four months later.

In 1853, following a serious illness, Gangadhar Rao adopted a distant cousin named Damodar Rao as his son.

Similarly, Gangadhar, and the brother who had preceded him on the throne, were also adopted heirs.

The adoption papers and a will naming the 5-year-old boy as Rao’s heir, and the Rani Hindu Queen, Manikarnika, as regent, were presented to a Major Ellis, who was serving as an assistant British political agent at Jhansi on November 20, 1853.

Gangadhar Rao died the following day.

Ellis forwarded the information to his superior, Major John Malcolm, a Scottish soldier, and the East India company representative in charge of the region, then controlled by Britain’s East India Company.

Ellis was sympathetic to the Rani’s claims, and even Malcolm, who did not support her regency, described the young widow in a letter to India’s Governor-General, James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie, as « a woman highly respected and esteemed, and I believe fully capable of doing justice to such a charge. »

Under Lord Dalhousie, the British government had adopted an aggressive policy of annexing Indian states.

Charges of mismanagement often offered an excuse for further oppression and repression.

Another justification, applied with increasing frequency after 1848, was the Doctrine of Lapse, which placed any sovereign Indian state as a vassal state under British rule through the East India Company.

The British already exercised their self-appointed right to recognize the monarchical succession in Indian states that were dependent upon them.

As a corollary, Lord Dalhousie claimed that if the adoption of an heir to the throne was not ratified by the government, the state would pass by « lapse » to the British.

In spite of the Rani’s arguments for the legality of the adoption, and Ellis’ favorable statements on her behalf, Lord Dalhousie refused to acknowledge Damodar Rao as Gangadhar Rao’s heir.

Consequently, the new British superintendent, Captain Alexander Skene, took control of Jhansi under the Doctrine of Lapse without opposition at first.

The Rani Manikarnika, was allowed to keep the town palace as a personal residence, and received an annual pension of 5,000 rupees, from which she was expected to pay her husband’s debts.

The young regent, Damodar Rao, inherited the Raja’s personal estate; but he was unfairly granted neither his kingdom, nor his title.

On December 3, Lakshmi Bai submitted a letter contesting the Doctrine of Lapse, with Ellis’ approval, but Major John Malcolm did not forward it.

So the Rani Manikarnika submitted a second appeal on February 16, 1854.

After a consultation with British counsel John Lang, during which she declared « Mera Jhansi nahim dengee » ( I will not give up and betray my Jhansi people ), Manikarnika submitted yet another petition on April 22; and she repeatedly continued to resubmit petitions until early 1856.

All her appeals were rejected.

Meanwhile, discontent had been building among the Indian soldiers - known as Sepoys - within the British East India Company’s army.

The General Services Enlistment Act of 1856 required all recruits to go overseas if ordered, an act that would cause a Hindu to lose his caste.

Rumors began to spread that the cartridges for the newly issued Enfield rifles were greased with either cow or pig fat, regarded as abominations by the Hindu or Muslim Sepoys, who would tear them open with their teeth.

Assurances that the cartridges were in fact greased with beeswax and vegetable oil were not as effective as rumors of a systematic British effort to undermine the Sepoys’ faith, and make it easier for the missionary British priests to convert them over to Christianity.

In Meerut on May 9, 1857, 85 Sepoys who refused to use the Enfield cartridges were tried, tortured and put in irons.

The next day three regiments stormed the jail, killed the officers and their families, and marched on Delhi, 50 miles away.

This incident started what became known as « The Indian Mutiny ! »

Thousands of Indians outside the army had grievances of their own against the oppressive and repressive, unjust and cruel, tyrannical British rule.

Reforms against the practice of Suttee ( the act of a widow throwing herself onto her husband’s funeral pyre ), and marriage permitting widows to remarry, as well allowing converts from Hinduism to inherit family property, were seen as attacks on Hindu religious law.

Furthermore, land reform in Bengal, further benefiting the British empire, had displaced many landholders. Violence soon spread through north and central India as leaders, whose power had been threatened by the British, took charge and transformed the mutiny into organized resistance.

On June 6, 1857, troops of Jhansi mutinied, shot their commanding officers and occupied the Star Fort, where the garrison’s treasury and munition magazine were stored.

The city’s European populace took refuge in the fort under the direction of Captain Skene. The fort was well designed to withstand a siege: It included an internal water supply, but food was limited, and about half of the 66 Europeans were women and children.

On June 8, Captain Skene led the British out of the fort, but they were massacred.

On June 12, 1857, the mutineers left Jhansi for Delhi.

Given Lakshmi Bai’s long-standing grievances against the government, the British were quick to blame the rising in Jhansi on her. But evidence of her involvement was thin.

Captain Skene’s deputies and personal servants reported that when the British asked the Rani for assistance, she refused to have anything to do with the « British swine. »

A Eurasian clerk’s wife, who claimed to have escaped from the fort with her children, reported that the Rani had promised the British safe conduct.

Her testimony has since been thoroughly debunked by a prominent Indian historian, in his thoughtful study titled « 1857 ». But the idea that she had betrayed the community inflamed British imaginations.

Lakshmi Bai herself sent an account of the massacre to Major Walter Erskine, the commissioner at Sagar and Narbudda, on June 12, 1857, as such :

… the govt. forces, stationed at jhansi, thro’ their faithless, cruelty, and violence, killed all the european civil and military officers, the clerks and all their families, and the ranee not being able to assist them for want of guns, and soldiers as she had only 100 or 50 people engaged in guarding her house she could render them no aid, which she very much regrets.

… that they, the mutineers, afterwards behaved with much violence against herself and her servants, and extorted a great deal of money from her.

… that her dependence was entirely on the british authorities who met with such a misfortune the sepoys knowing her to be quite helpless sent messages to the effect that if she, at all hesitated to comply with their requests, they would blow up her palace with canon guns.

… taking into consideration her position she was obliged to consent to all the requests made and put up with a great deal of annoyance, and had to pay large sums in property as well as cash to save her life and honour.

… knowing that no british officers had been spared in the whole district, she was, in consideration of the welfare and protection of the people, and the district, induced to address perwannahs to all the govt. subordinate agency in the shape of police, etc., to remain at their posts and perform their duties as usual, she is in continual dread of her life and that of the inhabitants.

… It was proper that the report of all this should have been made immediately, but the disaffected allowed her no opportunity for so doing. As they have this day proceeded towards delhi, she loses no time in writing …

In a subsequent letter, the Rani reported that there was anarchy, and she even asked for orders from the British.

Erskine forwarded both letters to Calcutta, with a note from himself saying that her account agreed with what he knew from other sources. And he authorized the Rani to manage the district, until he could send soldiers to restore order.

Faced with attacks by both neighboring principalities and a distant claimant to the throne of Jhansi, Lakshmi Bai recruited an army, strengthened the city’s defenses and formed alliances with the rebel Rajas of neighboring Banpur and Shargarh.

Her new recruits included mutineers from the Jhansi garrison.

The positive assessment of local British officials was not enough to overcome the British belief in Calcutta that Lakshmi Bai was responsible for the mutiny and the massacre.

Her subsequent efforts to defend Jhansi confirmed their beliefs.

In January 1858, Major General Sir Hugh Rose marched toward the city.

As late as February, the Rani told her advisers that she would return the district to the British when they arrived.

On March 25, 1958, General Rose laid siege to Jhansi.

Threatened with execution if captured by the British, Lakshmi Bai resisted.

In spite of a vigorous defense, however, by March 30, most of the Rani’s guns had been disabled and the fort’s walls breached.

On April 3, the British broke into the city, took the palace and stormed the fort.

The night before the final assault, Lakshmi Bai lashed her 10-year-old adopted son to her back and, with four followers, escaped from the fortress.

Her father was less fortunate. He was captured and summarily hanged by the British, who sacked Jhansi for the next three days.

After riding some 93 miles in 24 hours, Lakshmi Bai and her small retinue reached the fortress of Kalpi, where they joined three resistance leaders, who had become infamous in British eyes for the atrocity at Cawnpore :

Nana Sahib, Rao Sahib & Tatia Tope.

The rebel army met the British at Koonch on May 6, 1958, but was forced to retreat to Kalpi, where it was defeated again on May 22-23.

A statue in Solapur, India, depicts Manikarnika's legendary escape from British soldiers, as they torched her city in retaliation for her assumed role in the Indian mutiny, which many agree was yet another false flag, in typical style of the British empire.

On May 30, 1958, the retreating rebels reached Gwalior, which controlled both India’s major thoroughfare, the integral Grand Trunk Road, and the telegraph lines between Agra and Bombay.

Jayaji Rao Scindhia, the MahaRaja ( grand ruler ) of Gwalior, who had remained loyal to the British, tried to stop the insurgents, but his troops went over to their side on June 1, forcing him to flee to Agra.

On June 16, 1958, General Rose’s military armed forces closed in on Gwalior. At the request of the other rebel leaders, Lakshmi Bai led what remained of her Jhansi contingent out to stop them.

On the second day of the fighting at Kotah-ki-Serai, the Rani, dressed in male attire, was shot from her horse and killed, and perished in a blaze of fire.

Gwalior fell soon after, and organized resistance collapsed.

Resistance leaders Rao Sahib and Tatia Tope continued to lead guerrilla attacks against the British, until they were captured and executed.

Nana Sahib mysteriously disappeared, and became a source of legend.

British newspapers maliciously proclaimed Lakshmi Bai the « Jezebel of India. »

But Sir Hugh Rose compared his fallen adversary instead to : « Joan of Arc! »

Reporting her death to William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, Sir Rose said :

« The Rani is remarkable for her bravery, cleverness, and perseverance. Her generosity to her subordinates was unbounded. These qualities, combined with her rank, rendered her the most dangerous of all the rebel leaders. »

In modern India, Lakshmi Bai - Manikarnika - is regarded as a national heroine.

Statues of her stand guard over Jhansi and Gwalior.

Her story has been told in ballads, novels, movies and the Indian equivalent of Classics Illustrated Comics.

Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi even appeared as Lakshmi Bai in a political commercial in the 1980s.

« Although she was a lady, » Sir Rose wrote, « Manikarnika was the bravest and best military leader of the rebels. A mighty woman among the mutineering men. »

His praise is echoed in the most popular of the folk songs about her : « How well like a man fought the Rani of Jhansi! How valiantly and how brave ! »

It is to her memory that I dedicate this new film composition on her life and values.

Sincerely,

Teri'irere Ito'arai
Film Composer

The Holy Spirit of India !

FAIR USE - Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976

This is a non-profit video that I personally composed solely for the purpose of study, review, research, self-expression, experimental analysis, creative research, humorous contrasting, cultural and educational arts and sciences synthesis; and basically for the love of artistic creativity itself, without any intention for any commercial uses whatsoever - and fully and absolutely for non-profit public display.

This video is for educational purposes only; and is offered freely, with my respect and love for the people and culture of India, to the public worldwide.

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Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, or personal use, thankfully tips the balance in favor of fair use, thus promoting both the original work and other possible creative derivatives.

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The original film production images and original music melodies in this film remain the property and copyright of its rightful owner, or owners.

I claim no ownership whatsoever on any of the materials I have used in creating this new audio-visual composition, except those that are my own to improve the state-of-the-art, and that I offer freely to the public worldwide.

Long Live India !

Sincerely,

Teri’irere Ito’arai
Film composer

The Holy Spirit of India !