Rani of Jhansi

Born Manikarnika Tambe into a Marathi family in Varanasi in the late 1820s or 1835, she married the raja of Jhansi young and took the name Rani Lakshmibai. When their son died and her husband adopted a relative on his deathbed in 1853, the British East India Company refused to recognise the succession and annexed Jhansi under the Doctrine of Lapse, ignoring her protests to Lord Dalhousie. After Indian troops mutinied and massacred the British in Jhansi in May 1857 — her role in the massacre contested then and now — she took command, recruited an army, and held off neighbouring states. The Brit…