Kittur Ki Rani

Getting the hint from her name itself, Rani Chennamma hailed from Kittur, Karnataka. This was also a reason why she was called as Kittur Rani Chennamma. This queen of India played a big role in starting the revolution of making women stand up to power.

Portrait of Rani Chennamma when she hadn’t yet taken over the throne. ; Source : Navbharat India

She was among the very first women from all over India who rose to power and stood up against the British East India Company. India was under the governance of the Britishers for more than 100 years. In order to make the Britishers leave India, a lot of revolts and revolutions were instigated all over the country. However, most were led by men, with minimum involvement from the women of the country due to patriarchal double standards.

Rani Chennamma, at the age of just 15 years old, was married into the princely state of Kittur. She was married to Maharaja Mallasarja Desai. As marriages at that young age were the norm of that time, Rani Chennamma was happy with the fate she had received. However, in a matter of no time at, did that fate of happiness turn into tragedy and sorrow.

This is when Chenamma’s husband took his last breath, leaving her and her son the kingdom he was ruling. Having born a son, he was destined to take over the kingdom very soon. However, perhaps Chennamma’s unfortunate event in life had not ended there.

It wasn’t just months later that her son and the future prince of Kittur was also known to be on his deathbed, soon to leave the world. This left Chennamma as heartbroken as ever. However she was not the one to give up very easily.

She adopted a son after her birth son died in order to give Kittur an heir and a ruler. However, Chennamma’s problems weren’t solved there, and her adopted son wasn’t certainly the answer to any of them. This was because of the policy of the doctrine of lapse, which had been long followed. It meant that if the heir to the kingdom was not a true one, that if he was not born from the queen of the city or by the wife of the king, he would not be eligible to be the heir or the ruler of the kingdom under any circumstances. According to the doctrine of Lapse, it wasn’t legal or advisable for any kingdom to have an adopted son as their heir. It was under those circumstances that the kingdom would be surpassed to the Britishers.

Hence, Chennamma’s move of adopting a son and making him the heir apparently didn’t achieve the success that it was thought to bring. This left no choice in Rani’s hands and further, she had to take over the throne of Kittur.

India being under British Raj, did not support kingdoms being ruled by women at any cost and hence it was established on the inside that Kittur would be taken under British rule since it had no legitimate ruler.

Rani Chennamma, as soon as she got to know of this decision of the Britishers, and being as strong-headed and talented as she was, led out an army and fought a war against the British army for a total of 12 days.

Our queen won the first half of the battle where she took two British soldiers and kept them captive. Surrendering to the queen, the British officials were then released on agreeing to the terms of leaving Kittur alone and letting the queen rule the kingdom as she wanted to.

However, this wasn’t the fate that Rani Chennamma and her soldiers met. The whole Kittur army was deceived by the British and Rani was imprisoned. It was then that Rani Chennamma too took her last breath really soon after she was held captive and left for her heavenly abode.

Being as brave and dynamic as she was, Rani Chennamma started a whole new revolution of standing up to the Britishers being a woman of India. Even though she couldn’t see the Britishers leave the country with her own eyes, her hands were one of the first ones to show them the way to leaving the country.

Statue of Kittur Rani Chennamma with her fighting pose. ; Source : Flickr