Famous Queens and Women Rulers of India: Exam Notes

Indian history has a long line of women who ruled in their own right or held power as regents, and competitive papers ask about them again and again, usually as a queen matched with her kingdom, her period or the enemy she fought. These notes gather the names an aspirant must know, from Naganika and Rudramadevi of the ancient and early medieval Deccan to Razia Sultan at Delhi, Ahilyabai Holkar at Maheshwar and the three queens of the struggle against the British: Kittur Chennamma, Lakshmibai of Jhansi and Begum Hazrat Mahal of Awadh.

Queens of ancient and early medieval India

The earliest women rulers appear in inscriptions rather than chronicles. Naganika, the wife of the Satavahana king Satakarni I, is known from the Naneghat inscription, which records her sacrifices and suggests that she governed on behalf of her young sons. Prabhavatigupta, the daughter of Chandragupta II of the Gupta dynasty, married into the Vakataka house and ruled the Vakataka kingdom as regent for her sons, so that Gupta influence spread into the Deccan through her. Gautami Balashri, the mother of the Satavahana ruler Gautamiputra Satakarni, is remembered for the Nasik Prasasti, the inscription that lists her son victories. In Kashmir, Queen Didda of the Lohara line ruled from about 980 to 1003 and is described in Kalhana Rajatarangini, the chronicle of the kings of Kashmir. In the Deccan, Rudramadevi of the Kakatiya dynasty of Warangal ruled in the second half of the thirteenth century; she was the daughter of Ganapatideva, carried on the administration in her own name and was succeeded by her grandson Prataparudra II.

Razia Sultan, the only woman on the throne of Delhi

Razia, the daughter of Iltutmish of the Slave or Mamluk dynasty, is the only woman ever to sit on the throne of Delhi. Iltutmish himself nominated her over his surviving sons, and she ruled from 1236 to 1240 with the title Jalalat-ud-din. She gave up the veil, appeared in the court and the field in male attire, and tried to build a party of her own against the group of Turkish nobles known as the Chahalgani, or the Forty, whom her father had raised. Their opposition, and the revolt of the governor of Bhatinda, Malik Altunia, whom she later married, brought her down; she was defeated and killed in 1240. Minhaj-i-Siraj, who wrote the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri in her own century, praised her ability and said only that she was a woman, which examiners quote as the summary of her reign.

Queens against the Mughals, the Portuguese and the Nizams

Rani Durgavati ruled the Gond kingdom of Garha-Katanga in Gondwana and died fighting the Mughal army of Asaf Khan, Akbar general, in 1564; she is remembered for choosing death on the field over surrender. Chand Bibi, the daughter of Hussain Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar, acted as regent of both Bijapur and Ahmadnagar and led the defence of Ahmadnagar fort against the Mughal siege of 1595. Rani Abbakka Chowta of Ullal, in the Tulunadu coast of present Karnataka, resisted Portuguese attempts to control the pepper trade in the sixteenth century and is often called the first woman freedom fighter of the coast. Keladi Chennamma of the Keladi or Ikkeri kingdom of Karnataka sheltered Rajaram, the son of Shivaji, when he was pursued by Aurangzeb forces. Tarabai, the widow of Rajaram and the daughter-in-law of Shivaji, took charge of the Maratha state after her husband death in 1700 and led the resistance to Aurangzeb for seven years in the name of her son Shivaji II, later founding the Kolhapur line. Rani Mangammal governed Madurai as regent for her grandson at the end of the seventeenth century and is remembered for roads, tanks and temple endowments.

Ahilyabai Holkar, the builder queen

Ahilyabai Holkar ruled the Holkar state of Indore from 1767 to 1795 and moved her capital to Maheshwar on the Narmada. She is known less for war than for administration and building: the Kashi Vishwanath temple at Varanasi was rebuilt at her expense in 1780, and she endowed ghats, wells, rest houses and temples at Somnath, Gaya, Ujjain, Dwarka and Rameswaram. Her reign is the standard example in papers of good governance by a woman ruler, and she is often described as a philosopher queen.

Queens of the struggle against the British

Rani Velu Nachiyar of Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu recovered her kingdom from the forces of the East India Company in 1780 with the help of Hyder Ali and is called Veeramangai, the brave woman. Rani Chennamma of Kittur in Karnataka took up arms in 1824 when the Company refused to recognise her adopted son as heir, and she is counted among the earliest rulers to fight the British in the field. Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, born Manikarnika at Varanasi in 1828, was married to Gangadhar Rao of Jhansi; when he died, Lord Dalhousie refused to accept their adopted son Damodar Rao and annexed Jhansi in 1854 under the Doctrine of Lapse. She led the defence of Jhansi in the revolt of 1857, joined Tantia Tope, took Gwalior and fell in battle at Kotah-ki-Serai near Gwalior in June 1858; the poem Jhansi ki Rani by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan fixed her place in popular memory. Begum Hazrat Mahal, a wife of Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh, led the revolt at Lucknow, proclaimed her young son Birjis Qadr the ruler of Awadh, refused the amnesty of 1858 and died in exile in Kathmandu. Rani Avantibai of Ramgarh in present Madhya Pradesh fought the Company troops in 1857, and in the twentieth century Rani Gaidinliu of the Naga hills led a movement against colonial rule and was imprisoned for fourteen years.

Women who held power without the throne

A second group wielded authority without ruling in name. Nur Jahan, the wife of Jahangir, was the only Mughal empress whose name appeared on the coinage along with the emperor, and farmans carried her seal; her family, with her father Itimad-ud-Daulah and her brother Asaf Khan, dominated the court. Jijabai, the mother of Shivaji, shaped the Maratha state in its first years, and Maham Anga guided the early years of Akbar reign. Papers often set these names against the queens who actually ruled, so keep the distinction clear.