The British East India Company arrived in India in 1608, and over the course of the next 150 years insidiously took control of the region. Some Indian rulers cooperated, some fled, and some resisted. One leader, Velu Nachiyar, not only encouraged her people to rise up against British control, she took up arms against them herself.
As described in a 2021 article in the “Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry,” after her husband was killed by the British in 1772, Nachiyar fled – but she returned with an army. She put together a fighting force without regard for the caste system or gender. Having women soldiers was unusual, but it would prove vital to the success of her rebellion. In 1780, Nachiyar planned a deadly ambush. Her female soldiers got into the British fort by posing as local women who wanted to pray at the temple. Once inside, one woman, who is believed to have been Nachiyar’s adopted daughter, set herself on fire and leaped into the British ammunition stores, killing herself and doing incredible damage. In the chaos, the rest of Nachiyar’s forces struck, allowing Nachiyar herself to enter the battle herself, taking the fort by force.
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Not only did Nachiyar recapture her kingdom, she was able to hold it. She ruled for a full decade and was able to leave her kingdom to her daughter, making her one of the few Indian rulers to reclaim their kingdoms from the British, and the first Indian woman to rebel against the East India Company.
[Featured image by N.K.BALA via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]
