Phoolan Devi's controversial legacy still alive
Opinion divided over bandit queen who became MP
Kanpur: A huge coloured photograph of Phoolan Devi, the outlaw-turned-MP who was shot dead 11 years ago in New Delhi, adorns the wall of the first floor office of a shoe showroom.
"She was my Behenji [elder sister]. I will always remember and respect her," said Mohammad Asim, 44, owner of the showroom in Harjinder Nagar locality, who is also an independent candidate from Maharajpur constituency of Kanpur district in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls that will see voting today.
Asim came into contact with Phoolan soon after she entered politics and joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the mid-1990s.
"I always felt she was a person from the lower caste who was severely wronged and persecuted. Her violent actions may have been a reaction," Asim said.
A number of other politicians and former colleagues of Phoolan still praise her.
Phoolan's gang of dacoits (bandits) earned notoriety for shooting dead 22 men, mostly upper caste Thakurs, in Behmai village about 60km from Kanpur, in 1981. Phoolan, belonging to the low caste Mallah community of boatmen — was barely 18 years old then.
Her supporters claim Phoolan ordered her gang members to go on the shooting spree to take revenge on the upper caste men who had gang-raped her.
Not all agree.
Local lawyer Vijay Narain Singh Sengar has been pleading the cases for the Behmai widows and victims for several years.
"There is a halo built around Phoolan by the media and some politicians. That is not the truth," Sengar said.
Though Phoolan is dead — she was killed in 2001 at the age of 38 — Sengar said he was still pursuing the cases against her other gang members with the Supreme Court's permission.
However, in adjoining Mirzapur, from where Phoolan was elected MP twice many people still have words of praise for her.
