Lakshmibai

Life and beginnings

Lakshmibai, Rani of Jhansi, was born Manikarnika Tambe into a Marathi family in Varanasi. The biography says British sources tended to place the birth in 1827 and Indian sources in 1835. Tapti Roy and Rudrangshu Mukherjee argue that 1835 is implausible and place the birth between 1828 and 1830. Little before 1857 is certain, because nobody needed a record of an ordinary girl. Childhood lessons in fencing and firearms are in the popular stories, and the biography marks them as uncorroborated. The guide says she flouted norms and learned fencing and shooting young. That sentence is the guide’s certainty. The biography keeps the same skills inside legend.^{[1] [4]}

She married Gangadhar Rao, raja of Jhansi. Indian sources date the wedding to May 1842. She took the name Lakshmi and was known as Rani Lakshmibai. The biography says she was queen consort from 1843 to 1853. A son born in 1851 died within months. On his deathbed Gangadhar Rao adopted a five-year-old relative, renamed Damodar Rao, and died on 21 November 1853. Two days before that death he asked the East India Company to recognize the boy and the rani as regent.^[1]

Defining achievements

The Doctrine of Lapse was the Company’s annexation policy, associated with Lord Dalhousie, for princely states whose Hindu rulers died without a natural heir. The policy page says it was applied until 1858. Jhansi had been ceded to the Company in 1817. After Gangadhar Rao’s death the Company refused the adoption and annexed the state. Lakshmibai protested in a letter of 16 February 1854. Dalhousie answered that the Company, having conquered the Marathas, was the paramount power. Jhansi lapsed in May 1854. She was pensioned, told to leave the fort, and allowed to keep a palace. The guide’s “direct rule” is this annexation, not a later statute of the Crown.^{[1] [2] [4]}

The Indian Rebellion began on 10 May 1857 as a sepoy mutiny at Meerut. At Jhansi the garrison rose in early June. On 8 June the British who had surrendered were killed at Jokhan Bagh. The biography says her part in that killing was and remains contested. She wrote that she had been at the mutineers’ mercy. She then proclaimed herself ruler, held Jhansi against Orchha and Datia, and recruited troops. Major General Hugh Rose attacked and took Jhansi in March and April 1858. She escaped on horseback, was defeated with other rebel leaders at Kalpi on 22 May, and died in battle at Gwalior Fort on 18 June 1858. The rebellion page dates the rebels’ defeat at Gwalior to 20 June 1858. This essay does not merge the two days into one death.^{[1] [3]}

Legacy and interpretation

After the war her name was tied to Indian nationalism. The biography says the legend, shaped by Hindu mythology, was useful because it could be retold widely, that the independence movement treated her as a heroine, and that Dalit communities have tended to view her negatively. The guide says she remains a symbol of defiance. Both sentences are judgments about memory. Neither is the letter of 16 February 1854.^{[1] [4]}

The published Great Britain essay is the empire and the Company, not these appeals and not the ride out of Jhansi. No published Mughal essay is her court. Jhansi had been under Maratha overlords; the biography’s point is that Dalhousie treated the Company as paramount after the Maratha defeat. This essay does not send the reader to an earlier empire as if it were her state. There is no published Jhansi civilization.^[1]

A closer look

The ability, Rani of Jhansi, increases influence toward incorporating a city-state, gives control of that city-state’s units when the action is taken, and grants influence when a land military unit defeats an enemy unit, scaled to that unit’s combat strength. Her military support, where the pages are clear, is the army she raised after the mutiny and the escape from Rose’s siege. Incorporating a city-state is a rule. It is not the Doctrine of Lapse, which took a state away from her. The agenda, Eternal Glory, changes relationships by who has the lowest influence per turn and who has the highest. Influence on a diplomacy screen is not the pension of five thousand rupees a month.^{[1] [4]}

The Chinese page titles her with its own spelling and names the ability and the agenda in its own words. One sentence of that agenda uses a character that is not the ordinary word for “lowest.” This essay follows the English comparison and the page title, and it does not promote the stray character into a second rule. The English page states the Right to Rule Collection DLC bundle in the body. The Chinese unlock sentence, as retrieved, does not name the collection; the footnote does, and it says that owning the collection or the Founders Edition means the content is already owned. There is one leader entry. Manikarnika and Lakshmibai are a birth name and a married name, not two personas.^{[4] [5]}

In Civilization VII

The English guide names the ability Rani of Jhansi and the agenda Eternal Glory. The simplified Chinese guide names the same slots in its own words. Attributes on both pages are diplomatic and militaristic. The English page places her in the paid Right to Rule Collection. That is a DLC statement. Yields are not copied. There is no second persona.^{[4] [5]}

The first step back from the ability is to keep the disputed birth, the annexation of May 1854, the contested massacre of 8 June 1857, the fall of Jhansi in the spring of 1858, and the death on 18 June 1858 apart from a city-state action. The published Great Britain essay is the empire around the Company. It is not her correspondence with Dalhousie.^{[1] [2] [4]}