Rani Durgavati: Gender, Sovereignty, and Resistance in 16th-Century Gondwana

Abstract

This research paper has examined the political leadership and gendered aspects of power in the case of Rani Durgavati in early modern India. She was the first female ruler of the kingdom of Gondwana as a regent between 1550 and 1564, which was a pivotal time of Akbar consolidating the Mughal territory. The clash between her and Mughal army under Asaf Khan I ended her life in 1564, a fact which has been commemorated since that time as a heroic opposition. Although the classic accounts focus on her martyrdom, this paper revisits her reign in the context of the larger arguments on regional autonomy, empire and feminist power.  The combination of political history with gender historiography shows in this paper that Rani Durgavati was a leader who disrupted the normative view that early modern politics and war belonged solely to men. Her internal reforms, army structure and unwillingness to give in to the imperial authority indicate not just local opposition, but an important claim to female sovereignty in a male-dominated political system. The paper also looks at how the historical narrative has been created about her in historical writing and contemporary commemoration to place her as a historical monarch and a historical agent of women.