Word: devis
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Rape victim. Marauder. Murderer. Superstar! Phoolan Devi, an outcast Hindu woman, became a folk hero as head of a band of outlaws preying on India's corrupt alite. Part Joan of Arc, part Ma Barker, on Feb. 14, 1981, she staged her own St. Valentine's Day massacre, leading the slaughter of 22 villagers she suspected of aiding her enemies. Yet her surrender, in 1983, was on her own terms, to the cheers of 10,000 supporters. On her release from prison last year, three political parties asked her to run for office...
Part Joan of Arc, part Ma Barker, Phoolan Devi in the early 1980's became a folk hero as head of a band of outlaws preying on India's corrupt elite. Her movie bio, saysTIME's Richard Corliss, "has an Indian heart but a Hollywood pulse; an assaultive experience, blistering with ripe obscenities, the frontal nudity of its star and three stark scenes in which Phoolan is raped --- enough to have the film banned 10 times over in a country where a bare shoulder can send the censors frothing." "Bandit Queen" was indeed banned in India, but for what director...
When Kuchchi Devi, 24, and her husband Dhanraj, 26, used to walk together to the well for a bath, the villagers of Saton Dharampur would sigh at the grace of this "pair of swans," as they were called. He was tall and handsome. She was lovely, with smooth skin and sloping eyes. The local landlord, Arjun Singh, noticed Kuchchi's beauty too. One day last month he approached her as she cut wheat in his fields and offered her two bullocks and other favors if she would sleep with him. Dhanraj angrily told Singh to leave his wife alone. That...
...Fatehpur district of Uttar Pradesh, the constituency of Prime Minister V.P. Singh, and the landlord is a Thakur, a member of the same upper caste as the nation's leader. Eager to embarrass the Prime Minister, the opposition Congress (I) Party has turned the plight of Kuchchi Devi into the country's leading cause celebre...
...their loss, Kuchchi Devi, who is four months pregnant, and her in-laws have been granted $2,743 by the government. Prime Minister Singh has promised that the "sternest action" will be taken against the guilty parties. But his assertion has been greeted with skepticism, given the strong links between the Establishment and upper-caste landlords. Indeed, one of the accused, Raju Singh, was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering a priest in 1986 but was released because of his high connections. Kuchchi Devi lamented last week that she was weary of having her tragedy exploited by politicians. Said...