The Unsung Shakti of Bharat's First People's Resistance

Dedicated to the Spirit of Swarajya and the Forgotten Warrior Queens of Bharat, Rani Shiromani led the 1799 Chuar rebellion, uniting tribal peasants in Bengal’s forests to resist British oppression—India’s earliest grassroots freedom struggle.

- SIDDHARTHA DAVE & PALLAB MONDAL

WHEN THE SOIL SPOKE BEFORE THE SEPOYS

Before 1857. Before Jhansi. Before Mangal Pandey fired the symbolic shot. The red soil of Bengal had already birthed an uprising.

It was neither organized by princely elites nor dictated by educated revolutionaries in urban salons. This was a rebellion from the grassroots, from the forests and farmlands, from the womb of a civilization that refused to kneel. And it had a woman at its helm.

Her name was Rani Shiromani—Queen of Karnagarh, a Sadgop ruler, and an extraordinary embodiment of resistance from Bengal's rugged Jungle Mahals. In 1799, she led one of the most potent yet forgotten sangrams against the British East India Company—the Chuar Sangram, rallying tribal peasants in an armed assertion of sovereignty. That she did this in an age when women rarely participated for a cause, let alone warfare, makes her one of India's first female revolutionaries and the earliest known political prisoner.

A QUEEN FROM THE MARGINS: BORN OF THE PEOPLE

Born around 1728 CE into a noble Sadgop family in Bengal, Shiromani was married to Raja Ajit Singh of the Karnagarh estate in Midnapore (now in Paschim Medinipur district, West Bengal). The Sadgops, traditionally associated with agrarian duties, had gradually ascended to positions of regional power, balancing martial duties with their roots in land and community.

After Raja Ajit Singh's death in 1753, the throne did not pass into oblivion. Instead, power rested with his two widows—Rani Bhawani and Rani Shiromani—who jointly administered the estate, an extraordinary feat for the time. Following Rani Bhawani's demise in 1760, Shiromani emerged as the singular ruler of Karnagarh. But she was more than just a regent; she was a Janani—mother to the masses, especially the tribal and peasant populations of the region.