Always outspoken against the patriarchy, in 1974 at age 11 Phoolan Devi is considered a trouble-maker. She is married off and sent several hundred miles away from her home in Ghura Ka Purwa, India. By age 17 she escapes her abusive husband and joins a gang of dacoits. She eventually forms her own gang and carries out Robinhood-type crimes.

In 1981, she survives an attack by rivals who beat, rape, and leave her for dead. She seeks revenge by executing her attackers in what comes to be known as the Behmai Massacre, and she is forced to go on the lam. But now she’s become a heroic outlaw figure of sorts—the underdog, the Bandit Queen— and she is protected by the lower castes. To many poor and brutalized women, Phoolan is a hero.

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