Seema Parihar: The Dacoit Queen

Seema Parihar is a former bandit and politician from India. She was a Samajwadi Party member and Phoolan Devi was her inspiration. This is the story of her politics and her bravery.

Lady Don, Seema Parihar Source: https://images.app.goo.gl/ufTboTeenN6YxKpCA

We often have heard heart-wrenching stories about women and the exploitation meted out to them. However, it is also very important to look at examples where women have responded to structural violence by reclaiming the political sphere to voice their opinions. One such story is of Seema Parihar. Her bravery and audacity earned her the reputation of a fierce bandit Queen, similar to Phoolan Devi. In 2010, she became a public figure as well as a Bigg Boss contestant.

She was born in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to a poor family in Auraiya and was 13 years old when she was kidnapped from Bawin village in Pradesh by Dacoits Lalaram and Kusmanian in 1983. Three years later, she married Dacoit Nirbhay Singh Gujjar. Shortly, Seema followed in the footsteps of her husband and became a dacoit.

Parihar rose to become the leader of her gang, engaging in looting, kidnapping, and murder in the jungle and areas surrounding the Chambal River. She murdered 70 people, kidnapped 200 others, and looted 30 homes during her career. She moved to Uttar Pradesh in June 2000, after spending 18 years as a dacoit. She turned herself in. She was imprisoned and faced 29 charges, including eight counts of murder and six counts of kidnapping.

However, her Robin Hood-style justification of her actions earned her a reputation of awe rather than fear. She stated in August 2001 that she had received an offer from a political party.

While discussing the life of Seema Parihar, it is of paramount importance to discuss her political presence and the ways in which she reclaimed the oppression and used her conviction to rise up the political hierarchy.

Parihar supported Shiv Sena in the 2002 Uttar Pradesh legislative elections. She joined the Indian Justice Party in November 2006 and ran in the 2007 Mirzapur Badhi Lok Sabha by-election. She joined the Lok Janshakti party in January 2008 and the Samajwadi party in October of the same year. By October 2008, she had been acquitted of 15 of the criminal charges brought against her and had been released on bail on the remaining 14 charges. Parihar was appointed to lead the women's arm of the National Anti-Corruption Council, a non-profit anti-corruption organisation, in 2011. From these political affiliations and achievements, her political clout and popularity knew no bounds over the years as she rose further up in the political paradigm.

Seema Parihar broke away from the shackles of patriarchalist tyranny and gender violence. She was able to make the rightful use of violence to rise against the structural oppression she was exposed to in a misogynist society. While her morality and ethics are usually in question by the makers of our polity, it is evident that all the backlash against Parihar is nothing but a nasty attempt at protecting the dignity of the masculine. Her rage, conviction, and fervent passion to fight against discrimination, historical persecution, and maltreatment have become a driving force for millions of women around misogynists and male troublemakers.