Devi was from a low caste and became a dacoit, a member of a band of armed robbers, before entering into politics in later life.

Born on August 10 1963, to a lower-caste fisherman's family in a remote village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Phoolan Devi is remembered as a champion of the nation's poor.

Often referred to as "India's female Robinhood", she was also one of the most rebellious figures in the country's modern history.

Early Life: In the Ravines 

Devi has long been a subject of international fascination and there have been many accounts of her arduous life. She was notorious for her elusiveness and expertise in negotiating the ravines of Madhya Pradesh's Chambal River Valley, with a .315 Mauser slung over her shoulder, a dagger tucked into her belt and a munitions belt around on her chest.

Devi was from a low caste and became a dacoit, a member of a band of armed robbers, before entering into politics in later life.

The New Yorker's Mary Ann Weaver, a former foreign correspondent in India, described her as "less than five feet tall, with flat high cheekbones, a full flat nose, and slit eyes" addding that she was the "creation of the worst aspects of a monstrous social structure. . . and could lead a credible challenge against the caste system that has defined India since ancient times."   

Despite being banned by the Indian constitution in 1950, the three thousand years-old caste system continues in India to this day, discriminating against those born in the lower-caste. 

Time magazine, ranked Devi as the 4th in a list of 16 of History's Most Rebellious Women, ahead of the Black revolutionary, Angela Davis and Vilma Lucila Espín, a prominnent leader of the Cuban revolution.  

Devi was also known as "Dasyu Sundari" which translates as Beautiful Bandit, the Goddess of Flowers and the Bandit Queen.   

In a 1995 opinion piece for The Independent, the renowned Indian author Arundhati Roy, wrote an important piece on a film based on Phoolan Devi called the "Bandit Queen." The controversial film was loosely based on Devi's life but was filled with graphic scenes of sexual violence which deeply offended her. 

In Devi's own words, she said, the film made her feel like she was being exposed over and over. "I  was exposed once, but the film (Bandit Queen) exposed me several times."

"I am alive, something really tragic happened to me but that doesn't mean that someone should exploit it for their own business," Devi said in an interview to a local TV channel. 

Supporting Devi's stance, Roy said in her piece, "(The film) distorts and falsifies her life and invades her sexual privacy by showing her raped and re-raped even though she has never talked about this aspect of Phoolan Devi's life with her biographer Mala Sen, on whose book the film is supposed to be based."

Thousands of people gathered to watch Devi surrendering her weapons during an amnesty ceremony in 1983. The event took place two years after the infamous Behmai massacre where she had killed 22 'Thakurs', upper caste men on 14 February 1981. It also came to be known as the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre and was described as an act of vengeance by Devi who was gang raped in the same village several years earlier. 

According to the legend, when Devi sought revenge for the assualts which she was subjected to for three weeks, she was told by her dacoit companion, Vickram Mallah, "If you are going to kill, kill twenty, not just one. For if you kill twenty, your fame will spread; if you kill only one, they will hang you as a murderess." She was 25 years old when she killed the men.

As part of her negotiating a deal for surrendering, Devi was granted amnesty by the Madhya Pradesh government in  February 1983 and was given a jail sentence of 11 years despite having nearly thirty cases of kidnapping, dacoity, robbery, and a bounty of US$10,400 on her head.

Later years: Life Away From Ravines

Devi's defiant and unbending nature came to the surface during an interview with a local Indian TV channel, where she stated that despite the hardships endured in her life, including being raped, gang-raped multiple times, and seeing her loved ones die in front of her eyes, she never thought of giving up on life. 
"So many atrocities happened to me, but why should I die? I needed to teach a lesson to those who made me suffer, why should I die?" Devi questioned the interviewer. 

In February of 1994, when Devi was released from prison, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the then newly elected chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who like Devi also belonged to lowest caste, was one of the people who introduced her to the world of politics. 

In 1996, she stood for the eleventh Lok Sabha election for Samajwadi Party from Mirzapur area in Uttar Pradesh and won, after which she served as a member of parliament.

Devi became an icon who took justice into her own hands to avenge herself against the lower castes, and despite a gory trail, she emerged a strong heroic figure who campaigned for the "upliftment of women, the downtrodden, and the poor."

In her later years, she converted to a form of Buddhism and married an industrialist, living a lavish life in a South Delhi neighborhood. Devi named her house "Phoolan Palace" where she lived with her husband and a few family members. 

Despite escaping numerous attempts on life, 38-year-old Devi was assassinated by an upper caste man, Sher Singh Rana on 25 July of 2001. 

By killing Devi, Rana told the Indian press that he was avenging those killed in the Behmai massacre. But critics claim that he wanted to prove his allegiance to the upper caste members, "Thakurs" for political leverage.  

Her death was also linked to her rising political stature as Devi is known to have played a vital role in helping the lower-caste Samajwadi Party to win control of Uttar Pradesh in state elections the year she was killed. Others also suspected her death may have been an act of vengeance by the families of some of her own victims.

The myth of the legend still lingers, long past her death. 

"It would have been impossible for Phoolan to be anything but an Indian, and she is tailor-made for the Indian imagination: since ancient times we have had an inordinate capacity to make a myth out of any story, and to demythicize the most epic into the most mundane. Phoolan is a do-it-yourself goddess who can rapidly demonize," Sunil Sethi, an Indian critic, told The Atlantic.