The Bandit Queens – Parini Shroff (2023)

Longlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize The Bandit Queens was on my radar to read from when I first heard about it. I was delighted therefore when my book group selected it as our June book. I was looking forward to it, so I read it a few weeks earlier than I needed to. I wasn’t disappointed. 

What I was impressed with particularly is how Parini Shroff balances a thoroughly entertaining novel with a clear sighted view of the realities of rural Indian life in general but for women in particular. The narrative zips along, is funny and enormously compelling, yet beneath the surface is a much darker reality. This reality is woven in with a fairly light touch, so nothing is too brutal or upsetting. She doesn’t shy away from showing a world in which young girls and women go to the latrines early in the morning or late in the evening to lessen the risk of getting raped. A world where male violence is almost accepted as part of life, where a double standard of male and female behaviour exists and always has, and where the old caste rules around Dalit people still apply, and dowaries fought over and argued about for years. 

Geeta lives in a rural village in India, five years earlier her husband Ramesh ran off, she has no idea where he is  – but the village gossip has it that she killed him. Now Geeta is seen as a wicked woman, a sort of witch-like figure, people frighten their children with tales of, and the other women are acquaintances rather than friends. One woman in particular hates Geeta – Saloni, who we soon learn used to be Geeta’s best friend. The two had grown up together, gone to school together, Geeta’s family had often fed the young Saloni whose family were very poor. 

“Why aren’t we ever the oppressing assholes? Why is everything a reaction for us?” “Because,” Saloni said. “Women were built to endure the rules men make.” “But don’t we get to make choices, too?”

Having been almost like sisters for years the two fell out spectacularly around the time Geeta married Ramesh – and things have been daggers drawn ever since. Geeta and Saloni are both part of a women’s loan group with several other village women. The loans help Geeta run her jewellery business – everyone buys from her, not wanting to upset a murderer and witch – rumour can sometimes be useful – though she has no idea where her reputation will lead her.

Geeta is inspired in life by the real life bandit queen, Phoolan Devi, a woman who took revenge on her male abusers before becoming a women’s activist and member of Parliament. Yet when Farah, one of just two muslim’s living in the village, comes to Geeta asking her to help her, do to her husband what Geeta did to Ramesh she is definitely not prepared. Farah has ways of getting what she wants and Geeta is soon embroiled in a plan she has no wish to be involved in. Where Farah starts, others follow – she isn’t the only woman who decides they would rather be a widow. 

Geeta’s exploits allow her to get to know Karem, the other muslim in the village, seller of alcohol, a widower with four children.  Sometimes it is surprising where we find friendship – and even possible romance. Karem is a lovely man, kind and intelligent and Geeta enjoys talking to him. 

“Yeah, sure, parental love is primitive, but the love that commits to the sacrifices, that puts their happiness and needs over mine, that does it daily on repeat—that’s a choice.” He squinted in the way Geeta now knew he did while thinking. Words came faster to him when he closed his eyes. “It’s a choice I make. It’s important, for me at least, to recognize that, because when you don’t, resentment creeps in.”

One of Geeta’s biggest problems is that she didn’t actually kill Ramesh, but everyone thinks she did. If the authorities start to look at the recent deaths in her village, then she really needs to be able to prove that he is alive. A thaw between Geeta and Saloni begins and Geeta is reminded of their old friendship – Saloni is one person who she can trust no matter how matters stand with them personally. One of the strongest themes in this novel is that of female solidarity, standing shoulder to shoulder with other women for the good of women. 

This was a perfect read for my book group – I can’t wait to discuss it with them. There are so many things for us to get our teeth into especially given its strong feminist narrative.