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Defence Minister Rajnath Singh unveiled a statue of Rani Avantibai Lodhi in Lucknow on 30 August 2026, with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath present.
Singh linked the valour of the 1857 warrior queens to the role of women pilots and soldiers in Operation Sindoor, describing it as the Nari Shakti of a new India.
Rani Avantibai Lodhi (1831-1858) was the queen-regent of the estate of Ramgarh, in present-day Dindori and Mandla districts of Madhya Pradesh.
She expelled the British administrators imposed on Ramgarh through the Court of Wards and defeated Deputy Commissioner Waddington at the Battle of Kheri near Mandla in 1857.
Surrounded by British forces at Sukhi-Talaiya, she took her own life on 20 March 1858 rather than be captured, and is remembered among India's Veeranganas alongside Rani Lakshmibai, Rani Durgavati and Jhalkari Bai.
Born at Mankehdi village in Seoni district, in a Lodhi family, to Zamindar Rao Jujhar Singh
Assumes charge of Ramgarh as queen-regent after her husband's illness; the British place the estate under the Court of Wards and appoint Sarbarahkars
Expels the British administrators; sends glass bangles with letters to neighbouring rulers and zamindars, calling on them to fight or be counted as unmanly, and allies with the Gond ruler Raja Shankar Shah
Leads about 4,000 troops at the Battle of Kheri near Mandla and defeats the force under British Deputy Commissioner Waddington
British forces counter-attack Ramgarh with help from the ruler of Rewa; she withdraws to the forested hills of Devhargarh and fights a guerrilla campaign
Encircled at Sukhi-Talaiya between Balapur and Ramgarh, she takes her own life with her sword rather than surrender
India Post issues a commemorative postage stamp in her honour; a second stamp follows on 19 September 2001
Avantibai is grouped with Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, Begum Hazrat Mahal of Awadh and Jhalkari Bai among the women leaders of the rebellion, and with Rani Durgavati, the 16th-century Gond queen of Garha-Mandla who fought Akbar's forces in the same region three centuries earlier.
The Gond ruler of the Garha-Mandla line who joined her coalition against the British in 1857 and was executed with his son Raghunath Shah at Jabalpur. Their revolt is the tribal strand of 1857 in central India, distinct from the sepoy mutiny in the north.
The Court of Wards took over administration of an estate whose heir was a minor or held incapable, keeping the title intact; the Doctrine of Lapse, applied by Dalhousie at Satara, Jhansi, Nagpur and elsewhere, extinguished the state itself. Ramgarh is a Court of Wards case, which examiners use to test the difference.
Two postage stamps have been issued in her memory, on 20 March 1988 and 19 September 2001, and a part of the Bargi dam project on the Narmada near Jabalpur is named the Rani Avanti Bai Lodhi Sagar Project.
GS Paper I > Modern Indian History: the Revolt of 1857 and its leaders and centres
General Awareness > Indian History: 1857 personalities
General Awareness > Modern Indian History
General Knowledge > Indian History and defence-related current affairs
A woman warrior; the term used for the women who led armed resistance in 1857
A colonial institution that took over the administration of an estate whose holder was a minor or considered incapable of managing it
An external supervisor or manager appointed by the British to run an estate placed under the Court of Wards
The region of eastern Madhya Pradesh around Jabalpur, Mandla and Dindori where Ramgarh lay
Dalhousie's policy of annexing princely states whose rulers died without a natural heir - distinct from the Court of Wards