Recently Major Surendra Poonia shared the story of a braveheart Rampyari Chauhan on twitter who is said to have defeated and repulsed Taimur-i-lang with her army of 40,000 women from Ahir, Rajput, Jat, Gujjar communities. The problem with this feat 7 centuries back, is that it was neither recorded by Turk (Muslim) chroniclers nor Hindu (Rajput) chroniclers. In fact, it was not even heard of, until recently.
Similarly, there are stories and whatsapp forwards being circulated about Kirandevi Rathore who took a dagger and ambushed Akbar, even threatening him. Both Mughal Court chronicles and Rajput Chronicles maintain silence about this. As per the whatsapp forward, Kirandevi is daughter of Maharana Pratap’s brother Shakti Singh and wife of Prithviraj Rathore of Bikaner. There is another glitch here, Prithviraj Rathore was married to a Bhati lady from Jaisalmer and often women among Rajputs carried their paternal clan-name even after marriage.
A third legend involves 16-year old Shivdevi Tomar and 14 year old Jaidevi Tomar of Baraut who allegedly fought the British and nearly made Baraut independent. This suffers from a similar handicap. It is neither recorded by the British nor Indian sources. Venkaiah Naidu even wrote glorifying the two sisters on RSTV but failed to give sources. The Gazetteers that are filled with information on revolutionaries against the British, don’t even talk about Shivdevi and Jaidevi. The Muslim Chronicles that are filled with Rathore and Chauhan resistances neither talk about Kirandevi Rathore nor Rampyari Chauhan.
On slight digging, we find that the origin of all these three fables is Manoshi Sinha’s “Saffron Swords”, published in 2019. Further, when we open her book to know references for the above stories, we find no contemporary evidence. Instead we find references to Wikipedia Books.
We must steer clear promoting unsubstantiated stories that make a fool of the Hindu society and real Hindu heroes. We need to study Rao Bikaji Rathore, Rao Chandrasen Rathore and Durgadas Rathore. The youth must be taught about Emperors like Vigrahraj IV Chauhan than taking flimsy pride on a fictitious Rampyari Chauhan. People must be taught about Jethpal Tomar, who founded Pathankot, Raja Mansingh Tomar or Raja Ramshah Tomar instead of Shivdevi and Jaidevi who didn’t exist.
If it is about celebrating women heroines, then there were plenty actual women warriors like Rani Jhansi, Naikidevi Chandel, Jhalkara Bai, Rani Karnavati Panwar Garhwali. Therefore why invent fictional figures, when we have real ones?