Reimagining Her-Story: Feminist Resistance And Historical Subversion In Jaishree Misra’s Rani

Abstract

Historical fiction has increasingly emerged as an important literary space for recovering voices that have remained marginalised within official historical narratives. Jaishree Misra's Rani (2007) exemplifies this trend by offering a nuanced reinterpretation of the life of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, moving beyond the conventional nationalist portrayal of the queen as merely a fearless warrior. This study explores how Misra reconstructs the historical image of Lakshmibai through a feminist and postcolonial lens, foregrounding her emotional complexity, political consciousness, and individual agency. The paper examines the novel by employing the theoretical perspectives of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Judith Butler, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, together with the postcolonial insights of Homi K. Bhabha and Partha Chatterjee. Through qualitative textual analysis, the study investigates the ways in which the novel interrogates patriarchal historiography and colonial representations that have traditionally silenced or simplified women's contributions to history. Misra's blending of documented historical events with imaginative narration enables the recovery of a female subjectivity that has long remained absent from imperial and nationalist archives. The analysis demonstrates that Rani transforms Lakshmibai from a symbolic national heroine into a fully realised historical individual whose resistance is shaped by both personal experience and political commitment. By dissolving rigid binaries such as history and fiction, public and private, and masculinity and femininity, the novel expands the possibilities of historical representation. The study concludes that Rani is not merely a retelling of a familiar historical episode but a feminist intervention that reclaims women's narrative authority and redefines historical memory through the recovery of suppressed voices, thereby making a significant contribution to contemporary feminist historiography and postcolonial literary studies.