The Mutiny of the Heroine Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, 1800s. Rani Lakshmi Bai was a widow of Raja Gangadhar Rao, the Maharaja of Jhansi, whose state had been annexed by the British. On June 10, 1857, following a massacre of Europeans by local Indian troops, she was proclaimed ruler. One of the first freedom fighters, she resisted the British and was killed in June 1858. She later became a legendary mutiny heroine and an icon for the Indian independence movement. In this image she wears a British crown and has her sword raised.