The Empress Behind the Veil: A Study of Rani Jindan in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Last Queen

Historical narratives, often constructed through a patriarchal lens, have systematically obscured the agency and power of women, relegating them to the margins. This paper seeks to rectify this erasure by examining Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Last Queen (2021), a novel that reclaims the complex life of Rani Jindan. This study analyzes Jindan’s strategic deployment of power, alongside her assertion of physical desires, to dismantle the patriarchal construct of women as ‘docile bodies.’ By meticulously retracing key moments in Jindan’s life, the research demonstrates how she not only resisted dominant power structures but also actively acquired and wielded power, thereby offering a nuanced perspective on the interplay between female agency and historical subjugation. This analysis contributes to a broader understanding of how literary representations can reclaim and re-evaluate the historical significance of women who defied societal constraints.