The popular poem "Khoob ladi mardani woh to Jhansi wali rani thi" (Like a man she fought, she was the Rani of Jhansi) was written by:

Correct — B, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan. The line quoted is the refrain of her poem 'Jhansi ki Rani', probably the most widely recited Hindi poem of the twentieth century and one that generations have learnt by heart in school. Chauhan, born at Nihalpur near Prayagraj on 16 August 1904 and killed in a road accident on 15 February 1948, wrote in a plain, ballad-like Hindi built on the rhythms of folk song, and that choice is deliberate: the poem is meant to be chanted rather than studied, and its stanzas march through the Rani's life and end at her death in battle in 1858. Chauhan was also a nationalist who courted arrest in Gandhi's movements and served in the Central Provinces legislature, so the subject was not a literary exercise for her. The style separates her sharply from the other three names offered. She belongs to the same generation as the Chhayavad poets and is often listed beside them, but the war ballad is her own territory, and it is what the question is pointing at.

• (a)Mahadevi Varma — The most tempting wrong answer, because she is the other great Hindi woman poet of the same generation and the two were at the Crosthwaite Girls' School in Prayagraj together, Chauhan the senior of the two. But Mahadevi Varma is the leading woman voice of Chhayavad, writing inward, mystical lyrics of longing, and she won the Jnanpith for Yama — a different register altogether from a marching ballad.
• (c)Amrita Pritam — A Punjabi poet and novelist of the next generation, remembered above all for 'Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu', her lament over the violence of Partition, and for the novel Pinjar. She wrote in Punjabi, not Hindi, and her great subject is 1947, not 1857.
• (d)Balamani Amma — A Malayalam poet of Kerala, celebrated for verse on motherhood and often called the grandmother of Malayalam poetry; she was the mother of the writer Kamala Das. Neither the language nor the subject matter fits the quoted line.

Lakshmibai, Rani of Jhansi, was widowed in 1853, saw her adopted son's succession refused under Dalhousie's doctrine of lapse and her state annexed, took command of Jhansi in the revolt of 1857, and died fighting near Gwalior in June 1858. Her afterlife in verse and story has been as important as her campaign. Chauhan's poem, written in the 1920s, turned her into the emblem of the freedom struggle for a mass readership; Subhas Chandra Bose later named the women's regiment of the Indian National Army the Rani of Jhansi Regiment.

Questions of this shape are answered by matching a poet to a language and a mood rather than by recalling authorship directly. Of the four names, one wrote Punjabi, one Malayalam, and two wrote Hindi in the same decades — so the real choice is between Subhadra Kumari Chauhan and Mahadevi Varma, and there the deciding fact is register. Chhayavad, the romantic and symbolist movement Mahadevi belongs to, is inward and image-laden; Chauhan wrote outward, public verse in the metre of a folk ballad. A line about fighting like a man belongs to the second. It is worth carrying one anchor work for each of the four names, since the examiner rotates them: 'Jhansi ki Rani' for Chauhan, Yama for Mahadevi Varma, 'Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu' for Amrita Pritam, and the poems on motherhood for Balamani Amma.

• Subhadra Kumari Chauhan lived from 16 August 1904 to 15 February 1948 and wrote in Hindi; 'Jhansi ki Rani' is her best-known poem.
• The poem's refrain, 'Khoob ladi mardani woh to Jhansi wali rani thi', has made it one of the most recited poems in Hindi.
• She joined the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1921, was the first woman satyagrahi to court arrest at Nagpur, was jailed in 1923 and again in 1942, and later sat in the legislative assembly of the Central Provinces.
• The quoted line is the second half of a couplet repeated at the end of every stanza, the first half being 'Bundele harbolon ke munh humne suni kahani thi' — we heard the story from the mouths of the Bundela bards.
• Mahadevi Varma, her contemporary and schoolfellow, is the leading woman poet of Chhayavad and won the Jnanpith Award for Yama.
• Rani Lakshmibai lost Jhansi to the doctrine of lapse after 1853, led its defence in 1857 and died in battle near Gwalior in 1858; the INA's women's regiment was later named after her.

• Choosing Mahadevi Varma because both are Hindi women poets of the same years; the ballad register is the tell.
• Assuming a poem about 1857 must have been written in the nineteenth century — this one dates from the 1920s and belongs to the freedom struggle.
• Attaching Amrita Pritam to any patriotic poem; her defining work is about Partition and is written in Punjabi.

Usually as author-of-a-named-work, sometimes reversed into 'which work is by X', and occasionally through the Jnanpith and Sahitya Akademi award lists.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Hindi poet, a leading voice of Chhayavad, received the Jnanpith Award for the collection Yama?

  • (a)Subhadra Kumari Chauhan
  • (b)Mahadevi Varma
  • (c)Amrita Pritam
  • (d)Sumitranandan Pant

  Answer(b) Mahadevi Varma — she was awarded the Jnanpith for Yama, and she is the woman poet most closely identified with Chhayavad.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi died in battle in 1858 near which city?

  • (a)Kanpur
  • (b)Lucknow
  • (c)Gwalior
  • (d)Kalpi

  Answer(c) Gwalior — after abandoning Jhansi she fought on in Bundelkhand and was killed near Gwalior in June 1858.