Kittur Chennamma, who passed away on 21 February 1829,
was an Indian revolutionary, freedom fighter and Rani of the Kittur, a former
princely state in Karnataka. She led an armed force against the British East
India Company in 1824 in defiance of the doctrine of lapse in an attempt to
maintain Indian control over the region, but was defeated in the third war and
died imprisoned. The one of the first female rulers to rebel against British
rule, she has become a folk hero in Karnataka and symbol of the independence
movement in India.
