The history of the freedom struggle of 1857-59 in Jhansi, Bundelkhand, and the adjoining territories developed to a greater extent around the adventurous exploits and heroic deeds of Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi and other patriots of that region. As the fountainhead of superb courage and unfailing resolution, Rani inspired the people of the whole Bundelkhand with its adjacent territories to action and infused life in them to rise against the British rulers. Her furious and emphatic retort “Mera Jhansi Nahi Doongi” (I will not give my Jhansi) to Lang John, when he visited her in 1854, appeared to have become a watch-word for her followers and to have urged them on to defy tooth and nail the supremacy of the Britishers.
Lalai was one of the five known soldiers of Rani Lakshmi of Jhansi who were brought to the Andaman Penal Settlement as convicts in 1858. He was sentenced for transportation for life imprisonment in Andamans. The other four soldiers were Itu Patel, Honaji, Sadashiv Narayan Parulkar, and Devi Prasad. In the Andaman Islands these freedom fighters were engaged as convicts in various hard works such as swamp filling, forest clearing, earth cutting, and other miscellaneous tasks to eventually get Free Ticket.
The descendants of the freedom fighters are living in the Andamans in anonymity before many, but they were invited by the local administration on different auspicious occasions.
Name of Lalai appeared in the official Newspaper “Dweep Samachar” dated 23 March 2006, published by Andaman and Nicobar Administration, Port Blair.