RAS question
The 'Hadi Rani' story from Rajasthani folklore is about:
Correct answer: (C) A queen who sent her severed head as a war token to her husband so he would not feel attached and could fight bravely.
The Hadi Rani story in Rajasthani folklore is about a Rajput queen who sent her severed head as a war token to Rawat Ratan Singh so that attachment to her would not weaken his resolve in battle.
Explanation
Hadi Rani was the newly married queen of Rawat Ratan Singh, a Chundawat chieftain associated with Salumbar and Mewar. When he was called to war, the story says he hesitated because of his attachment to his new wife and asked her for a memento before leaving. Hadi Rani answered that hesitation with an extreme act of sacrifice: she severed her head and sent it to him as the requested token. The point of the episode is not military conquest or royal marriage, but the Rajput ideal that personal attachment must give way to honour, duty, and courage in war. That is why option C captures the folklore correctly.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) The story centres on Hadi Rani's self-sacrifice to harden her husband's resolve, not on a queen conquering a kingdom.
- (B) The cited account links Hadi Rani to Rawat Ratan Singh of Mewar, not to a marriage with a Mughal emperor.
- (D) Hadi Rani is remembered in this folklore for sacrifice and martial duty, not as a folk goddess connected with rain.
Concept
This tests Rajasthan's folk traditions and Rajput heroic-sacrifice motifs, a recurring RAS area because culture questions often ask what a story, ballad, or local memory symbolises. Hadi Rani is a standard example of how folklore encodes honour, duty, and sacrifice in Rajasthan's historical imagination.