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Ahalya Bai (1725?-1795) was the widowed daughter-in-law of Malhar Rao Holkar, the Maratha founder of the Indore ruling family. After his death in 1766, she ruled the Holkar state in southwest Malwa for nearly three decades. John Malcom (A Memoir of Central India, 1824) described her success in the internal administration of her domains as "altogether wonderful" and observed that "she certainly appears, within her limited sphere, to have been one of the purest and most exemplary rulers that ever existed." Her subjects enjoyed peace and increasing prosperity, and her name is honored in Indore to the present time. Following the two-year reign of her successor, a period of chaos and confusion ensued, lasting until the imposition of British power in 1818.