The Guardian and BBC ran excellent features today on the Gulabi Gang - hundreds of pink-clad rural Indian women who use sticks and hatchets to fight injustice, vigilante-style.
From the Guardian:
Gulabi means pink, and refers to the electric shade of the uniform worn by the 500-plus members, who hail from Banda’s arid villages. The women have become folk heroes, winning public support for a series of Robin Hood-style operations. Their most daring exploit was to hijack trucks laden with food meant for the poor that was being taken to be sold for profit at the market by corrupt officials.
The targets of the Gulabi Gang’s vigilantism are corrupt officials and violent husbands. The gang has stopped child marriages, forced police officers to register cases of domestic violence - by slapping them - and got roads built by dragging the official responsible from his desk on to the dust track in question.
The group’s founder and leader is Sampat Devi Pal, a fascinating woman who has grown to personify the struggle for women’s rights in a society that still largely denies them. Married at 12 and pregnant at 15, she knows what she’s fighting for.
When I meet her, she is demonstrating self-defence moves with a stick. “We always carry them but only for protection,” she explains, twisting the weapon high over her head and thwacking it hard against her opponent’s.
Although Indira Gandhi spent 15 years as the country’s prime minister, women in rural India are usually relegated to minor - if any - public roles. While I was there, I spent most of my time away from the big cities of Delhi, Bangalore and Bombay, and in the smaller towns and cities, women were hugely outnumbered - at least in public. Still, Sampat Devi Pal’s exploits are not entirely unprecedented, and as the Guardian piece mentions, she has some Indians recalling Phoolan Devi, the “Bandit Queen” (pictured left) who became a legend for robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. Though there’s a lot of debate about just how many of her victims were actually rich, (and exactly how much of the spoils went to the poor), she was hugely popular and even won a seat in Parliament despite her involvement in all kinds of robberies and murders.
For those of you wondering why I’m so entranced by this part of the world, the never-ending supply of incredible stories like this one is a big part of it.
3 responses so far ↓
1 maya // Feb 15, 2008 at 3:40 pm
This is wonderful! i don’t really condone the violent element, but i do admire individuals from the most marginalized and neglected part of society forming an effective, conscious collective of justice!
2 B // Feb 15, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I agree with Maya. I’m not thrilled about the violent element, but I suppose when the Law is lax “vigilante” takes on a different meaning. Still I somehow feel it might be hard for the local law enforcement to turn a blind eye… especially with all that hot pink.
3 addy // Feb 15, 2008 at 9:39 pm
this is awesome !!!
sometimes a violent element is warranted…sometimes it’s the only solution left, for revolutionizing an ingrained thoughtform ….sometimes it’s the only way to bring home a point to the wrongdoers that have been “validated” by “success” for centuries .
i salute these very courageous, self-sacrificing Warriors ..and i hope their movement spreads to all the cultures which oppress women and children.
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