Forgot your password?
India's 'pink' vigilante women
Source: BBC NEWS, November 26, 2007
The several hundred vigilante women of India's northern Uttar Pradesh state's Banda area proudly call themselves the "gulabi gang" (pink gang) striking fear in the hearts of wrongdoers and earning the grudging respect of officials.
They wear pink saris, the traditional Indian dress for women, go after corrupt officials and boorish men, and brandish sticks and axes when the push comes to shove. The pink women of Banda shun political parties and NGOs because, in the words of their feisty leader, Sampat Pal Devi, "they are always looking for kickbacks when they offer to fund us".
The pink women have thrashed men who have abandoned or beaten their wives and unearthed corruption in the distribution of food grains for the poor. They have also stormed a police station and thrashed a policeman after they took in an untouchable man and refused to register a case.
"Nobody comes to our help in these parts. The officials and the police are corrupt and anti-poor. So sometimes we have to take the law in our hands. At other times, we prefer to shame the wrongdoers," says Sampat Pal Devi, between teaching a "gang" member on how to use a lathi (traditional Indian stick) in self-defense. Women bear the brunt of poverty and discrimination in Banda's highly caste-ridden, feudalistic and male dominated society. Dowry demands, domestic and sexual violence are common.
"Village society in India is loaded against women. It refuses to educate them, marries them off too early, and barters them for money. Village women need to study and become independent to sort it out themselves," she says.
Banda is at the heart of the blighted region that is Bundelkhand. It is one of the poorest 200 districts in India, which were first targeted for the federal government's massive jobs for work program. Over 20% of its 1.6 million people living in 600 villages are lower castes or untouchables. Drought has parched its already arid, single-crop lands.
