Pink Gang of India

[tankgirl]

I looked, but didn't see this story, it came through my Facebook and thought I would share.

The Gulabi Gang is an extraordinary women’s movement formed in 2006 by Sampat Pal Devi in the Banda District of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India. This region is one of the poorest districts in the country and is marked by a deeply patriarchal culture, rigid caste divisions, female illiteracy, domestic violence, child labour, child marraiges and dowry demands. The women’s group is popularly known as Gulabi or ‘Pink’ Gang because the members wear bright pink saris and wield bamboo sticks. Sampat says, “We are not a gang in the usual sense of the term, we are a gang for justice.â€

http://www.gulabigang.in/

[Artemis]

Ok I checked out the website, and some supporting information. They are an interesting bunch.

It's difficult to know what to think.

On the one hand, many of them are Dalit caste, have a really rough deal, and have had lives of terrible deprivation. They are determined that they will empower themselves and other women - read some of their stories and weep. They campaign against child marriage - the founder of the group was married at 12 - dowry system, rape and violence against women.

On the other they are extremely violent themselves, and have gotten into trouble with the law. Their way of dealing with violent husbands, brothers, sons etc, is to visit in force and try reasonable persuasion first. If that doesn't work, they beat the man up.

They suspected a corrupt official of diverting Red Card (issued to people below the official poverty level) grain. (Many of them are on Red Card: when so much of India is poor, how poor do you have to be to be 'below the official poverty level.'? They watched, watched him try to take the consignments, and then beat him up as a punishment

Can violence ever be justified? I want to think it is never justified. I do not believe it is the answer.

Why is it that part of me looks at them with their pink saris, and their bamboo staves, and reads their stories, and looks at the pain that shows in their faces and has been part of their lives, and thinks - you know what? Would anything else work? In your situation, in your country, with your social standing, is there any other way of being listened to for you?

ETA

This is the sort of thing they protest.

[bekkah]

They are a quite interesting group. In my sociology class in India, we had a discussion. The professor viewed them as brave because the caste system is alive and well. Sometimes violence is needed because it gets in the papers. Women being beaten are rarely in the papers, if it happens to a man it gets in the papers. It gets people talking and that is the important thing.

[tankgirl]

I posted this because I was having some of the same internal debates. I really dislike the use of violence in any circumstance, but then this circumstance appears and I am really at a lose. The leader of this group is doing amazing things, working to impower women with jobs, and businesses that will help these women for a long time and help so many others, then you have the violence. I think this is one of those times were I am so far out of the culture I just can't even image what they deal with daily. It breaks my heart they have to go to this extreme, but I wonder like you if women are so far down the ladder that this is the only choice. :(

[pixydust]

I posted this because I was having some of the same internal debates. I really dislike the use of violence in any circumstance, but then this circumstance appears and I am really at a lose. The leader of this group is doing amazing things, working to impower women with jobs, and businesses that will help these women for a long time and help so many others, then you have the violence. I think this is one of those times were I am so far out of the culture I just can't even image what they deal with daily. It breaks my heart they have to go to this extreme, but I wonder like you if women are so far down the ladder that this is the only choice. :(

I think that this is it. If I lived in a place where girls and women were being raped, beaten, forced into marriage as children (so forced into being raped ), and murdered and no one, not the government, the police, or families did anything about it...I think that beating the shit out of the freaks who committed these crimes would be my answer, too.

I will admit that as a child/teen/young adult I had some pretty violent fantasies about killing my mom's then-husband for molesting and raping me as a child/young teen. When all of your power is taken away and someone violates you, I don't think that it is uncommon to want to stop them from doing it again or to someone else. These women are doing it on a greater scale.