Angry In Pink
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- jcamille
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In rural India, a group of women calling themselves the Gulabi Gang are using vigilante justice to make their voices heard in a man’s world.
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On a broiling afternoon in Atarra, India, a throng of nearly two dozen women, all nattily uniformed in candy-pink saris, gather beneath the cool shade of a gnarled banyan tree. They listen raptly as a sinewy but robust woman—whom they hail as “commander”—stands in the middle of the group, delivering what seems like a military briefing. “If your husband beats you for stepping out of the house, you firmly tell him you are not his slave,” she thunders, her face beet-red. “You tell him that he should sit at home and take care of the kids.” All heads nod in agreement.
The “commander” is Sampat Pal, a 46-year-old woman with an eighth-grade education who heads an all-female, pink-sari-clad vigilante group that seeks to strike fear into the hearts of “wrongdoers.” Pal started the Gulabi Gang (in Hindi, gulabi means pink) three years ago to confront those who continuously commit grave social injustices against the poor, particularly women. At first a localized group in the village of Banda, an impoverished and lawless district in the rural interiors of Uttar Pradesh, the Gang has since grown to include thousands of women across 600 villages, all of whom informally joined up and communicate through wordof- mouth, showing up whenever and wherever they hear their presence is needed. In the past two years, these women have gone after wife-beaters and rapists with lathis (traditional Indian bamboo batons used by Indian police to scare off crowds), taken up cudgels (heavy sticks) against corrupt law enforcement, and, in this overlooked rural landscape where bureaucracy only makes life more difficult, have even goaded apathetic government officials into action by publicly shaming them...(continued at link).
Another links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7068875.stm
In rural India, a group of women calling themselves the Gulabi Gang are using vigilante justice to make their voices heard in a man’s world.
.
.
.
On a broiling afternoon in Atarra, India, a throng of nearly two dozen women, all nattily uniformed in candy-pink saris, gather beneath the cool shade of a gnarled banyan tree. They listen raptly as a sinewy but robust woman—whom they hail as “commander”—stands in the middle of the group, delivering what seems like a military briefing. “If your husband beats you for stepping out of the house, you firmly tell him you are not his slave,” she thunders, her face beet-red. “You tell him that he should sit at home and take care of the kids.” All heads nod in agreement.
The “commander” is Sampat Pal, a 46-year-old woman with an eighth-grade education who heads an all-female, pink-sari-clad vigilante group that seeks to strike fear into the hearts of “wrongdoers.” Pal started the Gulabi Gang (in Hindi, gulabi means pink) three years ago to confront those who continuously commit grave social injustices against the poor, particularly women. At first a localized group in the village of Banda, an impoverished and lawless district in the rural interiors of Uttar Pradesh, the Gang has since grown to include thousands of women across 600 villages, all of whom informally joined up and communicate through wordof- mouth, showing up whenever and wherever they hear their presence is needed. In the past two years, these women have gone after wife-beaters and rapists with lathis (traditional Indian bamboo batons used by Indian police to scare off crowds), taken up cudgels (heavy sticks) against corrupt law enforcement, and, in this overlooked rural landscape where bureaucracy only makes life more difficult, have even goaded apathetic government officials into action by publicly shaming them...(continued at link).
Another links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7068875.stm
