Sampat Pal Devi founded the Gulabi Association in 2006 as a means of defending Indian women from the abuse of violent men and to try to gain some semblance of equal rights. The group, which now has 20,000 members, was founded out of Devi’s life experience.
Rural Indian Women Enjoy Few Rights
Writing for Slate (“Wear a Pink Sari and Carry a Big Stick,” July 19, 2010) Amana Fontanella-Khan tells how Sampat Pal Devi “was married off at the age of 12 to an ice-cream vendor and had the first of her five children at 15.”
All around her, Devi saw the oppression that is the lot of hundreds of millions of women in India: beatings, rape, extreme poverty, and dowry killings. She decided to try to do something about this.
Gulabi Gang Formed
The women she recruited to her movement are Dalits, sometimes referred to as untouchables, who suffer from the worst discrimination in India.
Debesh Banerjee, writing for the Indian Express (“Think Pink,” September 15, 2010) says, “Devi and her group of women followers dressed in pink saris…have kept guard over fellow women, soon becoming an authority unto themselves, feared by local law enforcement authorities and revered by fellow women in her native village in Atarra.”
Tactics of Shame and Force
The women carry substantial sticks, called lathis, that are commonly used by Indian police to keep order among crowds.
The group’s website describes how they go about dealing with their boorish male targets:
“The members of the gang would accost male offenders and prevail upon them to see reason. The more serious offenders were publicly shamed when they refused to listen or relent. Sometimes the women resorted to their lathis, if the men resorted to use of force.”
Tackling India’s Social Issues
The Gulabi Gang has branched out from confronting those involved in domestic abuse, a problem the United Nations says affects two thirds of married Indian women, to tackle corruption and the denial of human rights.
Today, members may be involved in trying to ensure that grain is distributed fairly to those living in extreme poverty or in advocating for women without birth certificates who are denied pensions because they can’t prove their age.
In 2008, Devi took on an electricity utility that was refusing power to people who did not pay a bribe or come across with a sexual favour. Apparently, the employment of lathis brought about a change of policy.
Devi Ruffles a lot of Feathers
It goes without saying that Sampat Pal Devi has created a few enemies through her direct action campaign. Slate points out that Devi “has a long list of criminal charges against her, including unlawful assembly, rioting, attacking a government employee, and obstructing an officer in the discharge of duty, and she even had to go into hiding.”
BBC correspondent Soutik Biswas (“India’s ‘Pink’ Vigilante Women,” November 26, 2007) writes the Gulabi Gang shuns “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.’ ”
Devi and her group are the subject of a 2010 documentary by Kim Longinotto, called Pink Saris.
Rupert Taylor - Rupert Taylor is the editor of a magazine that provides background to current events.
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