Female Taliban ? : Armed and gulabi in Bundelkhand

Comments : While Indians cry for the abla nAri, here is a "gang" of women who go around with Lathis and probably more.... threatening people with their numbers.

See how this report and reporter try to justify the goondaism displayed by the women, portraying them as the affected group..and so espousing violence and high handedness

Isn't this how the Taliban grew ?



Expressbuzz

Saturday, April 03, 2010 1:30 PM IST

Armed and gulabi in Bundelkhand

Asha Menon

First Published : 21 Mar 2010 12:28:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 21 Mar 2010 03:05:45 AM IST


Sampat Pal has a song for everything. Here’s one why there is a need for a band of armed women —- named the Gulabi gang — in the heart of her country.

Jeet chunao laate hain toh Tata Sumo laate hain/Tata Sumo laate hain phir AC mein so jaatein hain/ mazdoor sadak mein sote hain/ yeh neta ghar mein sotein hain/ bhaiya janta ki majboori hain/ gulabi gang zaroori hain/ yeh gaon gaon mein jayenge behenon ko samjhayenge/ gulabi gang banayenge phir netan ko maar bhagaayenge.

(They (politicians) win the election and buy Tata Sumos,/ they have Tata Sumos and sleep soundly in air conditioned rooms./ Workers who toil sleep on the streets,/ while these leaders sleep snug in their homes./ Brother, the people are helpless,/ Gulabi Gang must come to be./ We’ll go to the villages, make our sisters understand,/ we’ll strengthen the gang and drive away these netas)

Sampat is a feisty, rough-edged and attractive woman from Bundelkhand — a region with a medieval hangover, now shared by the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. She sings to bring and keep women together, but her more dramatic achievement is a group of women -– clad in pink saris and armed with laathis. Called the Gulabi Gang or the Banda sisters, they demand their rights — and if denied, take it by force. The gathering began in 1980 with four women in her village, Rowli, in UP.

Says Sampat: “I knew that a man called Ram Milan had killed a woman. So I went and shouted at him, and he abused me. I needed to get back at him, so I went with four women and made as if he had assaulted me. The other women did not see me do this, so when I told them about it they beat him up to help me.”

She persuaded the women to join forces to help every woman abused by a man, and they agreed. Anytime any woman got the short end of the stick, the gang stepped in for them. “We got a reputation,” says Sampat, without any trace of arrogance, or even irony. “People started warning each other about us, about how dangerous we were. Slowly, men stopped beating women there.”

Slowly, their numbers too grew to the “thousands”, says Sampat, and the word spread. Women came from other villages seeking their help. There were cases of domestic violence, corrupt government officials and policemen, abusive employers, caste disputes. Today the group also helps people get their job cards in NREGA and BPL cards, self-employment schemes and adult education programmes.

Sampat explains the programme thus: “On an average, eight women in a group of 50 are educated, so they teach the rest. Every woman pays the teacher Rs 10 a month. I tell them that they need no help from the government to educate themselves.” There are 15 such schools right now.

Rupwati started a tailoring institute thanks to the Gulabi sisters. “I teach girls stitching so that they can be self-reliant.” A frail woman with pink lipstick, she laughs as she talks about the first time she took the law into her hands. “It was for my neighbour’s son,” she says. “He was out to buy something in the night and police arrested him. Five of us women went and asked the constable to release him because they had no reason to hold him there. He said he had kept him there to reform him. That’s when we beat him. Hemlata didi (another Gulabi sister) used her chappals.”

“Didi (Sampat) kehti hain chaar court hain – Supreme Court, High Court, Lower Court aur kuch bhi na chala toh baans (lathi) court.” (There are four courts in India – the Supreme Court, the High Court, lower courts and if none work, then the lathi court”. Her ghoonghat flutters in the breeze.

The Gulabi sisters challenge their limits, but they take care not to offend and alienate the men. Hemlata is negotiating a property dispute and has got the police officer to come to the spot. She demurely waits in the background, holding her ghoonghat in place, while the men of the two households state their cases. But when the officer leaves, he reports to Hemlata on what can be done and what cannot. Nobody interrupts the conversation.

Acceptance did not come easy. While the group’s influence grew rapidly, women were attacked and Sampat’s family life was falling apart. Her in-laws, who were annoyed with her “headstrong” ways, asked her to leave. Her husband left with her. “I would never wear the ghoonghat. I would tell my mother-in-law to wear a little extra to compensate for my lack of it. It maddened her.”

Social ostracism came too. “A pundit in the village used to beat a chamaran (a Dalit woman) and took all her possessions. The chamaars were treated badly, so we thought that if we campaigned for one and made him sarpanch all would be solved,” recalls Sampat. “The man won, but people no longer associated with me. Nobody would marry my daughter. I didn’t care. I said that my daughter is a woman, I will find her a man and thus all my children (six daughters) married outside the caste.”

By 2006, the sisters numbered in the lakhs and the colour gulabi (pink) was chosen. “We needed a uniform because when we went to Delhi for demonstrations, we needed to spot each other in the crowd.”

“Blue would make us part of BSP, green would mean Congress, maroon would be Mulayam Singh’s group, yellow would be Gayatri Pariwar. Pink did not belong to anyone, so I bought hundred of those saris.”

However, the political parties have constantly been trying to colour the women in their shade. On the day of this interview, a Congressman is present to help with BPL cards in a village where women recently joined the Gulabi Gang. Sampat agrees that all parties had approached the women, but they turned them down. “It is easier to work independently,” she says.

The first day in gulabi saris was dramatic, she recalls. They had assembled to greet the district magistrate. He had come to inspect the road and rudely asked Sampat Pal who she was. She was equally nasty and he called her badtameez (ill-mannered). She caught him by the collar and accu­sed him of the same. “I am the public and you are my servant. If you were not our servant, why would you come here?” He gave in and walked with the gang to inspect the roads. The newspapers christened them the Gulabi Gang that day.

“Gang” is not an easy title to carry. Explanations have to be given. “Sonia Gandhi called us in 2006 asking for an explanation.” There had been a series of complaints against them: beating up police inspectors, locking up an electricity office in Banda and refusing to return the key till power was restored. At one point, she faced the threat of 11 charges. She was even arrested for a day.

“I had no problem in jail. I organised the women there.” She got two rotis and watery-tea and questioned the jailer about it. “If you don’t give us decent food, I will ask you tomorrow with the authority of a government order.” She made a song cursing the court and demanding better food for prisoners.

“I told the jailer that I did not come here for bride burning. I came for the public.” She constantly challenges the legal system for its lapses. In most cases, it is about illegal detention. A person had been locked up in the jail for 11 days. She asked the inspector to file a charge sheet or let him go. “The inspector got angry with me and said that leaders like you come and go. So I said you haven’t seen leaders yet and stormed into his station next day, beat up the constable and tied up the inspector’s hands.”

Today the Gulabi Gang is present in every district of UP. Managing this mammoth is not easy. There have been defections. Sampat talks about some women who were corrupted by power and therefore abandoned by the group. Kosa­mbi village’s Chuni was a case in point. “She took bribes from police officers,” says Pal. Ironically, the lack of legal legitimacy has given it an effective self-corrective mechanism.

This ragged group negotiates contradictions with ease. They were formed despite and because of their hard lives. They grouped themselves in anger but kept their humour. They do not shy away from violence, but keep away from bravado. In a land named after slaves they are truly free.

— ashamenon@expressbuzz.com

About the people and by the people

The expansion of Gulabi sisters throughout Uttar Pradesh is a brilliant example of the viral loop. Take, for example, Bahua village in Banda district. Gangavishnu is a disgruntled kisan union worker who approached Sampath Pal for help. He had a history of working for people. Once he stopped a train by threatening to poke out the engine driver’s eyes. Gangavishnu’s house was falling apart and there was no one he could turn to. Sampat agreed to help if he got 50 women into the Gulabi Gang from his village. And that, essentially, is the story of how they’ve spread. Wherever there’s been a need, people have called them. All they do is help the women to organize themselves. There’s no creed, neither political nor religious. But they talk to everyone, including politicians and ministers. They don’t care if you belong to the Congress or any other party. It’s all the same to them. The only criterion is you must be poor. In a sense, this is democracy, in its purest sense. It’s about the people and by the people. And, by the way, you don’t have to wear pink, though it obviously helps.

-- ashamenon@expressbuzz.com


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