A gang of girls fighting against abusive husbands and pimps. A sound of slapping
E 'as one of the most aggressive and feared gang in northern India: fast and fierce, it moves between the villages and countryside brandishing knives and sticks, and removing the officers to sleep police and landowners. Screams, threats, punches, employees terrorized, attacked barracks. Stories already known in the district of Banda, the border between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, a sort of Indian Garfagnana, infested with bandits and outlaws legendary picturesque, where a million and a half between untouchables and members of tribal communities languish on land affected by frequent drought.
But this is not a gang any. Its members wear bracelets, earrings and sandals, they paint their hands with henna, are covered with long pink sari and have a nom de guerre seemingly innocuous: Gulab gang, "the band in pink." A little 'as the Pink Ladies of American "Grease." Except that this is not a fast-food restaurants, but one of the poorest and most violent corners of India Rural.
Created in January two years ago by an illiterate former tea vendor, Sampat Devi Pal, the band began to gather women and girls tired of being relegated to the margins of families already nailed to the abyss of a feudal society and strongly macho. Their stories are very similar. Even children are sent back to split the fields, including sexual exploitation and abuse, only to be given in marriage - always girls - live in the shadow of their husbands and often poor and frustrated. Or in many cases violent, especially when they attach to the bottle and spend their nights beaten up. No one defends or helps. As positive and useful, local NGOs are often too small or weak. While the police away from the big city, it is even more brutal and corrupt.
might as well take the law into their own. A Banda and its surroundings, the companions are now Sampat Devi vigilantes in the area. If someone beats his wife and out of the house, within a few hours finds himself surrounded by a pink sari, inquisitive eyes and fingers pointed at. The same happens to the landowners or businessmen suspected of exploitation, or corrupt officials or violent.
'Rural society in India is a burden on the shoulders of women, "Devi said in a recent interview with the BBC. "It is a society that refuses to give them an education, that married too young, that the exchange for money. " Given in marriage to nine years to a man who was twice her age, you have gone to live with him only three years later. Just thirteen years old, gave birth to her first child. After working as Chaa-walla (are popular sellers of Indian tea), had managed to find a job in an NGO for women's rights. Not satisfied, he created Gulab gang.
That is to say, as she specifies, "a gang that is fighting for justice." And sometimes not so much for subtle. After all, this region has been the birthplace of Phoolan Devi, the famous 'Bandit Queen', which in the '70s he led a group of dacoits (bandits) in north-central forests of India. It was perhaps inspired by her that in May last year, about 400 Gulab stormed the office of the local power company, guilty of having cut the light to their homes and to have demanded bribes to turn the tide. Not finding the person responsible, angry women you have locked the employees.
Truckers caught red-handed while carrying stolen loads of supplies for the poor, were stopped and forced to back down, after having pocketed a volley of blows. Arrogant or corrupt police officers have been slapped. Adults looking for girls to marry are the same end, if not worse. Justice from below, probably more effective fugitive of the state.
why - now - the people of this arid land, poor and violent have one more reason to fear and respect their women. Especially if they wear pink saris. ANNALISA
