(Story) Armed and gulabi in Bundelkhand

Armed and gulabi in Bundelkhand

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.”..[..]

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Courtesy: Expressbuzz.com