The Global Sociology Blog

Never let it be said that women of the periphery are the passive victims of patriarchal systems. Quite the opposite. Women fight back, sometimes literally, as read in the Guardian, meet the Gulabi Gang:

“Under a scorching summer sun, a swarm of 400 furious women engulfed the scruffy electricity office of Banda district in north India. They were all dressed identically in fluorescent pink saris. For more than a fortnight they and their families had had no electricity, plunged into darkness at dusk and stewed in sweat at dawn. But they had all been sent bills demanding payment for power they had never received.

 

It was at noon one day last May that the group, brandishing sticks, first surrounded and then charged into the office, punching the air and shouting slogans of solidarity. They wanted to confront the officer in charge but met instead his cowering juniors, at whom they bawled to telephone the boss. When the man refused to come to the office, the women became incensed. They snatched the office key, roughed up the terrified staff and, after herding them outside, locked the door and ran away, vowing to return the key only when they had electricity again. (…) The hundreds of pink-clad women knew that their electricity supply had been disconnected by corrupt officials to extract bribes from them to get the power switched back on. With no functioning law to fall back on, they knew also that the only way to get a power supply was to take matters into their own hands. Within an hour of their absconding with the key, the electricity was restored.”

You have to admit this is hilarious. We need to send these gals to Chris Matthews. More seriously, though, these radical tactics have paid off and the women have scored victories against corrupt officials and violent husbands and fathers. They have stopped child marriages in their area. They are seen as folk heroes and have drastically changed the gender dynamics in Banda district in one of India’s poorest states.

Such tactics can be risky, the leader of the gang, Sampat Devi Pal, could face criminal charges and other women sometimes face violent reactions to their participation in the gang. However, as she travels from village to village, hundreds of women turn out to hear her and tell their own stories of abuse and violence, corruption and destitution. But the gang also brings hope not only to women but also to poor farmers (who asked the gang to help them obtain compensation for failed crops).

This gang resembles the groups of Sicilian women trying to fight back against the Mafia because no one else will. There is more, however, as the gang understands that women’s issues go beyond corruption and that the root causes are structural: the decks are stacked against women at all levels of Indian society, starting with child marriages. It is these structures that ultimately need to be changed, and that might mean that entering the political arena which the women distrust with reason.

Photo Source: BBC.