अपना बुंदेलखंड डॉट कॉम परिवार के सदस्यों को "रामनवमी" की शुभकामनायें। राम जिन्होंने बुंदेलखंड के चित्रकूट क्षेत्र में संकल्प लिया कि "निश्चर हीन महि करूँ , भुज उठाहि प्रण (Read More)
ApnaBundelkhand.com, (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.”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.
About the people and by the
peopleThe 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.