In one of the poorest parts of one of India's most populous states, several hundred vigilante women go after corrupt officials and boorish men with sticks and axes.

Dressed in pink saris, these women of India's northern Uttar Pradest state's Banda area, call themselves the 'gulabi gang' (pink gang). These women have thrashed men who have abandoned or beaten their wives and they have unearthed corruption in the distribution of grain to the poor.

"Nobody comes to our help in these parts. The officials and the police are corrupt and anti-poor. So sometimes, we have to take the law in our hands. At other times, we prefer to shame the wrongdoers," says Sampat Pal Devi.

Over 20 per cent of Banda's 1.6 million people living in 600 villages, are lower castes or untouchables. To make matters worse, women bear the brunt of poverty and discrimination in Banda's highly caste-ridden, feudalistic and male dominated society. Dowry demands and domestic and sexual violence are common.

Sampat Pal Devi says her gang is a, 'gang for justice'. She was married when she was nine (in a region where child marriages are common), at 12, she went to live with her husband and at 13, she had her first child.

Work for the people

"I wanted to work for the people, not for myself alone. I was already holding meetings with people, networking with women who were ready to fight for a cause, and was ready with a group of women two years ago," she says.

The pink sorority is not exactly a group of male-bashing feminists - they claim they have returned 11 girls who were thrown out of their homes to their spouses because "women need men to live with".

That is also why men, like Jai Prakash Shivhari have joined the 'gulabi' gang and speak passionately about child marriages, dowry deaths, depleting water resources, farm subsidies and how funds are being stolen in government projects.

Devi notes that village society in India is loaded against women. "It refuses to educate them, marries them off too early, barters them for money. Village women need to study and become independent to sort it out themselves," she says.

The gang has already claimed to have done some work in combating crime and corruption in the area. Last year, Sampat Devi contested the state polls as an independent candidate and mustered 2,800 votes.

"Joining politics is not my chosen way to help people. We will keep up our good work, so the state does not take us for granted," she says.

Source: http://news.bbc. co.uk/ go/em/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/ 7068875.stm