Pink Sari Revolution
A Tale of Women and Power in India
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A triumphant portrait of a fiery sisterhood changing the lives of India's women.
In Uttar Pradesh—known as the "badlands" of India—a woman’s life is not entirely her own. This is one explanation for how Sheelu, a seventeen-year-old girl, ended up in jail after fleeing her service in the home of a powerful local legislator. In a region plagued by corruption, an incident like this might have gone unnoticed—except that it captured the attention of Sampat Pal, leader of India’s infamous Gulabi (Pink) Gang.
Poor and illiterate, married off around the age of twelve, pregnant with her first child at fifteen, and prohibited from attending school, Sampat Pal has risen to become the courageous commander and chief of a women’s brigade numbering in the tens of thousands. Uniformed in pink saris and carrying pink batons, they aim to intervene wherever other women are victims of abuse or injustice. Joined in her struggle by Babuji, a sensitive man whose intellectualism complements her innate sense of justice, and by a host of passionate field commanders, Sampat Pal has confronted policemen and gangsters, officiated love marriages, and empowered women to become financially independent.
In a country where women’s rights struggle to keep up with rapid modernization, the story of Sampat Pal and her Pink Gang illuminates the thrilling possibilities of female grassroots activism.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A maze of political intrigue, personal melodrama, and feminist activism unfolds in this account of the Pink Gang, a band of Indian women clad in pink saris and carrying pink sticks, who operate both as vigilantes and saviors of abused women. In her first book, journalist Fontanella-Khan relates the development of the organization established by Sampat Devi Pal and operating in Northern India's Uttar Pradesh region while following the case of Sheelu Nisad, falsely accused of stealing by a prominent political figure who raped her. It's a heady mix; the large cast is entangled in familial relations and caste complexities, and the story is complicated by conflicting accounts of the girl's case. The Pink Gang grows from a handful of "old widows and middle-aged gadflies" to a political force to be reckoned with, as Sampat has a "highly publicized meeting with Sonia Gandhi." In telling the story of the now 20,000-strong Pink Gang, who chose pink as the only color in India free of political or religious associations, the author delves into the roles played by the gang's supportive husbands, pro bono lawyers, and the attentive press. Having interviewed the principals and reviewed available newspaper accounts, Fontanella-Khan brings a novelist's pacing to a timely page-turner that is essentially political; party politics, political corruption, and the wretched treatment of rape victims are her true subjects.
