By Pronoti Datta
Sampat Pal Devi and the Gulabi Gang, her squadron of lathi-wielding women vigilantes wrapped in pink saris, who punish men guilty of ill treating their wives in central India’s impoverished Bundelkhand region, have in recent years caught the attention of the press and filmmakers in India and abroad. A book called Pink Sari Revolution: A Tale of Women and Power in India by journalist and former MB contributor Amana Fontanella-Khan was out last year, a Bollywood film inspired by the women titled Gulaab Gang starting Madhuri Dixit-Nene will be released in March and there are two documentaries on the Gang’s activities, Kim Longinotto’s Pink Saris (2010) and Nishtha Jain’s Gulabi Gang (2012). Jain’s film, which is in Hindi and Bundelkhandi with English subtitles, will be screened at the National Centre for the Performing Arts on Thursday, January 16. An independent filmmaker living in Mumbai, Jain, 48, was born in Bundelkhand. She has previously directed documentaries on social issues such as At My Doorstep (2009), which records the lives of working class men and women, and Laxmi and Me (2008), where she explores her relationship with her maid. Jain spoke to Mumbai Boss about what recognition has meant for Sampat Pal Devi, whose fame grew manifold after she appeared on season seven of Bigg Boss. Edited excerpts:
In a previous interview, you said that you were ambivalent about Sampat Pal Devi because she often did things that seemed counterintuitive, like sending women back to their wife-beating husbands. By the time you finished making the film, did you feel any different?
I first met Sampat Pal, the leader of Gulabi Gang, in January 2009. I spent a few days with her observing her work. Her phone would start ringing from early in the morning till late night. And there was always a stream of people visiting her to seek her advice. They came from far and wide with all sorts of problems. She heard everyone out. A big part of her work is arbitrating in cases of marital, inter-personal conflicts – domestic violence, inter-caste, inter-religious love affairs/marriages. She makes families reach a compromise so they can avoid long-drawn out legal battles, which would have drained them financially. She claimed a 99 per cent success rate in her arbitration.
While I was there I witnessed how efficiently she handles these cases. In one case, the family of a young woman had approached her because her in-laws were refusing to take her back. She heard the girl’s side of the story and then on her own went to the boy’s place to hear his version. It turned out that both the parties were hiding some crucial facts from her and from each other but she managed to cull out the whole truth in the matter of one evening. The two-year stalemate between the families ended and the girl went back to the in-laws’ house. Sampat Pal Devi has amazing investigative sense.
She would have made a good detective.
In another case, a man came asking for help. His wife had left him because he used to beat her after drinking and had humiliated her on several occasions. Now, he claimed that he had reformed and wanted his wife back. Sampat went with the man to the girl’s house to a village 40 kms away. The girl refused to go back even though Sampat assured her that if the man beats her again, she would personally see to it that he’s punished. I was quite shocked that Sampat was asking the girl to return to her abusive husband. When I questioned her about her insistence, she said that her thinking and functioning was different from those of NGOs. She doesn’t want families to break up. She tries her best to bring couples together. According to her, divorce is the last option for rural women unlike urban women who are self-reliant.
Her brand of feminism is very much rooted in rural patriarchy. She explained that she wants to bring about change but one step at a time. If she were completely radical, she would not be accepted. But her own life is quite different. Married off at 12 to a man much older to her, she left her in-laws’ home with her five children when they started protesting against her work. She set up a tea-shop in a town to make her living. Soon after, she started the Gulabi Gang with her male associate Jai Prakash. Her personal life is quite radical, much more than most urban women I know. She’s fiercely independent, completely self-made. This is precisely what got me interested to do the film on the Gulabi Gang. I decided then that this dialogue between rural and urban notions of feminism would inform the metanarrative of the film.
What’s your view on Sampat Pal Devi’s recent celebrity? Has it brought about any change in Bundelkhand?
Gulabi Gang’s membership has gone up to 400,000. Their activities are featured in local newspapers almost daily. Gulabi Gang is not just seen as a women’s rights group but also as a rallying force because of their numbers. The police take them seriously and are compelled to look into cases, which the Gang brings to them. Sampat Pal feels free to walk into any government office, she is not cowed by authority. She has set a positive example for other women who were earlier afraid to talk to officials. She’s taught the women how to tackle the bureaucracy – how to petition the officers and in which order. And if their petitions don’t bear result, then she advises a collective protest.
She’s famous in the Banda area and just about everyone [there] has heard of her and a lot of journalists and politicians claim that they’ve “made” her. Often individuals and communities approach the Gulabi Gang to solve their problems and these range from getting BPL (below poverty line) cards and job cards to allotment of houses.
How have Sampat Pal Devi and members of the gang dealt the world’s attention on them? Is there a flip side to their newfound power?
The journos/filmmakers from abroad have tended to focus on Sampat and this has created some jealousy amongst the other regional commanders who feel left out even though they are doing good work in their areas. Also some of them, like Sampat, are now nurturing political ambitions. Recently one commander has split and formed a breakaway Gulabi Gang.
What were some of the challenges of making this film?
One of the biggest challenges of making the film was that although I was the first one to start the documentary, I suddenly found myself in midst of a crowd. The day before I was to start shooting, I was informed by a UK-based production company that they had acquired an exclusivity contract to shoot with Sampat Pal. So I had to cancel my shoot and could not shoot with her for several months. Also it was difficult to raise money for the film since we don’t have any documentary funding organisations in India that allow for co-productions. Several months later I was approached by a Norwegian Production company who were interested in the subject and we decided to join hands. By the time I started shooting there had been a few TV documentaries on Gulabi Gang. So how could my film be different? And even if it was, would I be able to distribute it? And then even while we were editing, we started hearing that Bollywood was going to make a film about dacoits dressed in pink saris!
My film is as much about the Gulabi Gang as it is about the milieu in which they are working. It’s not just a feel-good film, or a hagiography. It’s a much more complex film, looking at the challenges and social resistance to change. In short it’s a film about power – powerlessness, breaking power structures, empowerment and misuse of power.
What’s the attitude of the men of the region to the Gulabi Gang?
It’s mixed. They have a lot of male supporters, workers and empathisers. But a lot of men are cynical and mock the Gulabi Gang. People want change quickly, if they don’t see quick results they are dismissive.
What was it like growing up in the region? Did you witness atrocities against women?
I was born at my grandmother’s house near Orchha but raised in Delhi. We used to spend summer holidays there. Women were confined to homes, often veiled in front of older male relatives. We were not permitted to enter the homes of the untouchables. But we did not hear of dowry deaths, sex selective abortions or infanticide. I think it wasn’t so common in those days.
http://mumbaiboss.com/2014/01/15/watch-a-film-on-bundelkhands-pink-revolutionaries/
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