“Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking, or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity, the female sex”-Gandhi. The struggle women face for equality is a battle fought all over the world, but especially so in India. India was recently rated the worst place in the world to be a woman, defeating Afghanistan and Somalia. Women of India struggle to survive at every age from birth onward, facing hardships of neglect, rape, murder, poor healthcare and diet, violence, abuse, prejudice, and discrimination. The notion that Indian men have a hatred for women has really hurt India’s economy. Female tourist have become scared and turned off by the idea of visiting the country. India is the world’s largest democracy yet women there are treated as lesser beings. India has had women as prime ministers, a president, and other high ranking political positions and still they struggle to fight for equal rights for its women. This is ironic because many current politicians and powerful people in India are women. Although many politicians have made promises to change the poor treatment of their women little change has been seen. Many politicians in office currently have been charged with crimes against women as well. People are standing up to their politicians and government and letting their voices be heard. India has had an up and down battle with gender equality through the ages. It is believed that in ancient India women were equal to men, and women had many freedoms they now are deprived of such as the right to marry who they wished when they wished. Several texts including the Upanishads, Manusmriti, Vishnu smriti, and Atharva Vedas support this idea. These books had a major impact on the separation of Hindu men and women. These books promote the idea of women as sexual objects, child marriage, abuse, and taking away women’s rights to money, an education, and self-sufficiency. The texts also make the murder of a Dalit woman by a Brahmin equal to that of killing an animal. The Manusmriti put laws into place that made the mistreatment of women acceptable. There were ancient traditions like the nagarvadhu in which women would compete to become “the bride of the city”. In 500 B.C. is when India began to see a decline in gender equality. This was due to the invasion of new cultures and peoples including Islamic, Mughals and later with Christianity. Women continually fought for their rights with the Jainism movement but to no avail. During the medieval period is when the practice of child marriage began, along with a ban on remarriage which was another big setback. The ban on remarriage was difficult for women whose husbands died; they were left with little money and were not allowed the opportunity to start a new family. When the Muslims conquered India they brought many practices that also further lowered women’s place in society. However some women still managed to rise up including: Razia Sultana, Durqavati, Chand Bibi, Nur Jehan, and Jijabai and because of this small changes began to happen. Movements began in hopes of restoring women’s equality including the Bhakti movement which created sects which fought for female equality. Shortly after the Bhakti movement a man named Guru Nanak began advocating for women. Nanak was a Sikh leader and other Sikh gurus that came to follow continued to fight for gender equality and advocate for women. There are/were many practices in India that helped fuel gender inequality including: sati, jauhar, purdah, and devadasis. Sati was a practice in which a widow was killed (as a “self” sacrifice) along with her husband. Sati was outlawed and renewed several times before finally being removed by the British in 1829, and finalized by the sati prevention act in 1987. Jauhar was a practice where women young and old related to warriors were killed to avoid capture, and retain family honor. Purdah is the requirement of women to cover their bodies so as not to be seen. Purdah is also used to restrict women’s movements and show their subordination to men. Devadasis was the practice of “marrying” a woman to a temple or deity (or another physical object). There are also many texts like the Manu Sanghita that support the idea that women should be subservient and seen as lesser to man. In the book Stri Dharma Paddhati it says: “women are enjoined to be of service to their husbands”. Ancient writings and books like these are still read and followed and helps maintain this inequality. There is also a custom called the raksha badhan in which women tie “safety ties” on their brothers to show their devotion and loyalty to their safety. Women generally do not own/have property to their names, and many laws are put in place to help insure this. In 1956 the Hindu personal laws entitled women to inheritances but had to be amended in 2005 to ensure equality for women. Because women were not entitled to inheritances they had no monetary security and found it difficult to be self-sufficient. Women are further degraded by being put into the categories of good and bad depending on what they drink, how they dress, and where they go. If crimes are committed against women because of these things it is seen as the woman's fault. Although it is possible for India to change its treatment towards women it is deeply rooted in its culture. When the British came to India they observed that Indian women were very reserved. Many attempts were made during the British raj to get equality for women. In 1847 a free school for girls was made to provide education to women alone. Many British missionaries came to India to set up educational systems for Indian girls but were met with strong opposition. In 1856 the British created the widow remarriage act which allowed women to remarry and gain some more control over their lives and choices. In 1917 a group of women met with the Indian secretary of state to discuss gender equality and proper education for Indian girls. This meeting helped show the Indian government that they needed to start addressing some of the gender equality issues at hand. Some progress was made in 1929 with the passing of the child marriage restraint act which rose the minimum age a girl could be wed. However not all women believed the British had their best interest in mind and many queens and female rulers of sections of India led revolts in opposition of British invasion. Indian women played a key role in fighting off the British and once again reclaiming their country. Now that India is free from British rule they still struggle for gender equality. While Indian women can be seen and are active in every area of life, equality has not been reached. The Indian constitution was created after their independence and promised big strides in the fight for gender equality. The constitution guaranteed equality for women in opportunity and pay, and promised protection for women and children. However this is followed very “lightly”. In the 1970’s a feminist movement began in India spurred by a rape case involving a young girl and a cop. The coverage of the case was followed by large protests that gained worldwide attention. The attention brought on by the case helped change many acts and codes including the criminal procedure code, the penal code, the evidence act, and brought custodial rape to the fore. This was not the feminist’s only cause, they also spoke about women’s health, education, infanticide, and lobbied against liquor (often a key factor in criminal acts). The women’s rights groups became more powerful in the 1990’s after they started receiving large sums of money from foreign donors. A breakthrough happened in 2001 when India passed the national policy for the empowerment of women. Progress continued from there and in 2007 India had their first woman president. In 2010 the women’s reservation bill was passed which stated that 33% of parliament and other political bodies be reserved for women. Crimes against women have continued to escalate every year in the areas of rape, human trafficking, torture, and other areas of abuse. In 2010 the rate of which crimes were committed against women exceeded the rate of population growth. Although it is thought that crimes were just as prevalent in earlier years it is believed most were not reported. Millions of Indian women go missing every year, most in the “later” years of their lives, and most are not even searched for and cases are not investigated. Women are victims of criminal assaults in many ways, and receive little protection or justice. One especially heinous way women are victimized is by having acid thrown on them, permanently disfiguring them. This is very common in India because acid is easily found and at a cheap price. Many women also die from fire related injuries (often after dowry disputes). Women/girls are also forced into child marriages, which were outlawed but are still a very common practice. Last surveyed 45% of women were married before the age of 18. Women are also subject to domestic violence, but are now better protected with the passing of the domestic violence act in 2005.However when India was last polled half of the population said domestic violence is justifiable (not surprising considering men outnumber women). Although dowries were made illegal in 1961 with the passing of the dowry prohibition act they are still very common. Dowries help to aid in the occurrence of crimes against women including murder and domestic violence. In 2012 8,233 women were killed in arguments over dowries (that’s nearly 1 death per hour). Dowries are illegal but India’s high poverty level and poor economy has made the dowry more common, even the rich accept them. Many women are victimized by the groom’s family because they do not believe the dowry offered is adequate. But by far rape is the most prevalent form of criminal activity committed against women. The number of rapes continues to rise every year and little is being done about it. Part of the problem is that many of the men believe that the women deserve/asked for it by the way they dress, where they are, and when they are there. In cases of rape families and victims do not see justice, the victim if they even come forward face hostility from all angles. After several high profile rape cases have hit India a commission was created to try and come up with ideas on how to change India’s rape problem. Some of the things the commission has come up with are the registration of every claim of rape, giving prison terms to crimes like exposing one’s self and stalking, making rape kits necessary after every claim, revaluation of police, and making the requirements for political office stricter. Many women are sexually harassed on a daily basis and find it routine. The indecent representation of women act was passed in 1987 to ensure women are not “sexualized” in any manner (entertainment, ads, etc.) More recently India is seeing a rise in reports of women being subjected to forced prostitution and human trafficking. Several committees and commissions have been created for several of India's “problems” but little action has been taken to make any change. In March of 2013 India passed a new sexual offense law which created higher punishments for those who commit sexual crimes. Many of the problems lie in the incompliance with the ruling for no political influence on the police department, and that only 7% of Indian police are women. One committee named the Verma committee was recently formed to discuss gender equality. The committee proposed the formation of a women’s bill of rights, which is highly debated. The committee also proposed the creation of websites displaying pictures of men who have committed sexual crimes against women, which have recently been put into action. Other new lifelines include: help lines that will be put in place specifically for victims of sexual crimes to call and report incidences, task forces which will meet and brainstorm ways to make the cities safer, and courts specifically dealing with sexual crimes have been made to help with all of the sexual crime cases. India’s population ratio is higher for males then females. This is due to many things including poor health, living standards, infanticide and abortion. An Indian woman’s life expectancy is relatively low. Health care in India is not accessible to everyone which contributes to poor health. Most Indian women have no access to birth control and because of this many unplanned pregnancies occur. Many women who know they are pregnant with a female child will choose abortion so as not to bring a girl into the world. Many girls die in utero and many women die while having the abortions. It is estimated that 300,000 – 60,000 female babies are killed in utero every single year in India. Baby girls that are brought into the world are killed because of neglect or murder known as infanticide. Because so many female babies are killed the gender ratio is weighed highly in favor of men. Women in India face prejudices even within the castes and in different parts of the country. Women in high castes and low castes are often treated as shudra or lower then man. The oppression and mistreatment of these women is validated in many ways by the Hindu religion. Many women in India are part of the work force but the men still outnumber the women in this area. Although they work it is true that women and children in any caste have a higher rate of poverty then men. If a woman is lucky enough to be in a higher caste she is then expected to also be chaste. In urban India a large percentage of the workforce is women who receive equal pay to the men. But in rural India it is the women who do the vast majority of labor free if not for little pay. What caste you are in determines many things in a woman’s life including who she can talk to, what she can eat, and what she may do for a job. Those who are in a higher caste will have better jobs than those in low castes that have the jobs nobody else wants to do, and are therefore deemed “Dalit” or untouchable. Women who are considered “Dalit” are treated especially bad and face “triple discrimination”. Dalit women are at the very bottom of the hierarchy and face hard lives, are limited as to the places and things they are allowed access to. Recently Navi Pillay a UN commissioner spoke on the issue in Geneva saying “there should be no place in our day and age for the degrading practices of caste and discrimination and untouchability, further amplified by the intersection of discrimination based on caste and gender.” Dalit women are also made into devadasi and jogini where they are given over to temples and other religious buildings, and are segregated from the community, and often times forced into prostitution. Dalit women are also more vulnerable and report high numbers of rape often times by police officers who rape Dalit women as a way of punishing their community. It is also true that throughout India women are less educated then the men. However in urban India more women have access to education and have been educated to some level. In rural India many if not most women have no education, and are illiterate. Women in rural India are as a whole more subservient to men and think of family (men and children) before there selves where as women in urban India have more opportunity to follow goals and more freedom to pursue personal passions. Of course it goes without saying that women in the higher castes are more privileged and have more access to things than those in the lower castes. However women in urban areas are not treated much better than women in rural communities. For example a highly protested and discussed issue facing women in urban Mumbai, is that they must pay money to use the bathroom in any facility within the city. This is not an issue that women in the rural areas face. When it comes to crimes against women like rape, or dowry related crimes women in both communities have a hard time getting support from law enforcement India more recently has seen an increase in its public mistreatment against women and a decrease in any recourse or consequence for these actions. This shows how India’s law enforcement is incapable or unwilling to help. Because of this individual, vigilante groups have been formed to bring justice to those in need. These groups are more effective than state justice because it is known that they will use force against those deserving. In northern India most villages are patriarchal and although outlawed still practice child marriages, dowries, infanticide, and rape. Little consequence is given to the men who commit these crimes because the villages are run by men who often participate in these crimes themselves. The sheer existence of these vigilante groups goes to show an utter failure by the government to protect its people.
Luckily there is a group of Indian women who are fighting to get equal rights for women. This group is known as the Gulabi gang. The word “Gulabi” translates to pink and signifies the color of the saris worn by the women. The gang was started by a women named Sampat Pal Devi around 2006.The group has two main goals: “protect the powerless from abuse and fight corruption to ensure basic rights of the poor in rural areas and discourage traditions like child marriages” and to “support and train women to enhance their basic skills to become economically secure and develop confidence to protect themselves from abuse through sustainable livelihood options”. Sampat herself was married off at a young age, and also worked as a health worker for the Indian government and saw firsthand the effects of abuse and worse against women. The group is predominately in Uttar Pradesh in the Banda district of northern India. Northern India is one of the poorest areas in India. The north also has a very distinct caste division, very male oriented, and has a high level of illiteracy in women as well as a high rate of domestic abuse, violence against women due to dowries, and abuse to children in the forms of labor, and child marriages. The high level of illiteracy among women leads to a sense of low self-confidence and makes them dependent on men in turn only helping the abuse to continue. Not only is Northern India poor and arid, but women as a whole struggle worse than men when it comes to poverty, and discrimination. Sampat has said that she does not consider the group a “gang” in the traditional sense of the word; instead she considers the group “a gang for justice”. The gang is independently funded and has no monetary assistance from NGO’s or other political organizations. Little money is used to run the gang, but any money that the group does possess comes from a small fee that is assessed when joining the gang. The group although led by Sampat has no official hierarchy. Sampat is the leader because of her experience and education rather than out of fear or power. The group does not write any official reports, and follows no strict rules or models.
The group began after Sampat saw a man abusing a woman, and when she tried to intervene was abused as well. The following day Sampat returned to where the beating had taken place with a large bamboo stick and several other women and they beat the man. The news of what had taken place quickly spread across India and women began approaching her and requesting her help. As time went on more and more women came forward wanting to join Sampat and her cause. In 2006 Sampat decided that she needed to make her group official and give them some kind of uniformity that is where the pink sari came in. The gang was created by Sampat with the intention of giving justice to women who have been mistreated and punishing men who have wronged them. Punishment is delivered to the men in several different forms depending on the severity of the mistreatment. A trademark of the gang is that they carry around lathis (large bamboo sticks) which they use to beat men with. The women also use public harassment in order to shame the men into repenting or apologizing. The group now acts as advocates for all people and brings attention to any mistreatment or injustice. Sampat herself has publically beaten a police officer as well as a politician with her lathe in response to mistreatment and abuse. The gang not only punishes men for their wrong doings but also provides counseling (legal, and personal), mediation, training and education for women. Sampat makes it clear that communities will receive help from the gang as long as they are willing to actively participate and contribute and are willing to make the necessary changes within themselves.
The Gulabi gang gained notoriety in 2010 when the documentary Pink Saris was made, and again in 2012 with the movie Gulabi Gang. The widespread viewing of the movies helped get new members to join and helped give attention to their cause. The Indian media as a whole portrays the gang in a positive light and gives attention to their protests and cause. In 2008 the gang was said to have over 20,000 members and was beginning to spread to other countries. Currently the gang has gained thousands more members and even some support from men. Men are supportive of the group not only by donating money but also by allowing, daughters, and wives to join the association.
The group although predominately focuses on women’s issues has now began fighting for human rights as a whole. The group acts as advocates for men as well and publicly fights for any mistreatment of people. Some of the causes to their credit include: fighting the government over electricity, child marriages, fighting against illiteracy in men and women, getting rid of the dowry system, equal distribution of food to the poor, distribution of pensions, and of course preventing abuse of women and children.
Sampat has given Indian women the opportunity to be self-reliant by her formation of a leaf plate making business. The business is in a neighboring village and is used in weddings and other formal events. The business has more than 500 female employees and allows the women to earn their own money and be independent from men. Sampat also has her foot in the door in several other businesses that provide services for weddings. This enables her to help give women the opportunity to gain employment. The wedding industry in India is huge and very elaborate and there is a big market for it, and in many of these small rural villages this is the only employment offered to women.
Sampat is trying to make her group more powerful by entering into the fields of politics. She recently went up for ballot but lost only receiving a few thousand votes. However the Gulabi gang is working collectively to appoint women who stand behind their cause across the country. The gang has helped put “officials in Allahabad, Fatehpur, Kanpur, Farrukhabad, Rae Bareli, Mahoba, Banda, and Chitrakoot.” Since getting these politicians into office many changes have taken place in the form of awareness to dowries, domestic violence, and rape.
The Gulabi gang is important because they offer hope, which is something that the people of India really need. Although Indian women have their fair share of mistreatment and abuse the gang offers them a chance to fight for what is right and slowly but surely achieve what they are working for.it is refreshing to see that these women are not just accepting what is given to them as their “destiny” they are courageous enough to question that and fight to make a difference for themselves and other women as well. The gang is so successful because they identify and fight for the community’s needs, they do not have a hierarchy, and are completely self-reliant. The Gulabi gang reestablishes gender roles, and questions traditions and beliefs and empowers those that were only thought of as weak or “untouchable. Not only is the gang important for India but it is important for people all over the world to see how these women are able to ban together and make a change.

Works Cited
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