The women's gangs of India - responding to sexism with a bamboo stick

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Thu, 2010-07-22 15:41

Doug

India is witnessing a rise of vigilante groups, the most sensational of which is the gulabi, or pink gang, operating in the Bundelkhand district of the Uttar Pradesh state, one of the poorest districts of India. Some gangs have started what Indian journalists describe as a "mini-revolution" on behalf of women.

Vigilantism isn't so great - at least having to turn to it - however, when there's no other option you could do worse than these women have.

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Fri, 2010-07-23 01:43

bagkitty

Thanks for posting that article Doug. I was particularly impressed with the paragraph that spoke about other instances of so-called "vigilante justice":

fromlinkedarticle wrote:

While the gulabi use a mild level of force, more violent strains of vigilantism have been reported elsewhere in India among dispossessed women. In 2004, a mob of hundreds of women hacked to death the serial rapist and murderer Akku Yadav, after the courts failed to convict him over a period of 10 years. After the deed was done, the women collectively declared their guilt in the murder, frustrating police efforts to charge anyone with the crime. This kind of violence has generated concern among some Indian commentators, who say that while many vigilantes have noble intentions, too many of them are brutally violent.

While I understand the arguments against vigilante justice (and agree with almost all of them on the theoretical level), the story referred to in the quoted paragraph (the link to that story appeared in the original article and is reproduced here in what I am quoting) forces me to reconsider the theoretical arguments in the face of real situations. Again, I am particularly impressed with the women involved taking collective responsibility for their actions (which I prefer to the article's phrase "declaring their guilt"). Their willingness to stand up and claim responsibility makes me wonder if referring to their initial actions as "vigilantism" is really appropriate. Perhaps a new word is needed to describe a collective action undertaken when a legal system has utterly failed to meet its responsibilities.