Meet the Gulabi Gang: Women who track down and beat abusive husbands

The Gulabi Gang is an all-women vigilante group that aims to beat up abusive husbands!

India is a country where rape cases are abundant. In 2012 alone, 24,923 rape cases were reported across the country. That number doesn’t even include those cases which go unreported. Several rape cases in India even receive widespread media attention and triggered protests. This led the Government of India to reform its penal code for crimes of rape and sexual assault. But that isn’t enough to warrant justice in a country where men dominate women.

So there’s no wonder an all-women vigilante group formed from the badlands of central India. Known as the Gulabi Gang or Pink Gang, they track down and beat abusive men with brooms and sticks. Their organization even inspired two films - a documentary and a full-length feature film which captures the collective imagination.

In 2008, the Gulabi Gang stormed an electricity office and forced officials to turn the power back on, which the electricity officials cut in order to extract bribes. The gang has also stopped child marriages and protested dowry and female illiteracy.

In 2007, a woman of the lower caste system was raped by a man of a higher caste and the incident went unreported. The villagers and members of the lower caste protested to no avail and many of them were put into prison for doing so. The Gulabi Gang took action!

They charged into the police station and attempted to free the villagers who were put into prison for protesting. They also demanded that a case be made against the rapist and when the policeman refused to make a case, they resorted to violence and physically attacked him. Since this incident, the Gulabi Gang was known to use physical violence if needed to make a point and if physical violence was of no use, then they would resort to publicly shaming the offender!