Amana Fontanella-Khan Knihy

Sampat Pal was married at twelve, essentially illiterate. Today she leads a vigilante group fighting for women's rights: the Pink Gang. When Sheelu was arrested for stealing from a powerful politician, she was sure that she would be forced to accept a prison sentence, not least because she alleged that she had been abused b y a man in the politician's household. But then Sampat Pal heard word of the charges, and the formidable commander of the pink-sari-wearing, pink-baton-wielding, 20,000-strong 'Pink Gang' decided to shake things up. In the story of Sampat Pal and the Pink Gang's fight for Sheelu, as well as others facing injustice and oppression, Amana Fontanella-Khan delivers a riveting portrait of women grabbing fate with their own hands - and winning back their lives.

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.

Wo immer die Frauen der "Gulabi Gang", der "pinkfarbenen Bande", in Aktion treten, sind sie eine eindrucksvolle Erscheinung mit ihren leuchtenden Saris - und den Bambusstöcken, die sie, wenn nötig, auch einsetzen. Sie wehren sich gegen die massive Gewalt, der Frauen in Indien oft ausgesetzt sind - im privaten wie im öffentlichen Raum. Gründerin und Anführerin der über 20.000 Mitglieder zählenden Selbstschutzgruppe ist Sampat Pal, Ende vierzig, charismatisch und unerschrocken. Fesselnd wie ein Roman erzählt Amana Fontanella-Khan die faszinierende Geschichte dieser unkonventionellen Frau und ihrer Gang