India’s Pink Vigilantes
Operating in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous and poverty-stricken state, Pal’s group gained notoriety in early days for beating up men who abused their wives. If they heard a husband was being violent, they would show up at his door with sticks called laathis—the same wielded by local cops when patrolling their beat—and demand he change his ways. Of the many cases that Pal handles every day, the majority are related to domestic violence, dowry demands, and abusive in-laws—though recently she helped the father of a 17-year-old girl who’d been raped and jailed on a false charge.
“There are so many struggles that women here have to go through, it never seems to stop,” Pal says, wiping her forehead with the edge of her sari. “We don’t like using violence, but sometimes that’s the only way people listen.”