Gulabi Gang [2012]

 The colour of revolution – against gender, caste and domestic violence – is hot pink in Nishtha Jain’s fierce documentary Gulabi Gang. The said “gang” is a grassroot feminist collective headed by Sampat Pal, a charismatic leader and feisty social activist combatting patriarchy, oppression and injustices faced by women of rural India. Clad in pink sarees, the group’s impoverished and mostly illiterate Dalit and Muslim women – representing exceptionally repressed social segments driving for voice and strength through numbers – jump in whenever there’s a cry for help. Jain, who spent weeks travelling with them, forewent historical details, and instead documented – as observer and participant – a series of episodes which were variously harrowing, uplifting and disquieting, leading to a blunt, episodic, essayistic and quietly powerful reportage. The gruesome death of a woman – made to look like suicide while all evidences point towards gruesome murder by her husband – and the callous complicity of her in-laws, father, brother, villagers, and local cops, are vocally challenged by Pal. The dead girl’s aged mother – blind, voiceless and ignored – decides to speak up; even her lack of eyesight doesn’t prevent her from detecting this brazen crime, and that made this part a particularly damning and heartbreaking indictment of a world shorn of justice and compassion! While that served as the film’s pivotal thread, Jain also covered their recruitment drives, decision to take their fight forward by standing for local elections, and – in what added a nuanced subtext to the proceedings, that were often interspersed with lyrical shots of the rugged landscapes of the Badlands of Bundelkhand – a member’s pig-headed support of her brother who’s slain her sister for displaying agency, in tragic opposition to their organization’s foundational principles.

Director: Nishtha Jain

Genre: Documentary/Investigative Reportage

Language: Hindi

Country: India