WE THE STATE 30th ISSUE

10
BHOPAL April 22 to April 28, 2013
Must Read
WE THE STATE
Women hit back at India's rape culture
The Red Brigade ( a self defence
group ) was formed in November
2011 to fight back against a growing
number of sexual attacks on
women in the Madiyav area in the city
of Lucknow, in Uttar Pradesh
The male tormentor of the young
women of the Madiyav slum did not
spot the danger until it was too late.
One moment he was taunting them
with sexual suggestions and provocations;
the next they had hold of his
arms and legs and had hoisted him into
the air.
Then the beating began. Some of the
young women lightly used their fists,
others took off their shoes and hit him
with those. When it was over, they let
him limp away to nurse his wounds,
certain that he had learned an important
lesson: don't push your luck with
the Red Brigade.
Named for their bright red outfits, the
Red Brigade was formed in November
2011 as a self-defence group for young
women suffering sexual abuse in the
northern Indian city of Lucknow, 300
miles south-east of Delhi. Galvanised
by the gang rape and murder of a 23year-old
medical student in Delhi last
December and the nationwide protests
that followed against a rising tide of
rapes, they are now gaining in confidence.
From a core membership of 15, ranging
in age from 11 to 25, they now have
more than 100 members, intelligent and
sassy and with a simple message for the
men who have made their lives a misery:
they will no longer tolerate being
groped, gawped at and worse. Their activities
are a lesson in empowerment.
Men who fall foul of the Red Brigade
can first expect a visit and a warning.
Sometimes the Red Brigade will ask the
police to get involved, but if all else fails
they take matters into their own hands.
Their leader, 25-year-old teacher Usha
Vishwakarma, has her own experience
of the daily danger faced by many
young women in the country. She was
just 18 when a fellow teacher tried to
rape her. "He grabbed me and put his
hands round me and tried to open my
belt and trousers," says Usha, sitting in
the bare-brick front room of her small
house. "But I was saved by my jeans because
they were too tight for him to
open, and that gave me a chance to
fight, so I kicked him in the sensitive
place and pushed him down and ran out
of the door."
No one at the school took her accusations
seriously, telling her to forget it
and stop causing trouble. The experience
left her traumatised and for two
years she did nothing. But little by little
her confidence came back. In 2009 she
set up her own small school for local
girls in an outbuilding next to her family
home. Yet all around her, she says,
she saw more and more young women
suffering the same abuse she had faced.
And it was threatening to wreck the
chances of her young female students.
"Parents were telling girls to stay in
their homes so there would be no incidents.
They said, 'if you go to school,
boys will be troubling you, so stay home
and there will be no sexual violence',"
Pooja Vishwakarma, 18, left, a captain in the Red Brigade, during martial arts training. The brigade takes direct action
against their tormentors and now when a local man steps out of line, he can expect a visit from the group
says Vishwakarma. "But we said no,
and we decided to form a group to fight
for ourselves. We decided we would not
just complain; we would take a lead and
fight for ourselves." They bought red
kameez (shirts) and black salwar
(trousers) and began to plan the fightback.
"We chose red because it means
danger and black for protest," says
Vishwakarma.
There is much to fight back against. "It
is in the minds of men that girls are objects
and it has been like that always,"
says Vishwakarma. "Religion shows
women as very powerless and that whoever
is strong can do anything."
Other members of the group drift in
and join her, sitting on the bed along
one wall of the front room. At the other
end of the room is a table laden with the
placards they carry with them when
they go out to protest on the 29th day of
every month. The demonstrations mark
the date of the Delhi bus rape and murder
on 29 December. Their slogans read:
"Stop rape now" and "We want safety".
"In the electronic era there are pictures
everywhere of women and girls
being treated like objects. It is now very
simple to see pornography and it is
feeding the hunger for sex. The men
think that if you are looking sexy, then
you want sex," says Vishwakarma.
They have started martial arts training
so that the men do not have a physical
advantage over them. Pooja, Vishwakarma's
18-year-old sister, laughs as
she recalls the reaction of the boy they
grabbed in the street when his taunts
became too much. "We all stopped and
turned round and we surrounded him
and grabbed his arms and legs and he
thought it was a joke, but we were not
kidding and four of us lifted him in the
air and the others started to hit him
with their shoes and fists," she says.
The rough justice the Red Brigade
metes out might seem extreme to western
sensibilities, but many Indian
women are making it clear that they are
no longer prepared to put up with endemic
abuse. That much is clear from
the crime figures: reports of molestation
in Delhi are up 590% year on year
and rape reports by 147%. The rape cases
have hit tourist numbers, which were
down 25% in the first three months of
the year – 35% fewer women are travelling
to India.
The Red Brigade say sexual abuse is a
part of daily life for young women like
them. They all have stories of abuse,
attempted rapes and daily harassment.
"This is what happens in India," says
16-year-old Laxmi, one of Vishwakarma's
lieutenants. "These things happen
all the time. All of us know this, so
don't let anyone say otherwise. This is
why we have formed the Red Brigade."
Seventeen-year-old Preeti Verma
nods in agreement. Her family are too
poor to have a toilet in the house, so
she has to go out into the fields, she
says. Every time she went out, the man
in the neighbouring house threw
stones at her to try to scare her into
jumping up. "He wanted to see my
body," she says. "I told him: 'What are
you doing? You are shameless, don't
you have a mother and sister in your
house?' But he replied that his mother
is for his father, his sister is for her
husband and that I was for him." She
told Vishwakarma, and the man received
a visit from the Red Brigade and
another from the police. She has had
no trouble from him since.
"We've caught a lot of men recently,"
says 17-year-old Sufia Hashmi. "I
joined up because men always used to
pass comments on me and touch my
body, but now we beat them the men
cannot do anything and they run away.
You feel powerful and you feel good."
The next day, they gather on the roof
of a gym across the city to run through
their moves, a mixture of kicks,
punches and throws. An instructor
shows Pooja how to use a wooden stick
to keep a boy at bay. She holds it
against his assistant's throat and the
boy looks terrified. The others gasp
and giggle.
Yet it is not just the young men of the
neighbourhood that the Red Brigade
must overcome. Many of the members
are very young and, although some of
their parents are supportive, others
are convinced they are wasting their
lives. "The attitude of my parents is
very demoralising," says 16-year-old
Simpi Diwari, a tiny young woman
who a few moments ago was kicking
away the legs of one of her colleagues.
"I want to be like Usha, fighting
against the cruel things, I want to be a
teacher and a motivator too, but I am
fighting with my parents just to be allowed
out of the house."
On the way back to the slum, the rickshaws
pass a public park and for a moment
these tough young women show
themselves for what they really are –
children forced to grow up fast. They
beg and plead to stop. "Please, please,"
they say, their eyes gleaming in excitement.
Shrieking gleefully, they race off
towards the swings, slides and roundabouts.
Later they stroll back through
the market, eating ice-creams, heading
for their homes. The sun is low in the
sky, the shadows long. The men watch
sullenly as they pass, like wolves who
have just discovered the sheep are
armed. No one risks a word.