India's Red Brigade

Red Brigade take part in a street play in Lucknow. Red Brigade is a group of angry young women challenging deeply ingrained patriarchal mindsets. AFP photo

 

"I decided to form a gang of girls who had been sexually abused. I wasn't interested in violence. I just wanted to protect myself. So I started to plan self-defence classes. Our red kurtas represent danger and the black trousers represent our protest. Indian girls like red dresses.
"The plan was three-fold. First when someone hurts or teases any girl, we will protest because Indian girls are shy and can't protest. We'll challenge them to change their mind. If they don't understand, we will go to their home and complain to their parents that what they are doing is unlawful. But if this fails, we will send the Red Brigade to their place to insult them publicly. 
"The last thing, because the police are not supporting us, and to make them understand, we make a slap.
"All these girls, sometimes 15 of us together, and they slap them."
Usha Vishwakarma, 25, Madiyon suburb, Lucknow, India

Most of the new recruits, young Indian girls who are intent on protecting themselves and other Indian girls and young women from sexual predators have taken it upon themselves to forge an entirely new direction for themselves, far from tradition. And wearing the uniform of the Red Brigade, red kurta pyjama tops, baggy black trousers and dupatta scarves, they are learning self-defence martial arts under the tutelage of Usha Vishwakrma and her team of martial arts trainers.

India's "Red Brigade" take part in self defence classes at a martial arts academy in Lucknow. Red Brigade is a group of angry young women challenging deeply ingrained patriarchal mindsets with a message for the country's sexual predators: change your ways or be ready to accept vigilante justice. AFP photo

Most new recruits have experienced sexual violence. They've been victims of sexual assaults, harassment, rape and attempted rape. They know how fruitless it so often is to report what they experienced to the police. Indian society has always been a dangerous place for women. It has become increasingly so. And Indian political leaders, shamed internationally by atrocities like the gang-rape and torture on a bus of a 23-year-old student that led to her anguished death, speak of new legislation and severe new penalties, but the issue simply doesn't seem to move forward.

Meanwhile, rapes are constant, afflicting women of all ages, including girls, some of whom are so horribly wounded they will never recover to live a normal life, and others who are left for dead because they have been pitilessly beaten to death, unable to identify their tormentors. One of India's most politically powerful women, Delhi's chief minister Sheila Dixit agrees that nothing has changed for women despite the national soul-searching exercise that gripped the country just recently.

Women, she said, remained too frightened and intimidated given the culture of men's explicitly entitled attitudes, and the "insensitive" police to report a sexual assault at a police station. That many of their assailants were neighbours and even relatives doesn't help matters along. In deciding to take matters into the hands of the victims themselves, Usha Vishwakarma felt it would be useful to confront the issue at the 'innocent' level of bottom pinching, on up to serious assault.

Her teams of young Red Brigade martial-arts-trained girls and women meet outside offenders' homes late at night to hurl insults at them as sex pests in front of their families and their neighbours. If this action does not result in deterrence from further such assaults on women, a group of up to 15 young women confront the men and slap them about the face and body, or beat them with sandals. This is a radical departure from the usual mien of Indian women; meek and submissive, timid about asserting their human rights.

India's "Red Brigade" shout slogans and carry placards as they take part in a candlelight protest in Lucknow. AFP photo

 

An experience of her own led her to this approach in confronting male predation as a common problem in her society. She had been assaulted by a colleague at the school where they both taught. "He was someone who knew me. I had been to his home two or three times. He suddenly grabbed me in a bear hug and started sexually assaulting me. I was surprised but kicked him in the stomach. He fell to the ground and I ran home."

She had anticipated that this humiliating incident would resolve itself somehow; he would express shame for his behaviour and beg her forgiveness. Instead he denounced her to teaching colleagues, describing her as a "bad girl". Everyone took their distance from her. Police refused to register an case against the man who had attacked her. She was persecuted, received anonymous sexually explicit messages on her cellphone, and police received allegations she had been involved in kidnapping and sexual harassment. The head teacher transferred her to another school.

Her home was raided in her absence. Charges of theft, sexual harassment and threatening behaviour were dropped only once her family protested. And then even her family members warned her to drop her search for justice. She decided to fight back. She became aware of the rape of an 11-year-old girl who attended her school. The rapist was the girl's uncle. "The police would not file a report. It happened in her own home as she was sleeping", she explained.

"The psychology of Indian men is to use women for their own service. They want to make them like a servant. That's why these incidents are happening", she said. Another challenge is that women don't want to make a fuss. Their aspirations gear toward marriage, and settling down, rather than launching a protracted social fight to claim their human rights.