Jordan Black reviews Pink Sari Revolution at the West Yorkshire Playhouse…
Sampat Pal, leader of ‘The Gulabi Gang’ meaning pink gang in Hindi, is fighting for women to “pick up their stick, and put down their shame”. Based on a book of the same name, by Guardian journalist Amana Fontanella-Khan, Pink Sari Revolution introduces Sampat Pal (Syreeta Kumar). Well known for her gang of 400,000, dressed in pink saris with stick in hand, they challenge daily oppression in India’s rural Uttar Pradesh.
The play follows Sampat’s involvement in a fight for justice for 17-year-old Sheelu (Ulrika Krishnamurti), a runaway Dalit girl who was raped by a high-caste, married man. Kept in a police cell accused of theft, with no proper rape examination and a fleeing alcoholic father terrified of the shame his daughter has brought to the family, the Gulabi Gang will not stop until she is given back her freedom, which they consider “not a privilege but a right”.
Syreeta Kumar plays Pal with conviction. Though a woman known for her lack of fear and doing things “normal people can’t”, the script, by Purva Naresh, does not fail to acknowledge her contradicting behaviour, particularly her abusive, and often neglectful, nature towards her daughter and husband.
With more and more women opening up about sexual assault, Pink Sari Revolution, though set in the ‘badlands’ of India, is not so far away.
Pink Sari Revolution is on at the Courtyard Theatre until November 11.