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The Gulabi Gang, or Pink Gang, is an all-women vigilante group in India.

"Yes, we fight rapists with lathis [sticks]. If we find the culprit, we thrash him black and blue so he dare not attempt to do wrong to any girl or a woman again," boasts Sampat Devi Pal, the group’s founder and head.

Devi first discovered the power of the stick in the 1980s when she used it against a neighbour who abused his wife. Devi’s intervention had the desired result and the recalcitrant husband was forced to mend his ways. More importantly, Devi’s model of delivering alternative justice inspired a movement that now boasts of a network of 400,000 women - dressed in pink sarees and all wielding a stick - across 11 districts of India’s largest province of Uttar Pradesh.

From fighting violence against women, preventing child marriages, arranging weddings of couple in love despite local resistance, to ensuring delivery of basic rights for the poorest of poor, the Gulabi Gang’s vision is to ‘protect the powerless from abuse and fight corruption’ has found easy resonance across much of India’s hinterland, blighted by unending reports of sex crimes and gang rapes.

"When a woman seeks the membership of Gulabi Gang, it is because she has suffered injustice, has been oppressed and does not see any other recourse," says Suman Singh, the group’s deputy commander, from Mahoba district. "All our women can stand up to the men and if need be seek retribution through lathis," she adds.

"The Gulabi Gang has stepped into the vacuum left by the state and offers an alternative means of attaining justice."

[article]/[video]

1. Do Diversify your portfolio of token Muslims. Different Muslim superheroes have different superpowers.

2. Do not assume Arabs = Muslims and Muslims = Arabs. Do not use them interchangeably.

3. Do seek out Muslims who are black and/or white and or other colors. They exist, not all are brown.

4. Do not assume bearded men or covered women are religious Muslims.

5. Do not assume clean shaven men or uncovered women are not religious Muslims.

6. Do talk to more women, who are the majority of Muslim populations.

7. Do more stories about Muslim women not involving hijab or the burqa or honor killing or FGM.

8. Do not use the words “unveil” in your title.

9. Do not assume just because a person claims to represent Muslim communities, he/she does.

10. Do not use fringe Muslims as representatives for diverse Muslim communities. For example, Graeme Wood relied on Anjem Choudary for his infamous “What is ISIS” Atlantic article. Anjem is like the Pastor Jones of Muslim communities.

11. Do not assume all Muslims can talk about Islam.

12. Do have some Muslims talking about Islam. Just like you should have African Americans talking about racism and women talking about feminism and South Asians talking about Bollywood. (NOTE: If your panel on Islam has no Muslims, that is a problem.)

13. Do not assume practicing Muslims support ISIS or Al Qaeda. Unlike Don Lemon, do not ask “Do you support ISIS ..or AQAP or… Taliban?”

14. Do not ask or frame a conversation around the question: “Where are Moderate Muslims? Do they exist? Are they bearded unicorns?”

15. Do use “Moderate Muslim” in your title if you’re intentionally disrupting that simplistic narrative and showing the nuances.

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