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Book of the Week: Amana Fontanella-Khan - The Pink Sari Revolution

Meera Syal

Clive Brill

Amana Fontanella-Khan

Eileen Horne

Book of the Week: Amana Fontanella-Khan - The Pink Sari Revolution: Episode 1

The Pink Sari Revolution

Episode 1

Amana Fontanella-Khan - The Pink Sari Revolution

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Amana Fontanella-Khan - The Pink Sari Revolution, Episode 1

Sampat Pal, grassroots crusader for women's rights, takes on a new case of injustice.

4 Extra Debut. The story of Sampat Devi Pal, essentially illiterate but the fierce and courageous founder of India's infamous Pink Gang, fighting for the rights of women in India.

India's struggle with justice for women in the 21st century is becoming one of the most prominent news stories of the moment. In 2013, another terrible gang rape hit the headlines. Women's collectives are growing up all over the country and beginning to fight back. The most prominent and potent is the Pink Sari Gang. This is their story.

Sampat Devi Pal, raised in India's Uttar Pradesh region, was married off at twelve, had her first child at fifteen, and is essentially illiterate. Yet she has risen to become the fierce and courageous founder and commander in chief of India's Pink Gang, a 20,000-member women's vigilante group fighting for the rights of women in India.

In narrating the riveting story of the Pink Gang's work on behalf of a young girl unlawfully imprisoned at the hands of an abusive politician, journalist Amana Fontanella-Khan explores the origins and tactics of a fiery sisterhood that has grown to twice the size of the Irish army.

Merging courtroom drama, compelling personal history, and a triumphant portrait of grassroots organisation, Pink Sari Revolution highlights the extraordinary work of women who are shaking things up within their own country. 

Amana is a Mumbai-based writer of Pakistani and Irish descent. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Financial Times and the FT magazine. An honorary gulabi member, this is her first book.


Episode 1
Sampat Pal, grassroots crusader for women's rights, takes on a new case of injustice against women in rural India.


Read by Meera Syal
Written by Amana Fontanella-Khan
Abridged by Eileen Horne

Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.

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By Amana Fontanella-Khan. The story of Sampat Devi Pal, founder of India's Pink Gang.

By Amana Fontanella-Khan. The story of Sampat Devi Pal, founder of the Pink Gang, a 20,000-member women's vigilante group fighting for the rights of women in India. Read by Meera Syal.

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