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While bloggers, media, all sane human beings and Renuka Choudhary have been blasting the Sri Rama Sena (translated as “A band of monkeys” with some inputs from history), only Rediff has shown the courage to delve deeper into the issue. What they have come up with is an article called : Did India export The Kiss to the West?
Behaviour analysts are also divided on where the habit originated. Some believe that kissing, in fact, is a Vedic habit. Vaughn Bryant, an anthropologist from Texas quoted in the International Herald Tribune, believes that the first recorded kiss, around 1500 BC, is in scriptures which mention people sniffing with their mouths; later Vedic texts describe lovers “setting mouth to mouth”.
Far from being a European import, he says, kissing went west from India, after Alexander’s conquest of Punjab in 326 BC. If such is the case then the Romans and Latins, whose kisses range from the overtly sexual to the deeply spiritual, are truly the kissing cousins of the Aryans.
So there you go SRS. It is not the West that is corrupting us, it is the other way round. So you need to be moral policing the West !
On a more serious note, a campaign that has been doing the rounds lately : The Pink Chaddi Campaign, a Consortium of Pub Going, Loose and Forward Women. If you have a spare Pink Chaddi to send to the SRS, please also join their Facebook thing. I am eager to join not just to support their cause, but to see if there are any guys who have a Pink Chaddi. Also, from their campaign snap, I think the campaigners might be confusing between the RSS and SRS as they are different. One goes around beating helpless women in pubs, the other is denied entry to pubs owing to their costume.
Link via Salil B.
I am not sure whether to welcome this statement or not :
NEW DELHI: Turning the iconic freedom struggle slogan “jail bharo” on its head, Minister of State for Women and Child Development since Renuka Choudhary on Thursday suggested that the only way to tackle the moral police was to launch a “ pub bharo andolan”.
Choudhary has been at loggerheads with the Karnataka government for failing to protect women in the aftermath of the Mangalore pub attack. Not only were women beaten up in a pub last month but young girls have received threats warning them not to wear “noodle straps or tight jeans” and celebrate Valentine’s Day. She added that the youth could cock a snook by going to pubs in droves to make their point.
When I read it, I had an overwhelming urge to oppose this andolan; not because I am against pub culture, but because by taking matters in our hands, we are submitting to the fact that the state governments cannot curb the menace of moral watchdogs. By being at loggerheads with the saffron brigades, we run the risk of being part of the problem as perceived by a state government rather than the victim, something the administration would gladly welcome.
But what else are the youth supposed to do if not this ? I have no answer.
On a lighter note, a friend remarked on the Mangalore incident, “Sri Rama Sena ? Doesn’t that mean they are a band of monkeys ?”
Link via Nikhil.
In a landmark judgement that in the very least goes against the very foundations of our great culture and is sure to render many policemen (the moral ones ) jobless, the Delhi High Court ruled that it was fine for a young married couple to show an expression of love in public :
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has stayed criminal proceedings against a couple wondering how and why an “expression of love by a young married couple” in this case allegedly by stealing kisses in public should attract the charge of obscenity.
“The FIR doesn’t make a case for offence under Section 294 (obscenity) read with 34 IPC. It is inconceivable how, even if one were to take what is stated in the FIR to be true, an expression of love by a young married couple would attract offence of obscenity and trigger the coercive process of law,” observed Justice Muralidhar.
So what .. now we are supposed to ask a couple if they are married before beating the hell out of them ? Why can’t we just have the good old days back where we could barge into a bar and beat innocent looking girls and their evil guy friends ?
I tell you it is no longer fun belonging to one of those moral police Senas. I might have to seriously reconsider joining the police force who I believe still can go around beating up small kids.
Do we prefer terrorism to be associated only with cross-border actions as it gives us the comfort of identifying an enemy ?
Is an Islamist (as some of them have been branded) the only face of terror or could it be someone we support too ?
What exactly is even the definition of terrorism ?
Amit Varma makes you think about the above questions and a few more in a piece that chronicles the recent incidents by powers of Sri Rama Sena, Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena :
On the other hand, let’s look at the definition of terrorism according to Merriam-Webster: “The systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.”
Is this not “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion”? And in all these cases, some of the accused might get arrested, but are released in no time and are back in business. As I’d once written, mobs in India have the license to do as they please if they do it under the banner of politics or religion. If you and I go and vandalize a hotel lobby or beat up women in a lounge bar, you can bet we’ll be thrown into jail, and rightfully so. But if we do it under the pretext of defending our culture or our religion, then anything goes. The rule of law, in such situations, is a joke.
Thinking is mandatory, commenting is not.
Starting now, instead of the usual WTF quotes of the day or week, I shall annoint deserving candidates as “Dude Of The Week”. The first in this series is the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for his profound analysis of the violence against women in Italy :
Italy’s prime minister has sparked outrage by claiming the prevention of rape in the country’s capital is almost impossible because there are too many beautiful women. ”We’d have to have as many soldiers as there are pretty girls. I don’t think we would manage,” he told reporters.
In light of the recent attacks against women in Mangalore, for people who believe protection of women is a responsibility of the state, may I add that protection of women is almost impossible as there are too many modern women in India.
P.S. : Dude of the Week is the unregistered trademark of the organization I used to work for previously.
Continuing on the series of attacks on the rights of other people, a hitherto unknown Sri Rama Sena acted as a moral brigade (and I must say got right into the skin of the character. Take that Aamir.) and attacked hapless victims at a pub in Mangalore.
Speaking with CNN-IBN from Maharashtra, Muthalik defended his organisation and said it was not a big issue and that the media was blowing it out of proportion.
“It’s a small incident and we were only working against obscenity in public. You are not talking about the issue, which is obscenity and inappropriate behaviour,” he said.
Muthalik – who was also the Karnataka Chief of the Shiv Sena but parted ways with them over the Belgaum border issue – also said Ram Sena was a non-profit organisation and its objective was to “serve the society and prevent bad begaviour”. (sic)
I am sure there are going to be quite a few takers for the “working against obscenity in public” reason. But like I mentioned in a previous post here, this was private property and trespassing might just be one of the lesser crimes they committed.
The National Commission for Women has been very vocal against this incident and so has anyone who is tired of the self-proclaimed moral brigades.
But the issue here again is a fundamental right. The right to freedom. It is ironical that the one right we fought hardest to attain is the one we are blatantly deprived of.
P.S. : In case you want to say anything about the issue, I would appreciate if the crux is spoken about in your comment. And the crux cannot be how they were dressed. Firstly, because they were on private property and they were not in any way invading any right of any other individual.
