Clash of Cultures

In India Valentine’s day is largely an urban celebration. Many middle class parents believe that their children’s Valentine shopping and gifting is more about peer pressure than choice. It is also a disturbing fact that more and more youngsters are experimenting with alcohol, drugs and sex and Valentine’s Day could be used as an excuse for indulgence.

Concurrently, there are those who think it is about time that people in the land that gave the world the treatise of Love—Kamasutra and the enduring tribute to love—the Taj Mahal, demystified the sublime emotion and openly celebrated living and loving. Parents, teachers and elders need to openly discuss the consequences of risky social and sexual behaviors with youngsters, rather than shoving the clichéd “Indian culture” lecture down their throat.

Talibanizing Valentine’s Day

Just as young men and women in India are gearing up for a Valentine day bash, Ram Sene and similar self-appointed guardians of Indian culture and values are getting ready for the day too—to do the bashing. Pramod Muthalik, chief of Ram Sene, a radical group that dictates female conduct, perpetrates the gender divide and discourages inter-faith relationships, announced the Sene’s agenda for the day—strong protests against Valentine day celebrations to preserve Indian culture and custom. If that means dragging girls out of pubs and beating them up, as was witnessed in the recent Mangalore pub violence, what culture are we talking about?

“If people celebrate the day despite our warning, then we will attack them,” said Gangadhar Kulkarni, a senior Sri Ram Sene activist in an interview to a leading Indian newspaper. The right wing moral police have a record of indulging in vandalism of the worst kind. Anti-Valentine’s day protest is just an excuse to indoctrinate young Indian men into parochial thinking.

A radical few who eye the vote bank alone cannot give the final word on an ongoing debate in India involving culture, morality and gender. Protests by radical groups to denounce Valentine’s Day celebration as a Western influence that pollutes Indian culture and value system will only aggravate the youth and prod them on to risky behavior as an act of defiance.

Young, rebellious and loving it

With love as a leveling factor Valentine’s Day can relegate caste, religion and such divisive forces to the back seat. The day of love and bonding will always see a proliferation of greetings and gifts among loved ones. There will be friends calling up to chat, spouses renewing declarations of love and young couples exchanging sweet nothings. But this year the Sri Ram Sena may have thrown a spanner in the works, because young men and women will be walking hand in hand on the beach or sharing drinks in a pub—yet furtively glancing over their shoulders dreading the moral policing.

Valentine’s Day 2009 will be remembered for the suspense it holds—whether urban Indian youth are going to “behave” according to the dictates of the Rama Sene, or going to prove that they are indeed young and rebellious and loving every minute of it!

Source-Medindia
Thilaka Ravi/L