Pramod Muthalik, the founder of the small right-wing group Sri Ram Sene, has called off the Valentine’s Day protest but the controversy yielded whatever the hardly-known organization wanted to accomplish—name and fame.
The Valentine Day will come and go, but the 2009 V-Day would be remembered forever with the brand name of ‘Pramod Muthalik’ and the competition between ‘pink chaddi’ and ‘pink condoms’ campaigners.
Muthalik, who now needs no introduction, though reasoned for his retreating from the protests by saying that they received specific information that some miscreants were planning to disrupt peace. He further added that some miscreants trying to fetch bad name to the Sri Ram Sene and will create trouble to disrupt the peace protest by us.
He, however, said that in case any of our activists find anyone in indecency or dressed indecently, we will protest before them.
Going back to the genesis of the controversy — the January 24 Mangalore pub assault when girls in pub had to bear the brunt of activists of self-styled Sri Ram Sene, outrage across the country broke out against the violation of women’s rights on the eve of Republic day, accusing state government for abetting the so-called Talibanisation of Karnataka.
In the meantime, Muthalik appeared issuing Tuglaqi farman — Those guys and gals found dating each other or exhibiting any sort of public display of affection on Valentine’s Day will be forced to wedding on the spot.
Counterattacking to the Sri Ram Sene’s moral policing, a number of agitated people created a group called ‘Consortium of pub-going, loose and forward women’ and resorted to ‘gandhigiri’ by finding a platform in Facebook, one of the popular social networking sites, to voice their opinion and launching the “pink chaddi campaign”—which urges people to send a pink chaddi to Ram Sene President on Valentine’s Day.
In contrast, to defeat the pink chaddi campaign, a “pink condoms” campaign was launched by another group of netizens on another social networking site, blogspot-- thepinkcondomcampaign.blogspot.com.
The identification of the group is unknown, however, it is said that the group is near to the Sangh Parivar. The website says about itself — “We are the ordinary Hindus, who don’t bark on television channels to defend our faith, but we definitely get hurt when some people bark against our faith.”
The pink chaddi campaign tried to unnecessarily implicate an assertive Hindu and RSS for Managalore pub attack incident, reads blog about why they launched pink condoms campaign. It, however, says they do not support the Sri Rama Sene beating up women in Mangalore, but they back the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for its social work and for fighting “sickulars” (seculars).
About condom campaigns, the blog reads: Condoms are necessary to save yourself from AIDS and to lead a progressive and secular life. The Pink Chaddi walas claim themselves to be pubgoing, loose and forward - a condom will help them maintain being that.
Their message for V-Day supporters reads: Send the pubgoing, loose and forward men and women “a pink condom” because “condoms are secular”.
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