Posts
February 9
A mob attack on women drinking in a college-town bar has set off the latest battle in the great Indian culture wars, uncorking a national debate over moral policing and its political repercussions, and laying bare the limits of freedom for young Indian women.
The latest Old versus New India hubbub began one Saturday last month when an obscure Hindu organization, which calls itself Sri Ram Sena, or the Army of Ram, a Hindu god, attacked several women at a bar in the southern Indian college town of Mangalore and accused them of being un-Indian for being out drinking and dancing with men.
The Sena had television news crews in tow, so its attack on the women at the bar, called Amnesia — the Lounge, was swiftly broadcast nationwide.
The video, broadcast repeatedly since then, showed some women being pushed to the ground and others cowering and shielding their faces. It was unclear whether they were trying to protect themselves from their assailants' fists or the television cameras or both. None of them have come out publicly since then, and it is unclear whether anyone was seriously hurt.
Eventually, more than 10 members of the Sena were arrested, only to be released on bail in a week. Since then, they have promised to campaign against Valentine's Day, which they criticized as a foreign conspiracy to dilute Indian culture, and they said they did not disapprove of men drinking at bars.
The conflict surrounding so-called pub culture in India set off nearly two weeks of shouting matches on television talk shows and editorial pages. Politicians have also jumped into the fray.
At first, some lawmakers with the governing Congress Party seized on the Mangalore attack to denounce their political rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, for its loose affiliations with a variety of Hindu radical groups. But the BJP, which governs the state of Karnataka, where Mangalore is located, instantly condemned the violence. And soon enough, others allied with the governing coalition, while condemning violence, joined the finger-wagging.
One official denounced shopping malls, too, calling them havens of hand-holding. The health minister, Anbumani Ramadoss, promised a national alcohol law to curb drinking, without which, he told reporters, "India will not progress."
B. P. Singhal, a former member of Parliament who was with the BJP and who has been making the rounds of television talk shows, rued that men acted irresponsibly in the company of women at bars. A Sena leader appeared on television to say his group was stepping in to enforce morality because the government had failed.
The women and child development minister, Renuka Chowdhury, has been one of the few politicians to openly criticize the Sena, calling its methods "Talibanization."
The debate comes as a new generation of Indian women steps out of the home for work or play in a rapidly expanding economy and finds itself having to negotiate old social boundaries, harassment and, sometimes, outright violence. New Delhi is among the most notorious for this; among big cities in India, it has logged the highest number of reported cases of rape and molestation for the last decade.
On a recent night at café Morrison, a deafening rock 'n' roll bar, the national stir over pub culture inspired irritation, dismay and soul-searching.
"It's pathetic," said Kirat Rawel, 23, a college student who was spending the evening at the bar here in the capital with her younger sister, Nimrit, 21. "It is basically for the vote bank. It has nothing to do with culture."
The sisters said their parents, who live in a small town more than five hours from here by car, had no problem with their going to a bar and having a drink.
The sisters also know that even in New Delhi, one of India's most seemingly modern cities, they are not immune to attacks like the one in Mangalore and that they are surrounded by other Indians who, in their hearts, do not approve of young women who go out at night and drink in the company of strangers. They suspected that there was quiet approval among many Indians of the Sena mob that assaulted the women in Mangalore.
"Urban India may criticize it," Kirat Rawel said, "but there is a certain section of India that believes in it."
By 10 p.m., most of the women, who were a minority at café Morrison anyway, had begun to clear out. The Rawel sisters, like many single women in this city, said they worried most about how to get home safely.
Sanah Galgotia, 21, nursed a beer and recalled this story: She had been walking home around midafternoon recently when a car full of men slowly followed behind. Furious, she turned around, shouted and banged on the car window, only to have the driver try to run her over. She escaped and ran home. When she got there and recounted her ordeal, her mother asked why she had pursued the aggressors.
To Galgotia, the episode demonstrated the "schizophrenic" attitude of Indian women — alternating between being assertive and subservient and then judging others for tilting one way or the other. She is guilty of it, too, she said. When she sees a woman who smokes in public, she sizes her up instantly.
"In India, no matter how modern you are, you're still in this schizophrenic nonmodern thing," she said, straining to be heard as the DJ blasted Pearl Jam.
She looked around and wondered aloud whether she and her friends were simply "trying to ape the West." That set off an argument.
Her friend Murphy John, 21, shook his head. "I'm wearing a jacket, not a dhoti-kurta," he said, referring to the traditional Indian draped pantaloon and tunic, "because I like wearing a jacket. It's globalization."
"We are globalized in our lifestyle," Galgotia responded, "but very Indian at heart. I know I am."
Another friend at the table, Sandesh Moses, 22, said he thought the Sena had probably accomplished its goal.
"They don't want women to go out," he said. "I can guarantee a lot of people will be supporting them."
No comments:
Post a Comment