Pink Chaddis, condoms will save India!

By Abhishek Pandey

1. These pink chaddis should be new or used? 2.Fabulous, you are killing two birds from one stone by helping out the pink chaddi making-wallahs in these times of economic gloom, and giving the Sri Rama Sene some much needed inner warmth. 3. Do you have collection point in Goa or in Chennai or in Mumbai… and lots more comments were received by the Face book group “consortium of pub going, loose and forward women”. After the overwhelming response by the net users across the globe and getting space in newspaper columns enlarged their supporters. There are some more groups mushrooming on FB and other social networking sites against Shri Ram Sene and other fringe groups ahead of Valentine Day. One of the groups went far ahead by making a group for sending pink condoms to the aforementioned group for maligning RSS (Rastriya Swayma Sevak Sangha) and other Hindus in the name of freedom and their point is that RSS condemned the acts of SRS(Shri Ram Sene).

These groups justify their campaign by saying that they are not spreading the hatred or anger to the people but this is one of their ways to create awareness among youths about the important happening. It is true. The silver lining in the clouds of hatred campaign is that it is serving the purpose of creating awareness among the Indian youths. Because most of the youths limit their news reading to the sports page, career page, to glossy supplements or sometimes to the banner headlines on the front pages. They spent more time on Internet and these social networking sites. And these groups on these websites are one of the best medium to express their angst, worry or whatever the feeling they have towards the happenings.

These online groups, which give us a platform to get together with the same kind of people to support or protest for a cause. Is this the right use of our ‘freedom of expression’, article 19(1)? This question may sound illogical when most of the net users and other people are supporting the campaign. Here, I have a point to rebut the Pink flag, sorry panties or condom, bearers. The campaign is offensive, derogatory and malicious in its nature which our constitution does not allow in the name of freedom of speech or expression. I do not have doubt the about the real motive behind the campaign.

The people who are involved in such malicious campaigns must be inspired from the history of St. Valentine. Valentine Day is celebrated in the remembrance of a Roman Catholic priest, St. Valentine. There are many stories of St. Valentine. In his time Emperor Claudius II outlawed the marriage of young men because he was under impression that unmarried men made better soldiers than married ones. But St. Valentine continued the marriages of young couples secretly. When his act was uncovered he was punished death sentence.

Another story stated that St Valentine fell in love with the jailor’s daughter who used to come to meet him during his confinement. It is believed that he wrote a letter to her greeting himself as ‘from your Valentine’ which is still used by couples. Valentine in the history pages is profiled as a romantic and heroic character. There are many traditional symbols of Valentine’s Day which include hearts, doves, and Cupid and love notes. Greetings, chocolates, roses, SMS, gifts and …so on have also been added in the list. Don’t add pink panties, condoms and other derogatory things.

I think the message of love should also be given to these extremists who are creating ruckus for the youth in the season of fest. In Mangalore, few goons of a moral brigade thrashed some girls and boys because they were of different communities. In Srinagar, posters and hoarding was put to restrict strolling or dating with opposite sex. (Do they want us to be homosexual!).

Whether it is Mangalore, Srinagar, Delhi or any city, youths must join their hands together to fight against these fringe groups. This is not because they are preventing us to celebrate V day but reason is that our freedom is crushed and we will not let the India became another ‘Taliban’ state. But we don’t follow some malicious or derogatory path which the father of nation would not suggested, if he would have been alive. We will reply to them through non-violence means and of course, we will not take the laws in our hand.

Munnbhai’s favourite jaddo ki jhappi (a bear hug) or Gandhi’s favourite red rose could be the good option to end the hate war. We can not send them used, or for that matter new, pink panties to put down the SRS and his Sene in the name of Gandhi’s methods of non-violence. My dear friends who are campaigning should not forget that Gandhi jee was not only against the physical violence but he was against of any kind of violence. Gandhi would have not supported the flinging of panties, throwing of rotten eggs, squishy tomatoes or hurling shoes towards anybody. We should not spread hatred ahead of the love fest on 14 Feb, the Valentine’s Day.

Internet has given us platform to express our self to the world by providing various options. But it should not be misused for hatred or any malicious purpose. I am quite sure when I will finish this writing there would be one more group on Internet supporting the other side means against pink panties bearer. Yeah, its there ‘hate pink chaddi campaign’ group accompanied with another power tool of Internet known as blog. Enjoy the power of internet and spread Love not hatred.

I remember the lines of a poem written by April Wiseman :

“To the world, love is a feeling,
That dictates, destroys, then scatters,
But to me, it is a state of mind,
It reminds me that nothing else matters.”