The ToI claims two tourists from Morocco and the UAE were deported for making out in Mumbai. What say we pass the hat so the thin khaki line gets laid once in awhile?
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Slapping hussies in Meerut |
Ibtisay Lamyani, 27, and Alfasar Nasir Abdul Hussain Ali, 37, were visiting India separately and had met at the Gateway of India. They were necking near the Metro cinema junction on Tuesday afternoon when a woman constable from Azad Maidan police station decided to intervene. She warned them against indecent behaviour in a public place. [Link]
The ToI’s smug commentary mirrors the sourpuss constable:
When they argued back, she demanded they show their passports. As luck would have it Lamyani’s visa had expired… Not chastened in the least, they promptly got into a clinch again. [Link]
The female tourist saw the director’s cut of Bombay (now with behind-the-bars footage), and both tourists were deported:
The police then submitted a chargesheet to the court which convicted Lamyani to a day’s imprisonment… Ali was also fined. They were both deported to their respective countries on the same night. [Link]
India Welcomes You.
Related posts: Bitter much?, Do Not Touch!, No sex please, we’re Indian, There is no place to hide it in India, Sex (gasp) in India: juxtaposition, Those legs are weapons of mass distraction, apparently, Indian Maxim is out to save lives, Dress Code
Great – tourists come to visit India and get treated like criminals by some Nazi police officer, and the half wits at Times of India report it gleefully. Idiots.
This story is bloody depressing. Some details are a bit odd, though – two strangers from Muslim, and presumably conservative, countries start necking in public within minutes of meeting eachother…is there more to this story than meets the eye?
The police and public in India seem to be selective about who they target for indecency charges. When I was a lot younger, I travelled to Bengal with my then-boyfriend (who was white, to make things worse), and we pretty much spent the entire trip in a clinch. We kissed on the street, we kissed at dhabas, we kissed on crowded trains. We got a few voyeurs gawking and trailing us – but no one said or did anything hostile.
Somebody please tell me the difference between this post and the Orientalist posts that this website so regularly denigrates.
Yes, someone please explain to AQ the difference between a cowpath and Mumbai.
ooooh… someone is a wannabe Nicholas Kristof today, reporting on oppressed women in
IndiaSouth Asia from the sheltered “bunker” (is that what you guys call your dwelling?). Lazy Sunday haan? Probably you ought to see the Samberg/Parnell clip.Totally agree with A Question. Besides, when in Rome do as the Romans. There’s definitly a bit of dissing here – like they’re only repressed Indians, lets show them what liberation is. I doubt people like Uberwench would be as blase in parts of the U.S. where this is not acceptable. And the contrast between the U.S. and say Italy is stark. Why is it so hard to understand that people in different parts of the world have varying levels of comfort with this?
More Indians live on cowpaths 😉
Prope//er explains sexuality for us:
Do you support jailing people for kissing in public?
Do you support jailing people for kissing in public?
No. Not at all. And I also hate the morality police. I just have a problem with the attitude that the Indian way (what you call repressed) is the one that needs solution and not the western way – to use a matching pejorative, promiscuity.
There defintely should not be laws against such behavior. I’m surprised there are. Bet if we dig deep enough to find the origin of these laws we’d probably trace them to the British. They’re the ones who instituted all kinds of morality laws. Indians never ever had them. I just meant to show support for the Indian way, which is to go by tradition not laws.
To Divya – I’m Canadian-born, perhaps don’t get what you mean by the parts of the US where kissing in public is not acceptable. Where in the US would it not be acceptable??? Besides which, I wasn’t ‘dissing India’ – in fact, me and my fellow-clincher were generally treated tolerantly. I do diss the law which jailed/deported this couple.
Divya,
English have been gone from India for now ~60 years. Isn’t time, we looked carefully and re-evaluated our social conditioning?
Morality police in India is like cockroaches, they show up every where. On Valentine’s day, some of the morality police vandalized a person’s brother death anniversary and harassed the women themselves – all in the name of stopping valentine day celebrations.
I do not know if nostaglia is doing tricks, if I remember, things get out of control very easily.
I agree that some of these laws originated during English period or during the series of invasions from Central Asia from 7th century onwards. The whole concept of military garisson having its own social structure, cantonment (as seen in India and other British colonies) was to minimize social contact but still, it is about time………..
I could never fathom or stomach the “no sex please, we are indian” hypocrisy. And it is not as if we living by this mantra…..no sirreee, babulal If anything, we are having way too much sex…….evidence, the burgeoning population, which will soon surpass China’s.
Anyone read the Laws of Manu lately? Looks like a bunch of moral laws, Hindu-made, to me…pretty nasty consequences for violations too. Aint just the nasty English and Muslim invaders who started it all.
Most prolly the ady was a proffessional sex worker. You find a bunch of them from that part of world(Russia and rest of USSR too) in India these days.
Dharma Queen:
Manu’s laws were never followed in ancient India. To wit – Ajanta, Ellora and Kamasutra. And whether we like it or not, the invaders [Muslim and British] did impose their mores on our ancestors. It is a different matter, that we should stop assigning blame and work towards a more evolved society.
Looks like I stomped on some sore nerve here, nice segue by the way. Manish, we are aware of your Google and “data-mining” skills :), we weren’t questioning them.
Yes, please update us when you watch Spice Channel with parents and siblings in the same room. Till then, Carrry on Googling.
Back to the topic at hand, what exactly is your point of your post? Me thinks you have some issues yourself.
[] Suggest somehow that Indians are all repressed [] The khaki people don’t get laid and therefore arrest people who are all lovey-dovey? [] Suggest that Indian Police can’t find its way out of a wet paper bag? [] India is a pi**pot and that people be free to overstay their Visa.
The Sulekha post also makes a point, I do not watch porno with my parents in the room. The Union Station in Washington DC has shields covering the private parts of Roman figures based on the ordinance passed by the US government. It has nothing to do with repression. By the same token, choose your location to get intimate. If you are a tourist, do your homework on what to do and what not to do. Of course, this argument does not in anyway justify manhandling.
You are probably making yourself look silly with another of your tabloid topics. What next? Desi Body Odour and Hairy Indian Women?
“the invaders [Muslim and British] did impose their mores on our ancestors”
Or sometimes, they themselves acted in ways that seemed self-censorship and/ or self-preservation. Like more use of sati, and many more things.
That all happened centuries ago, time to move on.
We may have been a land of kama sutra or what not, but in present day India, being repressed is the norm rather exception.
Kush Tandon et al.,
Why is this being discussed under the guise of repression? Isn’t this a case of etiquette? Ofcouse, manhandling by the police is a totally different question. India is a country in transition. You can’t fire up a laptop, read the news and expect people to behave the way you do. 10 years from now, unless Osama’s bhateeja takes over India, Manish would be a happy camper when he fires up his laptop to see tourist’s lip-locking with possibly Celine Dion’s songs in the background. Who knows. Manish, you like Celine Dion? 🙂 What? did I say something offensive? Am I being blocked?
Many of us would be happy to admit that US society is also repressed (ie for example, with respect to homosexuals) if some of you would please spare us the ‘You Americans do it too’ species of defensiveness. Whatever the Americans, or Canadians, or British do, does not make this stupid law regarding kissing in public right.
As loath as I am to dig up dead posts, reading prop!!er’s peeve, I am compelled to make an exception and jump in. Merits of this post notwithstanding, there does seem a tendency amongst soem mutineers to denigrate Indian societal norms. I recall for you a post from some whiles back where one of your writers couldn’t stop sniggering [at those poor supressed Indian women] when she/he came across a grocery shopping bag from India, which was embalzzoned with the term- “Ladies’ best friend”. The fact that this bag was story worthy in itself speaks volumes. As if American houselholdd cleaning products or various other ” home chores” related products are never targetted towards women.
propeller,
Please forget Manish and his data mining skills for a moment. let me ask you three questions, please answer me honestly. Hope Manish does not mind.
1) You are walking with your girlfriend @ 10:00 PM in a dark alley. A jeep/ van of five policemen pulls up. Where would you rather be in this moment – a) Dallas or b) Delhi?
2) You are a women, you and your friends are walking from movie theater to home @ 7:30 PM, winter night. You have noticed an overbearing cop walking up to you guys. Where do you wish you were a) Madrid or b) Mumbai?
3) Are Indians are more repressed, as in present-day compared to their counter-parts in Americas (both North and South), parts of Africa, and Europe? Yes or No answer.
4) Are cops in India significantly less self-disciplined, compared to other liberal democracies in present-day? Yes or No. Please do not bring 60s Jim Crow laws and incidents.
Anyone can answer these questions. I am not going to debate their answers, just give some answers @ SM.
What your nani thinks of PDAs: tabloid
Enforcing at gunpoint what your nani thinks of PDAs: bad law
Conflating individual with state, tabloid with law, sexual freedom with ultrafeminism and any critique of India with treason: priceless. You’ve earned your rep well:
A lot of Indian societal norms need to be reformed, especially gender roles and sexual freedom. See related posts.
Where?
Denigrating societal norms is a happy perk of all modern, liberal, democratic societies. Young people in the 20s and the 60s in much of the Western world shocked mainstream society with their ridicule, denigration and flouting of societal norms.
what’s the problem? different rules in different places…India is not US…India is conservative and this type of behavior is not acceptable in public there, so these people getting arrested was justified
India is conservative and this type of behavior is not acceptable in public there
Manu’s laws were never followed in ancient India. To wit – Ajanta, Ellora and Kamasutra..
what, did ancient india have a french style centralized government? i.e., if ajanta, ellora and kamasutra exist than it means that the laws of manu had no force anywhere at anytime?
puleez.
Manish: how does that prove that it’s acceptable there…?
i think tourists should try to respect the local customs wherever they go – it is common sense, and brings you less trouble. but that is different from justifying the police actions here. I have heard even in places like Bangalore, police is constantly on the look out for couples in parks (esp if they can sense the couple is not married) and the cops find it a nice way to make some money as well – telling them that their parents will have to come and sign the papers to release them is a very common blackmail. this morality police stinks – and there is plenty of rotten things in india and they deserve to be talked about. that is how change comes about.
also, how much revisionism can we engage in at this point with a straight face? are the hard-core hindutva style religious conservatives the ones who “throw off” muslim and british imposed mores re: modesty & sexuality? as opposed to westernized indians who hew to outsider morality? brownee puleez.
prudishness isn’t a surprising cultural invention, it is a human bias which gets expressed to various levels in various cultures for various reasons.
It’s quite acceptable among the young in Bombay, and the vast majority of Indians and presumably Bombayites are under 35.
Um, I don’t think anyone’s read the Manu laws. Except the commies of course. And they were never state sponsored, or legally-binding.
Kush – It would be the greatest boon for India if it scrapped the British laws. They were conceived to serve the Empire and are actually seriously bogging the country down.
I have no interest in getting embroiled in one of these stupid arguments, it should be pretty apparent where I stand by agreeing that Indian societal norms DO need challenging and my answers to Kush’s questions are: Dallas, Madrid, No, Probably (note he said liberal democracies).
However I just wanted to voice my appreciation for a genius line which seems to have been either misinterpreted or taken out of context:
That’s brilliant. Propeller if you’re claiming sexual frustration has nothing to do with how Indian police treat people then you are almost certainly male and are unlikely to have been around many Indian policemen.
Manish: bombay is not india…bombay is quite urban and westernized so Im not surprised but the majority of Indians and India in general do not approve of these behaviors.
the punjab police get laid all the time
This issue isn’t only one of ‘etiquette’, and ‘doing what the Romans do’. In sexually repressive societies, women pay by not being allowed certain freedoms, being blamed for rape etc., and both sexes are miserably unfulfilled.
I remember going to a cinema hall in Kolkata one night with my boyfriend and being puzzled that the first three rows were filled with young men. The show was a European arthouse film. Eventually, from some of the comments I heard, I gathered that these men came to see Western films in hopes of seeing nude scenes etc. Then a middle-aged man came in after the film had begun and sat directly behind us. The hall was fairly empty but for the first few rows, so this was odd. I suddenly felt a finger running down my back, through the crack between seats. I turned around sharply, but the man pretended to look at the film. He did this several times and we moved. I could have freaked at him, but for a finger running down my back?? Afterward, I just felt sad for him. Imagine what a lonely life you must have to get off on running your finger down some woman’s back.
It is amazing that anyone is defensive of traditions and laws that make so many people unhappy.
Right – so now we know – if it wasnt for the Muslims and British India would have been the most progressive and wonderful land of joy and justice, ambrosial laughter, sexual equality, there would have been no caste oppression, women would be free, in fact it would be like heaven on Earth. Any mention of the laws of Manu is a conspiracy by the commies. I get you. Oh yeah – the commies – they are like the Muslims and British, all have a part to play in violating the virginal sanctity of ancient India, her wonderfulness, perfection, utopian joyful pleasent and sweet land of perfection where children played with gamboling deers. No shudra was ever treated like a cockroach, no woman was ever oppressed. Oh Divya, take us back to that time of sanctified perfection!
And what is it with people who say ‘You are not showing respect to tradition and customs’ – so what? Why should anyone show respect to any tradition or custom that they don’t want to? Welcome to the 21st Century people, everyone gets to say what they want and challenge what they want!
I dug up old Manu for y’all:
“By the early centuries of the Common Era, Manu had become, and remained, the standard source of authority in the orthodox tradition for that centrepiece of Hinduism, varnastrama-dharma (social and religious duties tied to class and stage of life). Over the course of the centuries, the text attracted nine complete commentaries, attesting to its crucial significance within the tradition, and it is cited in other ancient Indian texts far more frequently than any other dharma sastra…”
So the law book wasn’t some mutant one-hit wonder, preserved through the ages by virtue of its sheer freakiness. It was part of the fabric of Hindu society at one time. And women and sex don’t do well in it…
Whoops! looks like Divya was telling some bare faced lies there. Either that, or she really does believe all of the brainwashed nonsense about conspiring commies and all – I don’t know which is worse – either way they are both instructive. Time to get an education Divya.
Andand, There’s no need to bust a blood vessel. And there’s no need to fall for every bit of demented scholarship. And please do not accuse me of lying. How ridiculous to drag Manu and the caste system and sati into a discussion about kissing and police behavior. Do you think any of those cops have even heard of Manu?
This is so typical. Anyone says anything in defense of India and right on cue the entire brigage pipes up about the caste system and sati.
Divya
Relax sister, quit the pompous outrage. Follow the line of this thread and you will see how the issue arose, partly through the stupid claims made about India being plagued soleley by the laws of the British and Muslims and, ummm, the commies in a big conspiracy too; all impinging on a pristine India untainted by backwardness and stupidity. You need to understand that all things are open to questioning and not ‘bust a blood vessel’ yourself when you are called on it.
Now are you still seriously suggesting that the nastiness and brutality of life in India over the centuries was solely caused by the laws of the British and the Horrible Muslims? What was the influence of the laws of Manu on Indian life? Let us know Divya, let us know. Or is it all a commie conspiracy?
These people argue that womens’ rights were worst in the “Vedic Dark Ages”
More on Manu and women:
Well Anti-Divya the source of your screed is a religiously partisan site itself so it has an axe to grind too.
Nevertheless, the unrelenting drip of water – the outrage at the testing and criticism of ‘customs’, the paranoia and ‘how dare you’ mentality, all of it too predictable and useless, Divya and her type, one note pianos and one trick ponies.
And yet more on Manu and Women:
Yes, these authors all have axes to grind, but that doesn’t mean that they’re wrong.
Anand, comment #45 is just quotes from Manu, without any added interpretation (although the site did have some comments to make). Surely you’re not going to simply dismiss those as well? More importantly, dismissing an argument based upon its source is a fallacy. You have to consider each remark on its own factual merits without resorting to the short cuts of “good guys / bad guys” or “impartial / biased”.
Divya, the ‘demented scholarship’ you are referring to was published by Penguin Books India in 1991, in an introduction to the Laws of Manu.
You asked for the Manu discussion etc. by blaming the existence of Indian morality police on the British and others. You are not defending India by doing this, you are doing India a deep disservice. Gandhi was one of the most ferocious critics of Indian social mores India has seen – he who loveth chastiseth…
Anti-Divya,
I do not want to get dragged in this specific “Manu” discussion. Anti-Divya, you are using a religious propoganda website to slam another religion. if you really want to discuss, use some independent (or secular) scholarly work.
Anand and Divya – relax and order some frappuccino @ starbucks
The problem discussed above is more social within the present-day context rather than having Manu origins. Maybe, something to do with public servants acting lords/ lards – misuse of privileges and power – a legacy of colonial times and third world frame of functioning – that is where the historical context ends.
I have seen with my own eyes cops beating up people in India for no apparent reasons. They use hands more than mouth.