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
Kush:
Are “independent (or secular) scholarly work”[s] always right? And who gets to judge what is “independent” and what is not? As I said:
Very often the only people speaking one side of the story are partisan. That doesn’t mean that they were wrong. By your logic, the British should have dismissed any argument made by the INC because it was “biased” and relied instead on the “impartial” british media.
Anti-Divya
You don’t need to inform me about these things, thank you. I know what is what. Dharma Queen says it best – I concur with her.
I’m too lazy to read all the posts and jump in the ongoing debate/conversation. My 2 cents on the original post:
It’s total BS to happen to anyone, tourist or local Indians. But I don’t think there is anything wrong with deporting the girl who had her Visa expired.
” As luck would have it LamyaniÂ’s visa had expired. ” Wtf is wrong with TOI? As luck would have it? Didn’t Lamyani know what date her Visa expired on? What does Luck have to do with that?
“Yes, someone please explain to AQ the difference between a cowpath and Mumbai.”
Good one,Manish.
Actually my point is not about how repressed Indians and IndianAmericans are. My point is, if this story didn’t have an author attached to it, I would guess “Orientalist Media” – it smacks of a rookie reporter sent down on his first international assignnment.
Anti-Divya, Stop believing everything you read online. From my experience, HALF the ‘religious’ websites out there are nothing but propoganda used to demerit other religions.
Many of Ancient Indian Sadhus and Sages have been women, I think it’s pretty obvious they had women reading the Vedas back then.. Them Hindus got GoddeSSES, do you really think they beleived Women were sinful?
Bah, I’m wasting my time.
Whoa this post is getting a lot of action. Seriously, how did all this stuff about the Laws of Manu get embroiled in this story about PDAs in Mumbai? That seems counter-productive and like so much smoke and mirrors. Indian pop culture (at least in urban India, especially in Mumbai) has less to do with The Laws of Manu (a primarily Orientalist obsession anyway) and more to do with things like MTV and Bollywood and we all know the level of conservative restraint that’s applied there.
So while I usually get bristly at sanctimonious Western condescention of “repressed sexualiy” or “oppressed women” in the East, I have to say – COME ON. You’re going to deport people for kissing in the streets? That’s not protecting precious Indian culture – that’s just facism. India has a notoriously double standard when it comes to sex; the fact that rain-drenched girls in leather crop-tops and micro minis can gyrate their way to fame on TV but you get hassled for any kind of PDA or show of affection in public is just ridiculous and frustrating. Why does the populace get to witness other, famous people peeling it all off and are encouraged to consume things like Maxim and Femina and Cosmo and Shobha De but not express any kind of sexuality themselves? Tell me it’s not nutty.
What is so terrible about calling a spade a spade? While India, around the time of Islamic invasion, may not have been the paradigm of American/India progresssiveness, it wasn’t adhering to the injunctions of Manusmriti either. And anybody who claims such needs a serious lesson in history. Indeed, the Islamic hordes did impose some very dracnoian measures on the natives of that time.
On a slightly different tangent – Why is that we can’t discuss the atrocities committed by the English and the Islamic invaders against India without some people here getting seriously angry….
I meant to say Indian – American progressiveness and not American/India…..do excuse
Wow, I picked up quite a fan club! Dharma queen – Penguin scholarship is as suspect as any other western scholarship in matters of caste. And I did not relate morality police to the Brits. I said the laws could have come from the British. Big differnce. Morality and tradition were always around. By making things illegal you invite oppression. Same thing happened when we had drug laws thrust upon us. While everyone used to be merrily stoned, including the cops, now people are thrown into jail upon a whim. Foreigners are specially harrassed for this. Ditto for homosexuality laws which are a british import. Otherwise, India was a totally don’t ask don’t tell society (for all sexuality, not just homosexual).
To answer Expose’s question:
It’s obvious that the English and various Muslim invaders committed terrible atrocities in India – atrocities from which Indian society has yet to recover. But at some point Indian society has to face up to itself and take responsibility for its future. Why is criticism of the way women and sexuality are treated in India taken by certain people as criticism of India as a whole?
A major reason for these kinds incidents are due to tha fact that India does not have enough de-centralisation of laws. An overly centralised decision making, with most of the laws being framed in New Delhi, results in the too much generalisation by trying to keep everyone happy.
India is a country that integrating with the world at an incredibly fast pace. When this happens, there are certain parts of the country which will move faster than the others. These parts need separate laws to deal with a separately evolving culture. A man asking a woman for directions in Mumbai or Bangalore is commonplace, but a man asking a woman for directions in a village will most likely get him beaten up. A couple holding hands in Mumbai will not attract much attention, but in Ganganagar or KrishnaPalli the guy will get his dick cut off and woman slandered forever.
India needs to delegate more power to the states, and in turn the states need to delegate more to the districts and taluks. That way, local bodies can make laws that are more in tune with the cultural norms of the place. Mumbai can then loosen PDA norms and Krishnapalli can have it’s own penalities.
Today what’s happening is that the same laws are made applicable to Krishnapalli and Connaught Place(Delhi). The cops use this to their advantage to make money on the side. Once you decentralise decision making, you take away the wind from such incidents.
Of course, there needs to be some Central/State oversight. Otherwise citizens of Krishnapalli will pass a law that if any lower caste boy looks at an upper caste girl, his eyes will be gouged out (or vice versa depending on the caste equations).
M. Nam
The post is on 2 things
couple smooching in public, and the police objecting to it
A Big “Up Yours” to the police
The women staying on an expired visa, gets imprisoned for a day and deported
A Big “Good job/ Pat on back” to the police.
+++++++++++++++++++
All those discussing Manu, Muslim/British invasion and its effects
Quoting lines picked up from elsewhere does not make you an expert. Most of us will be out of our depths discussing any of these topics. All the “What If” analysis isn’t going to help India one bit.
Finally a voice of reason! Sheesh! Reading about these things in some Intro to whatever class makes none of us experts, so we should all really tone down the e-rhetoric.
Whoa, it’s one of those crazy times – I agree with MoorNam. Having said that, I am not an expert on Indian internal political machinations, so I don’t know the full implications of a move like the one MoorNam describes, but it seems like good sense.
Expose, there are plenty of people on here who can happily discuss the crimes committed by Muslim or British invaders, but the discussion only becomes shoddy when certain commenters begin to suggest all ills in modern Indian society are due to past rulers. Hence those frustrated with this viewpoint bring up things like Manu out of desperation; to make a point. I will agree that Manu is broadly irrelevant to this particular point. But so are British and Islamic influences. Britain, for example, gave India its legal system – one that needs change and is littered with archaic and unnecessary laws. But Britain has moved on. Homosexuality, which Divya claims was widely accepted before the British, is not illegal in Britain anymore. Are you trying to say that if the British hadn’t arrived, gays would enjoy equal rights and freedom from discrimination in India Divya? Ha. All countries installed anti-gay laws over the past few hundred years, but many have turned those laws over in the last fifty. India hasn’t.
The ‘No sex, please’ phrase was originally ‘No sex please, we’re English’, so the English in particular can completely understand the Indian dislike of PDAs, but the English have learnt to abandon their disdain, presumably because it’s not so wrapped up in religious sensibilities.
This whole discussion’s been quite interesting to read, the blame-shifting is pretty amusing.
With all due respect to everyone from those who try to “explain” this phenomenon, I say that India’s culture is preety f^&*ed up. Infact even today, most young people (let alone old people) dont approve of a relation ship between an unmarried young man and a woman which 90% of the time is NON sexual and more like middle school crush type (in American cultural terms) relationships. The girl will be given names and would be considered “damaged”. All these even if the girl is actually a virgin, Okay. Thats India for you.
yippeee. i have my popcorn now, time to watch the fight. there i was posting on some forgotten topic, when all the action is out here.
re: manu then. i don’t know how relavant manu was. i am no history student. frankly i don’t think i really care, who has the time nowadays? besides, going by the number of personal attacks and the amount of contempt (anand’s “divya and her type” for example), i really don’t think we are having a discussion here. as is always the case in these topics.
i don’t think anyone will disagree that no one here likes manu’s edicts—divya does not, nor do the anti-divyas. there is also a good chance that the cop who is supposed to be following them has not heard of manu.
to me the irony here is this: his edicts may (unfortunately) remain “in force” in the future, not because anyone likes them or wants to follow or enforce them, but rather because of these fights. my 2c: i don’t think either one of the sides is capable of effecting any change in the society on its own. and of course, it is sacrilege to acknowledge there may be a grain of truth in the other side’s arguments. so everyone takes an untenable extreme position that helps no one. or are forced to take, since nothing could be “worse” than being mistaken for one of the “others”.
Didn’t we write a penal code since british left? then why the heck are we blaming for british for this? It is really amusing to me when i hear that there is no big deal with being gay in india – barring muslim and british influence on our laws. are you kidding? there are several communities in india that were left untouched by both british and muslim conquests and they all have pretty rigid social structure. forget about the gays, even among brahmins, widows were never allowed to get married again – they were supposed to shave their head and live the rest of their lives in white cloths and that practice continues still today in many communities. the existence of caste system and the oppression of lower caste people are enough evidence that Manu’s (or similar) laws had effect in Indian societies. The very fact that it survived so many centuries is an indication to me that people gave importance to it. of course muslim and british laws were not sane either – the point i am making is that the attitude that ‘our culture has done nothing wrong’ will not eve resolve issues.
moornam-the advantage of centralizing laws is that you and your girl know where you stand re making out; otherwise keeping track of local laws when you are on a romantic pan india trip can be very frustrating- ‘honey, you can put my arm round only around my tummy when we’re in thonchikoppil, but when we get to bangalore i promise you a best of 5 series in tonsil hockey etc.’…
that is funny. but i think the laws are de-centralized enough. for eg. i know in kerala, smoking is banned in public places while most other states do not have it. i also know that one panchayat in kerala has banned spitting in public places (yes!). so, doesn’t the mechanism already exist?
Ladies and Gentlemen :
I mostly agree with the thrust of this post. Reproduced below is my comment in # 13. “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.”
However, I do take umbrage when some people drudge up the Manusmriti in response to a comment about the [Negative] influence of the colonisers who ravaged India for nearly a millenium. Everyone knows about the “progressive” victorian mores. And yes, the British did leave us with the rule of law concept, which by the way they happily ignored whilst their rule over the natives. How benevolent of them. p.s. Najeeb, Hope you are affording similar benefit of the doubt to the American occupation of Iraq. After all rome wasn’t built in a day…right? And given a chance the American’s and the British will surely leave Iraq a better place than they found.
The girl was deported for expired visa.
Which part of this is hard to comprehend ?
Really its amazing to see people worked up over “Repressed sexuality”.
Regards
Oh! and this post almost makes TOI look like a serious newspaper.
Regards
Najeeb – My apologies. The p.s comment shouldn’t have been addressed to you. Too many comments to keep track of. Please forgive.
“Najeeb, Hope you are affording similar benefit of the doubt to the American occupation of Iraq. After all rome wasn’t built in a day…right?”
if you are refering to my comment about the indian penal code, the analogy isn’t right. the iraq constitution/laws was written when americans were occupying iraq – if americans leave, that would not probably be after a freedom struggle by Iraqis. most likely the same folks (chalabi etc..) who cohooted with u.s would govern that country and i can see why americans can be blamed for the faults in the constitution. on the other hand, if americans were ousted, the existing frameworks were replaced and a new party comes to power and rewrite the penal code, americans can no longer be blamed for the faults in the laws. that was the situation in india – we wrote the penal code well after independence and after the last viceroy left india. i think we should atleast own up our own laws and truly in this case we are a conservative society and we know that the society doesn;t like the public display of affection. so why blame it on others —
india is paradise. tourists just stay away….
ok. no problem. i should have refreshed before i posted the response 🙂 so u can ignore my last msg.
i don’t think either one of the sides is capable of effecting any change in the society on its own.
“india is paradise. tourists just stay away….”
No, India is shithole and Visa doesn’t matter.
Najeeb,
From very early own, I am saying that we have to own up to our problems and fix them.
However, from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Penal_Code)
“Indian Penal Code came into force in 1862 (during the British Raj) and was amended in 1993. It is based on British criminal law.”
Perhaps, a SMer with law background can throw more light on amount of changes since 1862. Has it kept with times?
india is paradise. tourists just stay away….
Random P, I agree with you that there is something black in the pulses. But, I couldn’t disagree more with your voters only need to comment rule. Imagine how boring the blogosphere would become. Or some of our lives for that matter. For me, a day does not begin until I [an Indian citizen] do not admonish my American [voters all]blogger friends on how they should be running this country. No really, Imagine that………………………………..
I should really stop drinking this stuff. Note to self….Moonshine bad…Moonshine bad.
81 was penned by me – Expose and not Randomposter.
And now I will shut the %^&* up.
Kush, I stand corrected. I was under the assumption that IPC was revised in 1950 along with the constitution. But, still i think that is our fault though. we didn’t have to continue to with archaic laws – i assume we felt the IPC was fair enough for indians.
Ok, one last comment. Kush T, Thanks for bringing that to everybody’s attention. Hope this helps some commenters change their opinons…….
Lol at the reference to Manu smriti.
I’m with Manish and Bong Breaker on this one, then I got bored with the thread. Why is it so many Indians get defensive when we make fun of stuff going on back there? FFS there are tons of Indians ‘cultural traditions’ that need reform, some just need outright discarding. I wonder how many defensive people have actually lived there.
randomP, I never said that non voters shouldnt be commenting. Everyone deserve a good hobby to pass his/her time. Only thing is their comments wouldnt make any significant difference. And things in any society changes gradually not over night. The situation about sex and women and lower caste has changed in last 59 years. Afterall no one thought that a lower caste WOMAN(unmarried one on that) could rule the biggest and one of more conservative state of India. So things are only improving.
Sunny,
The girl was deported because her visa had expired. Otherwise there is no way tourists can be deported for kissing (Ah! Sweet Goa). In essence this post is misrepresnting the incident. Manu Smriti, Soical reform, Code of Jedi blah blah are not relevant to the matter at the hand. Why do you, a fine specimen of “liberated” desi,have to indulge in non-sequiturs?
Regards
I’d suggest a lot of the defensive people have lived in India. I think the ‘criticize India and I’ll rip your head off’ mentality is actually a by-product of colonialism. Stems from a feeling of vulnerability.
Gaurav,
I think a lot of people are upset why should cops intervene someone necking. It is none of their business, and TOI getting all excited about “luck”.
Enforcement of visa laws is OK.
DQ, Turning a discussion about illigal migrant involved in paid sex into ManuSmititi and sexual oppression comes from being fed those orientalist image of Indiavby your respective govt and media? Oh BTW Times of India is Newyork Times of India in terms of reliability.
oh lawd.. i just watched that video.. it makes me want to slap that BITCH! I am telling you.. some women truly take advantage of their power. ugh
Gaurav said:
But he was wrong (assuming the article was accurate):
Let me repeat. The article states that both tourists were deported. Presumable, this was because they were kissing, otherwise what grounds did they have for deporting him forthwith?
Gaurav, before you accuse Manish of misrepresenting the incident, wouldn’t it be good to check the article?
Now what do you all say?
I think the image of Indian cops hassling amorous couples in parks has become part of the cultural fabric so to speak… if I remember right, the film “Monsoon Wedding” depicted such a scene.
KT, I am pretty sure that by morning it will become a case of two adults holding hands in public. Ahh evil law enforcers of India, must be because that lady cop also attended same social school of Manu as rest of Indians do.
Now what do you all say?
South Asians go home!!!! (expressing xenophobia, another legacy of the British)
I lived in India for a year, own a house there and have travelled extensively through the country. My image of India is not dictated by Orientalist media hogwash. Though this particular story may be unreliable and/or exactly what you call it, there are enough other stories (I read them in The Statesman when I’m over there)to corroborate the point that displays of sexual affection in India are taboo. That sucks and should change.
I note that your assumption about this woman being a whore confirms the worst Orientalist prejudices about Indian males. You may want to reconsider it.
Kush,
I found a subtle spin in the post and the ensuing psycho-analytical discussion to imply that the deportation was for necking.
Regarding kissing in public,I am not a trained sociologist or psychologist or antropologist so I can only speculate that in west kissing between contempararies (in a sexual or non- sexual relationship)is an acceptable public gesture,In India it is not, kissing is considered to be an intimate gesture. I don’t agree that it was Bristish who made kissing a taboo, my (extended) family comes for a rural background and I don’t think kissing is as an acceptable custom there. However lewd (suggestive) songs and conversation is acceptable during some occasions (I don’t know the specific). Shrug
Regards
If it wasn’t, then why was he deported too?
Ennis,
You can not be deported for kissing. In my opinion TOI is living up to its usual high standards.
By the way I apologise for any inadverent offense, but there is only so much Freud an Indian living in India can take on a single day.
Regards
Dharma Q, At least us “rip your head off if criticized” natives don’t suffer the lock em up in guantanamo and let us f$%^ up another country colonial by product. Maybe we will be like that once we rid ourselves of these vile kissing in public laws….I mena look how evolved it has made some of the western countries.