Kamadev’s little helpers

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Don’t believe uncles and aunties when they say that nobody celebrates Valentines Day in India. Not only is romance a bloomin’, but it has some help from unlikely quarters.

First, Shiv Sena is (again) offering to come to the assistance of lurv:

… hardline Hindu groups have threatened to marry off young couples meeting in public places like parks and restaurants Feb 14. [Link]

They will not manhandle or threaten the Valentines, or vandalise the greeting card shops tomorrow. “The lovers have mistaken Shiv Sainiks to be the heart-breakers. We permanently unite the hearts….” says Shiv Sena District President Gulshan Kumar.

If there is any opposition for the marriage of lovers from their family, Shiv Sainiks stand by them. But the couples should belong to Hindu religion. [Link]

The loophole in this plan is obvious though, leave your ID at home and voila! An entire town of Mary Joshuas and Jacob Abrahams out on dates! [Yes, I know the threatening to forcibly marry couples isn’t new – they did it last year as well]

This being India, mobilization is met with an apposite counter:

… two women’s groups, belonging to the Sawarna Samaj Party (SSP) and the Rashtriya Secular Manch (RSM), have decided to take on those threatening to oppose Valentine’s Day … the RSM has decided to form baton-wielding groups of women to dissuade Bajrang Dal activists from disturbing lovers Wednesday on the Valentine’s Day. These women’s wings have declared to provide the necessary security to citizens if the state government fails to do so. [Link]

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I’m sure they will get a lot of calls for their service too — “Quickly! Send 4 or 5 women to the park by the IIT men’s hostel! There are couples being oppressed by the RSS Shiv Sena!” Who knew that crying wolf was a great way to meet women?

It’s not just politicos though, even commerce is getting into the act. I had thought that Bangalore was a cold hearted city, named after boiled beans, with only 0s and 1s running through its veins, but I was wrong:

Indian firms have exported a record 100 million stems of roses this year … Bangalore’s unique climate — cool Decembers with mild sunshine — earned for it a reputation in red roses that South of France has for fine wine.. [Link]

And Indian firms are even trying to get into the US market, via Africa:

However, the big market — US — was beyond grasp. Great distance, high freight cost, and mean taxes kept it out of India’s range. The heights of Ecuador and Columbia had the run of the American market.

Several firms, including Karuturi Networks, have been acquiring and growing in Ethiopia and Kenya, countries which have a good floriculture legacy, in addition to enjoying tax holidays for exports to Europe and US. In the next few weeks, likely acquisitions in Kenya and US will make Karuturi, whose flowers are already available in Safeway and Wal-Mart, the world’s largest rose grower. [Link]

With UK cabinet ministers publically encouraging Brits to buy their roses from Kenya, I’m sure more Indians are going to love Valentines Day, or at least the sound of the cash register that accompanies it. I have faith that the forces of commerce will gradually overcome the reactionaries … what’s not to love about the almighty dollar?

Previous posts: Hindus and Muslims find common ground, The state of union

73 thoughts on “Kamadev’s little helpers”

  1. the traditional indian culture is dying and a whole lot of karnas and dushasanas and other pests are taking great pleasure in getting a few more stabs in before the last breath is let out.

    systemized rape of hindu womem during the mughal raj gets relabeled as syncretism. british presence in mumbai gets equated with gujaratis and south indians. it\’s entire bundles of bogeymans piled on top of another, ad nauseum …

    let\’s just rename mumbai as bollycrapwood and get it all over with!! can\’t wait for thanksgiving to come to india. let\’s celebrate the victory of the white man over those honest injuns. why not!!

    but some schmuck not wanting walmart to come to his town is brave and upright. i love it.

  2. Traditional Indian culture is dying? Really? Visit Madras during the Music Season and watch as young performers make breakthrough performances every year. Or go to Cleveland and check out the ever-competitive Thyagarja Festival where young Indo-Americans and Canadians (among others) perform and wow the audiences, interpreting and performing with joy Carnatic Music — a very Indian tradition. There are of course arguments and concerns about the apparent (and I say apparent) devolution of Indian culture. But such an analysis is far too glib and facile, and one often undertaken by those advancing the Hindutva cause. Bollywood is Indian culture, like it or not. It embodies the latest manifestation of the traditional musical plays and artforms prevalent in villages across India. India’s evolving, there’s a lot of trash, sure.

    But, ultimately, the market that is the Indian people will decide what to partake and what not to. To attempt to crudely delineate what is and isn’t Indian as the Hindutva-types continue to do is a disservice to democracy and classical liberalism — two tenets that have gained a lot of currency in India, and are as Indian as they are Western now.

    On the issue of the Shiv Sena — is their purported ability to clear up traffic snarls worth the virulent ideological baggage they bring with them? Is fomenting violence against minorities (different ones in different eras) ok, as long as the muezzin’s call to prayer doesn’t bother you? The Shiv Sena too consistently appeases and plays to its own votebank. I’ve also frankly been plenty inconvenienced by all their bloody bandhs, thank you very much.

  3. Thunderweather! It looks like no matter which extremist group gets the upper hand, in the longrun Moooo-mbai is ckuffed!

  4. Dont forget another enemy of V-Day – The Communists, of course!

    the students’ wing of the Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Sanskriti Bachao Samiti organization, which opposes Western cultural influences…. Students Federation of India leader Sanjay Madhav said “unsocial elements” will not be allowed to “distort” Indian values.[Link]

  6. I’m just curious why whenever the topic of military spending comes up folks always spew the usual “but they should give to the poor…” diatribe yet no one points out the time & energy wasted on Valentine’s day – oh yeah, as if India needs more babies or HIV. If ordinary citizens were giving to charities instead of buying luxury items for their valentine’s, or were donating their time to teach illiterates to read and write instead of cuddling a lover beneath a canopy, then I can understand all the furor over the Indian Govt.’s valentine gifts to the Army, missiles.

  7. “Quickly! Send 4 or 5 women to the park by the IIT men’s hostel! There are couples being oppressed by the RSS Shiv Sena!” Who knew that crying wolf was a great way to meet women?

    Psst – Its statistically very unlikely that 4 or 5 guys in any IIT at a particular time will have girlfriends 🙂

  8. yeah, pakistanis and filipinos and jamaicans also have great cuisine and great poetry. but they do not have any civilizational standing comparable to india. they are merely extensions of arabia and america. why should we support the same type of destruction of local diversity in india?

    let me guess – islam and christianity are very diverse cultures with many sects and divisions in between them. never mind that they have brutally murdered off the local gods and cultures of every continent benighted by them – north america, south america, phillipines, korea, indonesia, pakistan, bangladesh, persia, africa. no need for hindus to be wary, of course. it’s all in our heads.

    here’s a quote from another site

    [quote]My personal feeling is that Hindu minded people do not oppose it because it is foreign. They oppose it because these symbolic days have started occupying a space in Hindu life which should have been occupied by our own festivals. Since our own festivals have been banished from the lives and replaced by these borrowed ones, it alineates the population from within. That I think is the main reason of the opposition.[/quote]

  9. Jain Man on February 13, 2007 06:18 PM · Direct link While amchi mumbai was a silly movement, you must have never been stuck in traffic on Mohammed Ali road when the roads are blocked during prayers. Maybe you were never woken by loudspeakers early in the morning. While Congress appeased their vote-bank, Shiv Sena addressed the issue.

    Yeah, and I was also stuck in the roads in Mumbai during the Ganesh festival and have been woken up far too frequently by blazing loudspeakers playing devotional Hindu music. Who is taking care of these issues ? Oh they are Hindu things, so not really issues, right ?

  10. Check out this BBC interpretation of why Valentine’s Day has taken off in India:

    Valentine’s Day is a relatively new concept in India but it has grown in significance in the past five years. As India’s economy booms, many young women have found that financial independence brings with it freedom of choice when it comes to relationships. In the past, the key decision on who a woman would marry was usually made by her parents. Now though, many professional and educated women follow their own hearts when it comes to romance and young men have discovered that Valentine’s Day offers a useful opportunity to lure the girls their way.

    Um – why does everything have to be about tying together the sexy themes of growth/globalisation/women…it’s taken off because young people all round have more disposable income and freedom, IMO.

    Happy day of lowwww, everyone.

  11. My personal feeling is that Hindu minded people do not oppose it because it is foreign. They oppose it because these symbolic days have started occupying a space in Hindu life which should have been occupied by our own festivals. Since our own festivals have been banished from the lives and replaced by these borrowed ones, it alineates the population from within. That I think is the main reason of the opposition.

    But why beat up college kids over the issue? Do you find nothing wrong with that? So a culture where 20 year olds are beaten on the streets for next to nothing is acceptable, but a culture that celebrates Valentine’s day is not?

    And I am sure when you point the broken noses of these poor kids in the direction of Indian culture, they will immediately sniff the folly of their ways. Or maybe not. Maybe we should follow them home to make sure they are not upto something when mummy-daddy are not around.

  12. This is nothing new, they do it each year, some remote corner where Shiv Sena has no presence, some vague guys would pop up and claim to be Sainiks and damage a card shop or harrass couples to get their name in the news.

  13. This is nothing new, they do it each year, some remote corner where Shiv Sena has no presence, some vague guys would pop up and claim to be Sainiks and damage a card shop

    However, in the post they claim they wont be protesting this year. Also, it’s the first year that I know of that there has been a counter mobilization.

  14. If there were blogs in the 10th century I bet you’d read people bitching about how “traditional Indian society” was dying.

    It’s almost as though culture is always in flux or something. Or like Indian culture is strong enough to absorb “firang” elements and thrive. But that’s crazy talk…

  15. Also, it’s the first year that I know of that there has been a counter mobilization.

    A welcome development. But a lot of them are just settling score w/ saffron thugs. It’s not altruism. Just politics business as ususal.

  16. Meanwhile, a feminist-separitist Mohammedan outfit calling itself FASE has “appealed” to the denizens of Kashmir Valley not to get their lovey-dovey on this V-Day:

    Say no to V-Day: FASE

    Srinagar: The Forum against Social Evils (FASE) has appealed the people of Kashmir to stay away from celebrating ValentineÂ’s Day.A FASE statement issued here Thursday said, “We appeal Muslim Ummah to refrain from celebrating the day and launch a campaign against those who advocate its celebration.” The FASE has also appealed the shopkeepers who sell greeting cards on this occasion that they should stop selling the cards as it, according to them, results in the “moral degradation and immorality.”They have expressed anguish over different mobile companies who do a brisk business by encouraging the trend of sending messages on the occasion. The forum has warned the Valley youth that if it came across their participation in any programme on the occasion of Valentines Day, they will take action against the same. link

    Photo here

  17. A welcome development. But a lot of them are just settling score w/ saffron thugs. It’s not altruism. Just politics business as ususal.

    A more noble counter-measure is to have the sex today, all day.

  18. It’s almost as though culture is always in flux or something. Or like Indian culture is strong enough to absorb “firang” elements and thrive. But that’s crazy talk…

    Aye Neale, I agree with you, but people are entitled to their opinions. I do not have a problem with that. I find V-day stupid and rather mercenary myself, and remember fondly a time when 14 Feb passed in India and no one noticed. But disagreement does not sanction violence.

    I mean they look for couples on V-day, and then make the girl tie a rakhi on the guy’s wrist (after appropriately roughing up the guy of course). How ridiculous is that? What is this, reverse-incest? Is this gunda-gardi and insult to raksha-bandhan going to save Indian culture?

    If this is Plan A to save Indian culture, I shudder to think what Plan B is.

  20. What they need to do is pass out free red or pink colored condoms to the couples on this day instead of performing impromptu weddings.

  21. I don’t have any problem with people expressing that they dislike Western influence. I think that’s all part of the healthy process of cultural adaptation. It’s far more healthy to be in a society that is thinking very carefully of which elements they want to adopt, which to adapt, and which to keep out at all costs than to be in a society which allows itself to be completely subsumed. But when it gets to the point that you’re using violence to enforce that process, I get a bit uncomfortable.