Fellow Indians, take heart. There is yet another outfit, Sri Ram Sene in coastal Karnataka, which has issued a clarion call to defend Indian culture. Most recently, its foot soldiers raided a pub in the coastal city of Mangalore and beat up the boys and girls there to make their point — girls mustn’t drink and boys and girls must not socialise unless with marriage in mind.
About the same time, its foot soldiers (though it is not clear if they were acting in their official Sene capacity) struck again in Mangalore, taking action against a girl chatting with a boy in a bus. She is Hindu and he is Muslim. They were taken off the bus, severely reprimanded, taken away for a time and then released. Lest you think there is no method in their action, the same group launched attacks on Christian churches shortly after the BJP came to power in Karnataka.
What they are for and against is clear. They have a specific code of conduct for women which is different from that for men. They have not launched an attack against drinking per se by going round closing pubs in general. Drinking by men is apparently okay. They are also against boys and girls from different religions mixing freely. And of course they are against churches.
The force behind this Sene is Pramod Muthalik who has over time been the convener of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and even the Shiv Sena in the state. The last bit ended when Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray said something on the Karnataka-Maharashtra dispute. It seemed Muthalik has over time lost his clout with Karnataka’s Sangh parivar and was denied a ticket for the recent polls. He is now showing his clout.
Official Sangh parivar outfits have distanced themselves from the Sene’s actions but there is no clear condemnation of what it stands for because his actions are provocative but his ism is not that out of line. Hence there is now a grassroots effort by Sangh parivar activists in the region to ‘explain’ things and where they stand.
More From This Section
There is some need to explain because the Sene and the spirit of Mangalore do not go together. The city is a pleasant, relaxed and cosmopolitan place where, say the knowledgeable, some of the girls are even more fashionable than those in Bangalore! There are also dominant communities like Shettys, Bunts and the Goud Saraswat Brahmins who have travelled extensively and have a presence in Mumbai and elsewhere in the country. (Aishwarya Rai, in case you didn’t know, is a Bunt.) Such people obviously don't like what is going on.
Coastal Karnataka is distinctive in its own way. It has a high level of literacy and a relatively favourable sex ratio, indicating a good status for women. The region is proud to be home and birthplace to several banks like Syndicate, Corporation and Canara and the Manipal group of educational institutions. It has also been regularly returning BJP candidates to the legislatures. There are many faces of Hindutva, and that in coastal Karnataka may be one of the most benign, till lately that is.
Clearly the fringe of the movement has felt emboldened by the BJP being in power in the state on its own strength for the first time. So what has the state government done? A few arrests have been made, some of those arrested released. The state’s home minister has famously stated, in relation to the incident involving the girl on the bus, that parents have to take care of their children.
But perhaps the most important official move — till now suggestion — is that there should be an ombudsman to receive complaints about media coverage of such incidents in which revealing the faces or identities of the girls attacked can traumatise their families. The logic seems clear: We may or may not be able to stop such incidents, but why do you have to go and report them in detail?
At the end of the day we have to ask ourselves what kind of society we want. The critical aspect of any ancient society is how it modernises. The nineteenth century was marked by social reformers across the country working to change the status of women. Among the earliest was Raja Ram Mohan Roy who helped create the Brahmo Samaj and most famously worked for the abolition of Sati.
Then there was Swami Dayanand Saraswati who founded the Arya Samaj, and was against idol worship, the caste system, untouchability and discrimination against women. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar worked heroically as a reformer and educator and for widow remarriage. And Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and his wife Savitribai worked for women’s education and uplift of widows.
These laid the foundations of an equal rights India long before political freedom gave everyone the franchise. An India that is modern and forward-looking. On the other hand, the Taliban is taking Pakistan in the opposite direction. Swat in North West Frontier Province is the first “settled” district in Pakistan to be almost entirely taken over by the Taliban who have promptly ended education for women. They cannot even go out unless accompanied by male relatives. The Sene is a far cry from the Taliban but they agree on two points — men and women do not have equal rights and people of different religions should not mix unmindful of their religions.