The protests of a group of
‘moral people’ against immorality and the protest of another group of ‘moral
people’ against moral policing in Kerala gained attention nationwide (world wide?).
There were a lot of follow ups throughout our country. The protests against the
‘kiss of love’ program by different groups were not come as a surprise
considering the fact that a lot of girls in Kerala reprimanded by elders just
for laughing public. So, how can people who can’t tolerate laughing allow
kissing and hugging public? Well, the hugging and kissing protests was
symbolical, they were protesting against the so called moral policing, they
were not inviting everybody to come out and kiss, hug and make obscenity
(that’s others called it) in public. It was a way of protesting and they were
not compelling somebody to do that.
Let’s
check the whole plot. First a TV channel reported some immoral sort of
activities at the parking lot of a restaurant. Then a group of people who
belonged to the youth wing of a major political party came and vandalized the
cafeteria (first protest). After that people who thought that shouldn’t be the
way of dealing things and this type of moral policing can’t be tolerated in a
democratic country united and arranged the ‘kiss of love’ program(second
protest). Then the people who thought: in a very civilized society like us,
this sort of kissing and hugging can’t be allowed in public came to the event
place and made havoc (third protests) so that the police had to arrest the kiss
of love activists to ‘protect’ them (ha ha). The third protest was very funny.
That actually showed the unity in diversity in India. There were people from
all political parties, religions, and other groups, each of them came with
different banners and slogans. That showed, even for fighting against a common
problem we need different groups on the name of religion and politics, real
civilization! And there were more civilized people there to capture the moments
of kissing and hugging. So what should be cleaned first, the so called young
generation attitude or the dirty mind set of people who check for obscenity in
everything?
First thing whatever was being happened
in the café; moral or immoral, which should be checked by the law and order of
our system. Nobody wants something bad happen to our students and we don’t want
them to be in inappropriate situation. And this ‘inappropriate’ should not be
defined by some biased people with preoccupied minds. If somebody has a
complaint against the café that should be dealt with our state police not the
police acting goons. I don’t understand why these political parties are so much
biased, if their MP’s and MLA’s amass wealth in improper ways or make harsh
divisive comments which affect national integrity they just say ‘police will
look into this matter, then if they find any mistakes law will take care of
that’. Even with proofs like video and audio tapes they won’t take any action
against such people, not even in the party. They wait for the law and order
drama to come and waste some public money (oh, they themselves decide the law
and order). But these parties allow their youth wings to act (violence) against
anything they found ‘inappropriate’ among common people. So what? The police of
our system are to play with fouls of political leaders and the ‘moral police’
to control the people? We don’t need such criminals to teach us morality. If we
need any law intervention in anything, that will be provided by the legal
framework of the country and nothing else.
Moral policing is a part of our culture
now. Even though majority of people does not agree with male-female intimacy
(friendly talk to the love affairs), all are not volunteered into the moral
policing. There is group of people who consider this as their duty to define
morals and make everybody to follow their model. It has been here for so long.
Ignore kissing and hugging, a boy and girl can’t be together, they can’t talk,
walk or sit together. These people point out It is as against our culture and
immoral. The so called culture protectors created a smokescreen around us which
find hugging and kissing as immoral. It is not a shocking knowledge since most
of the people in our state still consider love marriages as ‘wrong’ and
arranged marriages as ‘right’. Falling in love is still a sin here. They think
they hold some values and trying to protect them. But how can they categorize
expression of love as immoral? Does kisses and hugs really obscene?
The law
of this country prohibits its citizens from public obscenity. So what is
obscene? Hugs and kisses are no way obscene. It actually depends on the people
who do it. Everything can be obscene if the person of interest intends that. We
live in a state where we are taught from young age to be decent. That means ‘mind
your own things and keep distance from opposite sex’, and ‘don’t be close to
them’. For a girl all the males she talking should be her relatives either
blood relation or direct husband. There is no chance for a male friend,
classmate, colleague she can talk to. I’m not saying, in our educational
institutions or working places girls are not talking to boys or they are not
friends. But the society still got a problem with that. It is still a great
thing for some people to say about their son or daughter that ‘she never talked
to a man’ or ‘he never looked at a girl’s face’. Well, I don’t know how many
people of my age think such boy or girl is normal if they exist.
We were taught that hugs and kisses
are obscene, so it should be done in closed spaces. And this concept brought us
another idea that whatever happens in closed areas are obscene. We were taught
a lot of non sense things like these. In our families kids can see how their
father play boss over their mother, or beat or abuse her, or treat her as a
servant but they can’t be seen their father respect their mother or shows
affection. So the girls grow up seeing this expect they are going to be treated
like crap and it is normal and boys expect them to be the next masters and they
are destined to be so. This is the ethics and morality that we are receiving.
That is why the world around us is full of hatred than love. The so called
pseudo moralists pressure us to hide our emotions and act like morons.
Now back to the three protests. First
protesters who couldn’t allow the immoral activity took the law in their hand
and had done justice. They destroyed that café. The violence they showed there
make them the real apostle of morality and ethics. They neither value other
people’s effort and money nor respect the democracy. Such people should not be
the part of our society for the sake of a good next generation (bad example).
Second protest by the activists is something justifying their cause of protest.
They were organized a peaceful union of people with their ideology against
moral policing. That was symbolic, they called what is wrong a wrong. They just
tried to say people are enough mature to define their morality and they don’t
need supervision in their lives (otherwise, mind one’s own business). Third
protest was against the mode of second protest (They actually protested against
the right to protest of the activists). The way they protested disrupted the
second protest or they just prohibited the activists from their protest. The
first and third protests were depended on violence. The way of protests in
everywhere in Kerala is by violence, even that is student unions or by any
other groups. They can’t think about another way of protest than loud noises, fuss
and violence. They thought something (the second protest) was wrong and because
they thought so, it couldn’t happen. This is called as intolerance, we heard
about that in history, it was always there in behind every war and riots.
Here, people can’t agree (or even
think) other people can be right. For them, there is only one way to do things.
Whoever not following that are wrong. If somebody thinks that kissing public is
wrong, he or she just can avoid that. But they won’t stop there. They try to
impose their morality on others. This is happening in everything. People who
live their lives on their own terms are called as impropriety. The narrow mindedness-es that rule the society try to demoralize others who wish to live
their lives freely. All are capable of identify and differentiate between the
right and wrong things. People are different and their priorities also differ,
so how can somebody call the ones who walk in a different way as obscene? Such
intolerance should be avoided. The activists were fighting for their right to
choice and not to change others' choices. So it is the duty of the society to
respect others' way of living. Don’t confuse the values we uphold with the
different aspect of living.
The society we live have the right to fight
against the vices happening around us. But the vices should not be ‘all else
which us follow’. The attacks against youth going pubs, the anti Valentine’s
Day protests, orders to girls not to wear jeans and not carry mobiles, the
rakhi tying drama etc showed the intolerance of a group of people which is a
shame to our country. Some says all of these are doing to protect our girls and
the immoral way of living today causing the frequent attack against women.
Well, who’s attacking women, Aliens from Mars? The uncivilized customs that
teach us female gender as inferior one is the reason for such incidents. Why
girls need protection if there is no men to attack. We should not be taught the
moral values which make us consider women as things to enjoy and second class
gender. We should not be taught others are to be controlled. The unavailability
of such proper practical society created the moral policing. Who taught these
people violence and intolerance are our culture and tradition? To my knowledge
Indians have the great tradition to accept and agree various types of lives
while they opt for a different one. Everybody got equal right to follow their
morals. Just don’t try to define others on your standards.
Nothing do make following old
tradition right and modern mode wrong (obscene). We just evolve according to
the opportunities and facilities that we get. We change according to our convenience.
Actually there is no such difference as old and modern. Our values remain the
same. But we can’t follow the inequalities and superstitions in the name of
religion, caste, language, region and gender now by saying those were part of
our past. That does not belong to a civilized society. We need to progress not
to go back to the stone ages. The etiquette we follow in a civilized society
should not be decided by the preoccupied minds with biased thoughts and assumptions.
Such assumptions and imaginations should not be ruled us. We should not spread
the wildfire of pseudo morals and prejudice into young minds; that won’t make
them the protective angels of culture; that just make them scared of the way
they feels; that just make them to hide their lives.
