Malayali and Morality

    

      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.