Valentine's Day comes every year with its share of spoils. I mean, the spoilsports. This year couldn't have been any different. More so, since the zealots have not died away.
Just a quick rundown of some news reports:
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The New Indian Express:
ROURKELA: Planning a date on Valentine Day. Here is a warning for unmarried young couples. The moral police in the saffron brigade will be on a prowl at vulnerable dating points to swoop down on lovebirds engaged in intimacy!
This year too the VHP and its youth wing Bajrang Dal (BD) have braced for what they call protection of traditional and cultural values from being corrupted by ‘unethical’ western practices. A series of meeting have been held with different temple committee members and priests as these places have also increasingly become a ‘safe haven’ for young couples. The temple committees were urged not to entertain any ‘open or clandestine’ activities of Valentine Day.
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The Indian Express:
VADODARA: This year, followers of godman Asaram Bapu have donned the mantle of the moral police and raised the banner of anti-Valentine’s Day protests across Gujarat. On Wednesday, they distributed handbills to college students, urging them to shun this western culture of celebrating love. They asked the youngsters to instead worship their parents and seek their blessings on this day.
Praful Patel, a state government employee in his early fifties, and father of two sons, on Wednesday, together with 40 other odd devotees from the Asaram Bapu ashram fanned themselves in the M S University’s main campus with handbills, determined to have a word with the youngsters.
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sify.com:
PUNE: Hardening his anti-Valentine Day posture, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Thursday declared that the party workers would vehemently oppose the "rotten alien culture" represented by Western custom. "What is this Valentine Day? In what way it is related to Indian culture? It is a rotten imported culture thriving on the neo-rich with easy money to squander," he said in a front page comment in the party mouthpiece Saamna on Thursday.
Akhil Bhartiya Maratha Mahasangh has also declared its opposition to V-Day, saying the celebrations amounted to "apeing the Western culture" and tarnished the Maharashtrian ethos by spoiling the younger generation. The Hindu Janjagruti Samiti also announced that it was boycotting the celebrations as the day symbolised "a materialistic and immoral" lifestyle.
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Manglorean.com:
BAREILLY: A group of Shiv Sainiks thrashed young couples Thursday in Uttar Pradesh's Barielly town, but the state police claimed there were no other untoward incidents on the Valentine's Day in other parts of the state. Police officials said a group of Shiv Sainiks not only beat up young couples in a public park in Barielly, about 250 km from here, they also made the girls hold own ears and apologise for celebrating the Valentine's Day while the boys were forced to do sit-ups and crawl on the ground.
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The New Indian Express:
ROURKELA: If on one hand, it was turn of the baton-wielding VHP activists who took pride at forcefully quelling the young pairs from dating points, on the other, it was turn of those who cleverly eluded the saffron brigade. The orange operatives sporting trademark VHP scarf and badge fanned out in large groups.
A flurry of activites was noticed at the most sought after location of IG Park where a group were was handing out public humiliation to at least four pairs as they were claimed to be caught in activities considered ‘taboo’.
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The New Indian Express:
BHUBANESWAR: The saffron brigade made its opposition to Valentine’s Day felt across malls, parks and card stores in the city even as love-struck ones did everything to give them a slip on Thursday. Bhubaneswar police which not so long ago had tried to play the moral police by taking to task the love birds thronging public places, mostly parks, this time around got back to its primary job to see that no untoward incident was reported. Police personnel were deployed at the public spots.
But there was no stopping the members of the self-proclaimed culture police who flashed placards, raising slogans about how the Indian culture does not permit western Valentine’s Day concept. Formed in groups, they went from one mall to another, from one park to the other, and chased away all those young couples who they thought were paying their tribute to St. Valentine. College campuses were not spared too. But then, those who could, managed to steal their private moments.
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The Times of India:
BHOPAL: Bajrang Dal activists out to spoil celebration of love on Valentine's Day made a couple sitting in a Bhopal park tie the knot and blackened the face of a foreigner. It, however, emerged later that the saffron brigade had wrongly caught a married couple. The moral police blackened the foreigner's face after they spotted her with a local man at an isolated place on Bhopal's VIP Road.
Police said Bajrang Dal activists informed the parents of Ashish Ranu, 25, and Divya Singh, 23, after they found them in Kamla Park on the outskirts of Bhopal. VHP spokesperson and Bajrang Dal leader Devendra Rawat said his outfit had issued a warning that any couple spotted celebrating Valentine's Day would have to get married. "Our activists found the couple in the park. We didn't misbehave with them. We asked them to get married," he said.
"Initially they said they were related to each other, but later accepted that they were in love. We told them that if they are in love, they should get married, but they maintained that their parents would get angry. We informed their parents and got them married," Rawat said.
The marriage vows were taken in a hurry. Ashish smeared vermilion on Divya's forehead and tied a ‘mangalsutra' around her neck. Soon after, the police reached the spot and rescued the couple.
The police later claimed the episode was a "drama" staged by the Bajrang Dal. "The couple had tied the knot four months back and Divya is a member of Bajrang Dal's women's wing - Durga Vahini," a police said. Bajrang Dal, however, denied the charge. "If they were married for four months, why did they meet in a park, under a tree on Valentine's Day?
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The Times of India:
HYDERABAD: The moral police played the spoilsport for lovers ready to snatch moments together on Valentine’s Day in the city on Thursday. With the police force, including Rapid Action Force personnel at some places, deployed to prevent any ugly incidents, many couples preferred to stay away from public hot spots for the day.
There were, however, stray incidents of violence when right wing activists went about decrying the 'western' culture. A greeting card shop was ransacked by ABVP activists who also burnt the cards there. When the activists heard that several couples were visiting the Sanghi temple on the outskirts of the city, they tried to enter the temple premises but were barred by the police. Many ABVP activists were taken into custody and detained at Vanasthalipuram, Osmania University, Abids, Narayanguda police stations.
Also, a radio channel which was conducting a special programme on Valentine's Day was forced to cancel it as ABVP activists threatened to take to violence. Likewise, about 30 Bajrang Dal activists who took out a rally to protest the celebrations were taken into preventive custody by Narayanguda police. "They wanted to shut down greeting cards stores and were disrupting traffic," Narayanguda sub-inspector N L N Raju said.
The Muslim Girls' Association took on a different route to 'counsel' couples adopting 'alien culture'. Its volunteers visited nearly 35 colleges, parks, bus stops and counselled lovers not to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Meanwhile, in Nizamabad, Bajrang Dal and ABVP activists forcibly ensured the ‘marriage’ of five couples after hunting down for couples celebrating the day. While some couples ran away on seeing the right wing activists, the five couples could not escape. While three couples were 'married' in Alisagar, two couples were forced to tie the knot in Sarangapur temple area.
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sify.com:
CHENNAI: On the eve of Valentine's day, Chennai city police appears set to do so some moral policing too. But wedded couples need not lose sleep over how they express their love tomorrow if the words of Chennai Police Commissioner G Nanchil Kumaran today is a source of encouragement. If Kumaran enforces his diktat, it may be couples who are not in wedlock and display their affection a little too openly who may be under the watchful eyes of police tomorrow, a day when lovers are in gay abandon.
“There won't be any unnecessary poking into human relationships...normal relationships would not be disturbed,” he told reporters when asked whether any special measures would be in force for the Valentine's day in the city to prevent any untoward incidents. “We would be only enforcing law and order and those violating this alone would be liable for action,” he said.
