A Valentine’s Day “fatwa”
Stumbled across this news today: “No love on Valentine’s Day, Sena on a rampage“
“… In Delhi, about a dozen Sena protesters briefly blocked a road early on Wednesday and burnt Valentine’s Day cards and gifts, chanting ‘Down with Valentine’.
In Lucknow, Sena activists sent out a diktat against Valentine’s Day celebration and threatened to beat up couples found celebrating their love.
“Our volunteers will check parks, hotels and restaurants and swoop upon young lovers found walking hand-in-hand,” Vijay Tiwari, a Shiv Sena activist in Lucknow, said. “We are deadly against Valentine’s Day,” Sapan Dutta, a Sena leader, said. “We are for civilized love and affection.”
In Pune, activists of Sena Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, Shiv Sena’s student wing, protested outside prominent colleges. They tore Valentine’s Day cards and shouted slogans. Several Vidyarthi Sena activists were taken into custody and police pickets have been deployed outside the colleges.
In Indore, Sena activists demonstrated and raised slogans against Valentine’s Day celebration near the Gandhi statue.
…
The clarion call to Shiv Sena workers to oppose Valentine’s Day came from none other than the Sena chief himself. Writing on Sena mouth piece Saamna, Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray said the party’s opposition to Valentine’s Day will continue as it has ‘nothing to do with Indian culture’.
Only those who are not patriotic and has a lot of parents’ money to spend will celebrate the day, and ‘Sainiks’ will continue to oppose the foreign culture, he said through the article. “
I would love to rip this argument apart but unfortunately I am constrained by time today…so here are some extempore comments…
This is madness…
While I agree that Valentine’s Day has nothing to do with Bharatiya culture, does that mean that Shiv Sainiks have the authority to go about bashing people who may not agree or (more likely) are just having a nice time?
Vandalising property and threatening innocent, harmless couples is not Bharatiya culture either..
How far are we from a dictatorship? and what happened to the famed Bharatiya and Hindu virtues of tolerance and liberalism?
And in any case, what has all this go to do with being “patriotic”?
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And if you have some more time, let me know your thoughts on how far are we away from this?
P.S. Has anyone heard of Vasant-Utsav? Read this and this (recommended, unfortunately only in Hindi)
