Comments on: Left, Right, Centre, Pseudo-Secular: The Mangalore Pub Incident

By: Kuldip Gupta

Kuldip Gupta — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:54:01 +0000

This whole incident was a joint effort of PUB owner,Media and the shree ram sena for cheap publicity. The media had been called in anticipation of the incident. The pub owners were aware of the about to happen incident. If they had informed Police instead of Media the whole ugly incident could had been avoided. But Mr Muthalik wanted free publicity ( now he is famous enough to contest in Parliament elections).The Pub owner got his name in the prinnt and the Media got its bytes. THe poor girls got assaulted was a by product of this effort.
Media wnt to market blaming all HIndu centric parties as if it was organised by all the Hindu rightist parties and had a field day.
Much bigger incidents happen on daily basis no one reports a line about it. The Statesman office was vandalised by Zealot Muslim forces. They blocked the Road on three days. All for reprinting an article from “The Independent” . No media prints even two words about it.

By: anj

anj — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:00:15 +0000

What is Ram Sena or Durga sena.. who gave them a permission to police the public without thier permission? They dare not touch another girl… if the leader is not married ask him to get marry or the fellows has problems ask them to take care of the family not the public. or if they dont have any other work to do and wants to protest something then protest terrorism. go and join the army.. can they.. no they cant because they are scared of their life.. its mentioned above that no one has to make an issue out of it.. did any of his or her family members got the hit.. then they will know the pinch..

By: ves21

ves21 — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:23:20 +0000

Of course… I did not mean any particular religion in its pure state (basic moral foundation), but the various (newly, sometimes) selfapponited manifestations which you can call by various names. Religions have a way of getting distorted for various politico-economic means. And then intolerance only breeds intolerance…..as does violence

By: ves21

ves21 — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:08:37 +0000

You are of course right when you say that this is first and foremost a “woman” issue. But it seems (maybe i am mistaken) that the religious thing has also grown with time & things look uglier. Intolerence of all sorts has increased and politicians of all sorts are responsible.
And yes this is not only an Indian issue. During my last visit to Paris there was a manifestation by women: “Ni pute ni soumise” = neither prostitutes nor submissive. This in response to growing molestation (rape included) of girls in the poorer suburbia of Paris. Not new of course, pinching was always a “sport” there, but in past years took up a new and bad proportion. Not only in France of course.
Nowadays in Japan if a man happens to make a pass at a woman in the metro he can be taken away by the police and then things turn bad for him. But a world of respect is better….

It would be extremely problematic to say that the incident is consistent with “Hinduism” but it is a type of political religiosity that is getting uglier by the day, which is why one makes the distinction between Hinduism (and all its own contradictions) and Hindutva which has a homogenising tendency in its view of culture (as does Islamism)

By: bluespriite

bluespriite — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:24:33 +0000

You might want to this column by Vir Sanghvi (http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=a270dd39-aa50-467d-a408-9c6b1ef2ed72). It appeared in editions yesterday and that’s what he says too. All this has nothing to do with religion and everything or at least a lot with oppressing women some more.. and that issue is getting sidelined.