Skip to main content

Anti-Valentine's Day push: Sectarian move to 'restrict, constrict' India's cultural milieu

By Ram Puniyani* 

Indian culture is diverse and plural. It has been enriching itself by accepting the diversity irrespective of religion or geographical boundaries. This gets reflected in all aspects of our life, be it food habits, clothes, art, architecture, social occasions, customs and religious traditions. This is the natural grain of any open and thriving society. With the rise of sectarianism the effort is to restrict and constrict our culture in particular. 
We are witnessing the ‘othering' of religious communities and there are attempts to distinguish between diverse aspects of our society into ‘our’ versus ‘from outside’. To sustain this, sectarian outfits are very proactive at occasions. At the same time symbols are being promoted to associate with ‘nationalism in the name of religion’.
The call given by the Animal Welfare Board India (AWBI) was an example of this type of campaign. AWBI in a circular gave a call that 14th February, instead of the usual Valentine's Day, should be celebrated as ‘Cow Hug Day’. It stated, “Hugging cows will bring emotional richness and increase individual and collective happiness”.
Union Rural Development minister Giriraj Singh endorsed the idea (February 9, 2023) by saying that everybody should love cows. This had twin goals. On one hand it was to promote the symbolism around cow and on the other it aimed to bypass the Valentine's Day. Symbolism around cow is a strong emotive aspect of Hindu nationalism and the Valentine's Day is looked as alien and immoral by this stream.
Promoting symbolism around Cow has picked up in last few years. Many Hindus do regard Cow as Holy, now state has jumped into the fray and restrictions on cow slaughter were aggressively brought forward in different states. This led on one hand to the phenomenon of lynching mainly of Muslims some Dalits. This also led to brutal flogging of four Dalits in Una in Gujarat. 
The Central Government is doing ‘research funding’ into Panchgavya, a mixture of cow milk, curd, ghee, cow-dung and cow-urine). Incidentally Veterinary and biochemical sciences have already done most of the basic study and research into various animal products.
In 2021 the Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog (National Cow Board) under the Rural Development Ministry planned ‘Kamdhenu Gau Vigyan Prachar Prasar Exam’ (National Exam on Cow Science Propagation). This was later called off after public uproar. This Board was later disbanded. 
As the call was given for Cow Hug Day, many a social media posts ridiculed the idea. One video of BJP leader trying to caress the cow and she trying to hit back surfaced. The very notion of hugging cow was not taken lightly by many, as it is fraught with the possibility of accidents due to the bovine trying to hit back as not being so accustomed to strangers. 
This was a weird idea to promote love for cow, as India is also peaking as the leading exporter of beef in the world. Incidentally, the Malegaon blast accused Pragya Sing Thakur also dispensed her advice by asserting the caressing the cow, in the direction of her skin hairs reduces the blood pressure and surely with this Government plans may be afoot to undertake the research in this direction!
As such the groups associated with Hindu nationalism have been violently opposing the gifting and expressing one’s love on Valentine Day. Groups like Pramod Mutalik’s Shriram Sene and Bajrang Dal in particular have been beating couples moving together on this day. Anti-Valentine Day squads moved around, who not only harassed the couples but also tried to ransack the shops dealing in gifts for the day. Most of these groups do enjoy a sort of impunity.
It has been claimed that public expression of love is against ‘our culture’, our Hindu values. These ignorant foot soldiers and motivated leaders may be unaware of Vatsyana’s Kamsutra or the temples of Khajurahu and Konark with open expression of not only emotional love but also of erotica. 
One remembers the very successful ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign initiated by social groups. This was in response to ex-RSS pracharak Pramod Mutalik’s group beating up girls coming out from a Mangalore pub. Pink Chaddis were sent to Mutalik in large numbers. Such sectarian goups are not an isolated occurrence. Groups similar to Shri Ram Sene also came up in Saudi Arabia in particular at a point of time.
As such these groups are part of an oppressive, sectarian politics, which abhors free choice of youngsters in particular. Real reasons for this intolerant behaviour have to be looked for in their overall agenda to curtail liberalism, pluralism and to constrain the democratic ethos of the country. 
One recalls that Asaram Bapu, now cooling his heels in jail as rape convict, had mooted the idea of bypassing the Valentine's Day by celebrating 14th February as Matru-Pitru Pujan Divas (Mother-Father worship day). That was endorsed by the religious nationalists, but it also failed to take off.
The Valentine's Day, the day of expression of love, is globally very popular. It is not restricted to romantic, sexual love alone. The tradition of celebrating Valentine day goes back to early second century CE. There are many legends about St Valentine and two of them have some definitive history. 
 It seems that the early Christian Church had at least two saints bearing this name. As per one story Roman emperor Claudius II forbade young men to marry in the year 200 AD, as he had strong military ambition and he thought that single men made better soldiers. A priest by the name Valentine disobeyed the orders of the King by solemnizing the marriage of young couple's.
According to another legend, Valentine was an early Christian saint who was very affectionate to young children. He refused to worship Roman Gods and on that count and was imprisoned. 
Children missed his affection and love and tossed the notes containing love messages across the prison bars. According to many stories he was executed on 14th February. This day in due course came to be celebrated in his memory, as a tribute to his courage in defying the inhuman orders of the ruling kings; people started sending greetings and messages of love to their loved ones’. 
The origin of the customs is slightly shrouded due to its being very ancient. Also these customs started taking local hue in different countries wherever this day began to be celebrated.
In a World shrinking to be a global village one cannot fool around with bypassing the aspirations of society. It is as good that facing the criticism; the AWBI withdrew the call of Cow Hug day!
---
*Political commentator

Comments

TRENDING

'Very low rung in quality ladder': Critique of ICMR study on 'sudden deaths' post-2021

By Bhaskaran Raman*  Since about mid-2021, a new phenomenon of extreme concern has been observed throughout the world, including India : unexplained sudden deaths of seemingly healthy and active people, especially youngsters. In the recently concluded Navratri garba celebrations, an unprecedented number of young persons succumbed to heart attack deaths. After a long delay, ICMR (Indian Council for Medical Research) has finally has published a case-control study on sudden deaths among Indians of age 18-45.

SC 'appears to foster' culture of secrecy, does not seek electoral bond details from SBI

By Rosamma Thomas*  In its order of November 2, 2023 on the case of Association for Democratic Reforms vs Union of India contesting constitutional validity of electoral bonds, the Supreme Court directed all political parties to give particulars of the bonds received by them in sealed covers to the Election Commission of India. SC sought that information be updated until September 2023. 

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Only 12% of schools RTE compliant: Whither 6% budgetary allocation for education?

By Ambarish Rai* Despite Indian state’s commitment of 6% GDP on education, the Finance Minister completely ignored right to education for children and strengthening implementation of RTE Act which makes education a fundamental right in her budget speech . The Right to Education (RTE) Forum, which is a collective of different stakeholders in education, condemns this neglect of a legal entitlement, which is unconstitutional and demand for overall increase in the budget to ensure improvement in learning outcomes and overall enhancement of quality education.

Savarkar in Ahmedabad 'declared' two-nation theory in 1937, Jinnah followed 3 years later

By Our Representative One of the top freedom fighters whom BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi revere the most, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was also a great supporter of the two nation theory for India, one for Hindus another for Muslims, claims a new expose on the man who is also known to be the original proponent of the concept of Hindutva.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Reject WHO's 'draconian' amendments on pandemic: Citizens to Union Health Minister

By Our Representative  Several concerned Indian citizens have written to the Union Health Minister to reject amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted during the 75th World Health Assembly (WHA75) in May 2022, apprehending this will make the signatories surrender their autonomy to the “unelected, unaccountable and the whimsical WHO in case of any future ‘pandemics’.”

'Ambiguous policy': India late in advocating EVs as energy storage in national grid

By Shankar Sharma*  This is regarding the points raised by the Chief Electricity Authority’s (CEA's) advocacy for usage of electrical vehicles (EVs) as energy storage technology, and few associated issues . An objective reading of what he states should reiterate the enormously growing importance of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in our need to transition to a net-zero carbon scenario for the country.

Union Health Ministry, FSSAI 'fail to respond' to NHRC directive on packaged food

By Our Representative  The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has expressed deep concern over the adverse health effects caused by packaged foods high in salt, sugar, and saturated fats. Recognizing it as a violation of the Right to Life and Right to Health of Indian citizens, the quasi-judicial body called for a response from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) regarding its selection of front-of-pack labels aimed at providing consumers with information to make healthier choices.