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Hindus in Valentine's Day attack on lovers

Sydney Morning Herald - February 16, 2009

Matt Wade, New Delhi – Valentine's Day in India has been marred by a spate of attacks on young couples as Hindu radicals battle what they claim are foreign influences corrupting Indian culture.

Six men from the Hindu group, Shiv Sena, were arrested in Agra, the home to the Taj Mahal, after they cut the hair of overtly romantic couples in a park on Valentine's Day.

In Pune, western India, two couples were stopped by activists from the same group and forced to "marry" on the spot by exchanging flower garlands. Five more members of Shiv Sena were arrested in Delhi for threatening couples.

In the central Indian city of Ujjain, a mob of Hindu fanatics beat a brother and sister they mistook for a couple displaying affection. Meanwhile activists blackened the faces of many couples they said were behaving inappropriately in the cities of Aurangabad and Bijnaur.

Valentine's Day has recently become hugely popular in India but public shows of affection are still considered taboo by many.

Hindu mobs were not the only ones targeting couples on Valentine's Day. A policeman in the northern state of Haryana was caught on camera attacking a female college student accused of being "involved in immoral activities". The graphic video showed the officer, Molla Ram, repeatedly spinning a woman around by the hair.

He was later suspended. The Valentine's Day violence comes amid a "culture wars" debate over the influence of foreign culture in India.

Last month a Hindu nationalist group, called the Sri Ram Sena (Lord Ram's Army), brutally attacked a group of young women drinking and dancing with men in a pub in the south Indian city of Mangalore. The incident exposed deep divisions in Indian society over traditional values and behavioural standards.

The Minister for Women and Children, Renuka Chowdhury, accused the Mangalore attackers of wanting the "Talibanisation" of India.

A group calling itself a "Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women" has urged supporters to send a pair of "pink chaddis" – local slang for underpants – to the headquarters of Sri Ram Sena, in protest over the pub attack. So far 32,000 people have joined the campaign.

"Most women in this country have enough curbs on their lives without a whole new franchise cashing in with their bully-boy tactics," the group says.

However, since the attack several senior politicians have lamented the rise of "mall and pub culture", which has recently blossomed among India's affluent middle classes.

Hindu fanatics show no sign of dropping their opposition to Valentine's Day. In the city of Gurgoan, near Delhi, Hindu nationalists protested outside malls and patrolled parks urging young people to avoid Valentine's Day.

Protest organiser, Satish Mann, told India's Sunday Times: "We have been and will keep protesting against these western concepts. Our culture is the greatest and we can't allow youngsters to ape the west and indulge in indecent acts, like dating."

At other demonstrations flowers and cards were burned in protest at Valentine's Day.

Attempts by hardliners to disrupt Valentine's Day have become an annual event and police this year were on high alert. After several radical Hindu groups threatened to disrupt Valentine's Day police detained nearly 600 activists in "preventive custody" across the country over the weekend, the Press Trust of India reported.

Despite the controversy, couples flocked to restaurants and cafes in Delhi's downtown Connaught Place for a Valentine's Day dinner on Saturday night. Some had special menus prepared for the evening with offerings like "Couples Coffee".

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