Nisha Susan is a busy lady on an unusual Valentine’s Day mission, sorting out piles of cards, letters and lots of pink underwear — all destined for a right-wing Hindu vigilante group.
“There are many of these coming every day, these ones for instance are from Jaipur” in western India, said the 20-something Susan, holding up a pair of vivid pink panties.
Susan is founder of the “Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women” — a group she set up as a provocative response to a recent attack by Hindu extremists on young women drinking in a bar in southern India.
PHOTO: AFP
Television footage of Sri Ram Sena (SRS, or Army of Lord Ram) activists chasing, slapping and kicking the terrified women prompted widespread condemnation and outrage.
The attackers, who style themselves as guardians of traditional Hindu values, were briefly detained and then released on bail, prompting Susan to take matters into her own hands.
Using the Facebook social networking site, she appealed to Indian women to send in their pink chaddis — a colloquial Hindi term for underwear.
The panties would then be sent to the SRS as a special “gift” for Valentine’s Day — an event the right-wing group denounces as Western and decadent.
“We want to tell these people that there are other ways of protesting, particularly the non-violent way,” Susan said.
The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women already has 20,000 Facebook members and the underwear is coming in thick and fast.
Contributions — some of them from men — have arrived from across the country and from all age groups, said Isha Manchanda, a member of the campaign.
“One of the contributors was a 55-year-old woman who said she had not been to a pub in her life or celebrated Valentine’s Day but was joining our cause because she was horrified by what she saw on television,” Manchanda said.
In the wake of the pub attack, India’s Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowduri compared the SRS to the Taliban in Afghanistan, but the group’s leadership was unrepentant.
Not only did it defend the violence, but it also warned that any shops buying into the Valentine’s Day market would face attack.
“Drinking, socializing, celebrating Valentine’s Day is all part of Western culture which is corrupting our Indian culture,” SRS general secretary V.K. Rajesh said.
“We are not against love. But we are against loose morals we see among the younger generation, which is blindly aping the West. And we will not spare these people and take whatever action needed within the law,” he said.
Rajesh did not seem fazed by the impending deluge.
“We welcome the gifts. Those who send us the underwear, we will send them pink saris. It is symbolic of Indian culture,” he said.
North Korea yesterday made a rare mention of dissenting votes in recent elections, although analysts dismissed it as an attempt to portray an image of a normal society rather than signaling any meaningful increase of rights in the authoritarian state. The reclusive country has one of the most highly controlled societies in the world, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un accused of using a system of patronage and repression to retain absolute power. Reporting on the results of Sunday’s election for deputies to regional people’s assemblies, the North’s state media said that 0.09 percent and 0.13 percent voted against the selected candidates
WEATHER PROBLEM: Seoul said the launch, which comes after the North said its new spy satellite is taking images of US military facilities, was rescheduled for Saturday South Korea has delayed the planned launch of its first military spy satellite set for tomorrow, officials said, days after rival North Korea said it had put its own spy satellite into orbit for the first time. Under a contract with SpaceX, South Korea is to launch five spy satellites by 2025, and its first launch using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket had been scheduled to take place at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base in the US. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense yesterday said in a brief statement that the launch was delayed due to weather conditions. Ministry officials said the
ECONOMICS? ECONOMICS? The new prime minister said that taxing cigarette sales would contribute revenue, while banning them would create a flourishing black market New Zealand’s plans for world-leading anti-smoking laws are to be revoked, Christopher Luxon confirmed yesterday after being sworn in as prime minister, in a move described as a “huge win for the tobacco industry.” Former airline boss Luxon took over six weeks after his conservative National Party won national elections, ending a six-year Labour Party reign ushered in by former prime minister Jacinda Ardern. Luxon, 53, was sworn in as head of a new coalition government by New Zealand Governor-General Cindy Kiro in a ceremony in the capital, Wellington. “It is an honor and an awesome responsibility,” Luxon told reporters. The conservative said he
ELECTION INTERFERENCE: Meta did not publicly link the account network to the Chinese government, but said it is based in China and sought to inflate divisions within the US Someone in China created thousands of fake social media accounts designed to appear to be from Americans and used them to spread polarizing political content in an apparent effort to divide the US ahead of next year’s presidential elections, Meta said on Thursday. The network of about 4,800 fake accounts was attempting to build an audience when it was identified and eliminated by the tech company, which owns Facebook and Instagram. The accounts sported fake photos, names and locations as a way to appear like everyday American Facebook users weighing in on political issues. Instead of spreading fake content as other networks