Pink Chaddi Campaign

| |}>
The Pink Chaddi Campaign (Pink Underwear Campaign) is a nonviolent protest movement launched in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

in February 2009 in response to notable incidences of violent conservative and right-wing activism against perceived violations of India

India

n culture, when a group of women were attacked in a pub in Mangalore

Mangalore

Mangalore is the chief port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located about west of the state capital, Bangalore. Mangalore lies between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghat mountain ranges, and is the administrative headquarters of the Dakshina Kannada district in south western...

. The campaign was conceived particularly in protest against a threat by Pramod Muthalik

Pramod Muthalik

Pramod Muthalik is the chief of the Rashtriya Hindu Sena, the parent organization of the Sri Ram Sena. He was born in 1963 to a Marathi family in Hukkeri in the Belgaum district of Karnataka, close to the border with Maharashtra.After the 2009 Mangalore pub attack, where women were beaten Pramod...

of the Sri Ram Sena

Sri Ram Sena

The Sri Ram Sena is a right-wing Hindu extremist group founded in the late 1960s by Kalki Ji Maharaj right hand Bal Thackeray, a former leader of the Shiv Sena, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad. Kalki Ji Maharaj is a devotee of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna was born in Vrindavan U.P....

(also spelled as Sri Ram Sene and Sriram Sena), an orthodox Hindu

Hindu

Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

group based in Mangalore. Mr.Muthalik threatened to marry off and take other action on any young couples found together on Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day

Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine, and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496...

Background

On February 6, 2009 in an incident of moral policing a group of men who claimed to belong to Sri Ram Sena attacked a group of women in Mangalore, India. Later that month, Muthalik announced an action plan to target couples found dating on February 14, Valentine’s Day. He said "Our activists will go around with a priest, a turmeric

Turmeric

Turmeric is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. It is native to tropical South Asia and needs temperatures between 20 °C and 30 °C and a considerable amount of annual rainfall to thrive...

stub and a mangalsutra

Mangalsutra

A Mangalsutra is a symbol of Hindu marriage union in South Asia. It is a sacred thread of love and goodwill worn by women as a symbol of their marriage...

on February 14. If we come across couples being together in public and expressing their love, we will take them to the nearest temple and conduct their marriage.

Reaction

After widespread outrage over his speech, the Bangalore and Mangalore police stepped up protection in public places and local hangouts, despite which there was an attack by the Sri Ram Sena on five women in a pub in Mangalore. Two women patrons were hospitalized in a critical condition. Of 40 perpetrators, only three have been arrested so far.

On 9th feb 2009, Home Minister P. Chidambaram

P. Chidambaram

P. Chidambaram or Chidambaram Palaniappan, sometimes written Palaniappan Chidambaram is an Indian politician with the Indian National Congress and present Union Minister of Home Affairs of the Republic of India. Previously he was the Finance Minister of India from May 2004 to November 2008...

said that "Sri Ram Sene is a threat to the country. The Centre is watching its activities with great concern"

In the midst of the tension, a protest was started by a group of young women, called the "Pink Chaddi" campaign, where they urged a peaceful protest (described as Gandhian in the press) to all of India, by sending pink underwear ("Chaddi" in Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

) to Muthalik’s office on Valentine’s day.
The novel form of protest was initiated by Nisha Susan and a large group of friends from across India. As the protest grew, underwear started pouring in from locations all over India in solidarity for the "Love Sena". Over 500 pink chaddis were couriered on Friday. Other cities collected hundreds of such chaddis and decided to courier them directly. There has been a tentative truce established as Pramod Muthalik has expressed an inclination for a dialogue to resolve this issue..
Ostensibly , the chaddi (underwear) had been chosen as a symbol ,since right wing groups like the RSS

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or National Patriotic Organization), also known the Sangh, is a right-wing Hindu nationalist, paramilitary, volunteer, and allegedly militant organization for Hindu males in India...

of India are derogatively called "chaddies" (short pants), which is part of the uniform that RSS members wear during their meetings.

Reaction to the Campaign

The Pink Chaddi Campaign received widespread media coverage, and the Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

group saw numbers of members growing exponentially in the following days. A few reports were also critical of the campaign accusing it of trivializing an important issue like attack on women.

There was also political reaction to the campaign as supporters of RSS

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

objected to use of pictures of RSS members on the campaign blog. RSS had criticized the Mangalore attack and favoured ban on the Sri Ram Sena. The blog owner removed the pictures of RSS members following this objection.

A counter-campaign calling itself "The Pink Condom Campaign" was started by some unknown activists a few days before Valentine's Day.

Preventive Custody

As an additional precaution, Muthalik and 140 others of the Sri Ram Sena were held in preventive custody on Valentine’s Eve.

Facebook Group Defaced

Shortly after the campaign took off, the campaign's Facebook group began to be attacked by trolls and was eventually broken into. Attackers renamed the group and included racist slurs and death threats in its description. The attacks continued despite appeals to Facebook's support department for help, and eventually Facebook disabled the account of the group's administrator and access to the group. The group has decided to avoid Facebook in future.

External links

The Pink Panties Campaign: The Indian Women's Sexual Revolution. by Rita Banerji in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific Issue 23, January 2010
Consortium of Pub-going, loose and forward women
News coverage of Pink Chaddi Campaign

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.