(Dr. Shashi Tharoor is a two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, the former Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development and the former UN Under-Secretary-General. He has written 15 books, including, most recently, India Shastra: Reflections On the Nation in Our Time.)
Happy Valentine's Day! Assuming, of course, that you're celebrating it, which these days in India is a somewhat risky business. After years of attacking couples holding hands on February 14th, trashing stores selling Valentine's Day greeting cards and shouting slogans outside cafes with canoodling couples, Hindutva activists have changed tactics this year. The Hindu Mahasabha has announced that it will send squads out to catch any unmarried couples out for a tryst today and promptly cart them off to a temple to be married. (And, if Sakshi Maharaj has his way, they will be lectured on the virtues of producing between four and ten children forthwith, in order to give his fantasies a voting majority.)
In fact what young people today call "PDA" or "public display of affection" was widely prevalent in ancient India. As late as the 11th century, Hindu sexual freedoms were commented upon by shocked travellers from the Muslim world. Today's young celebrants of Valentine's Day are actually upholding India's ancient pre-Muslim culture, albeit in a much milder form than is on display, for instance, in Khajuraho. How ironic that they should incur the disapproval of the self-appointed custodians of Bharatiya Sanskriti!
Modern Hinduism has always prided itself on its tolerance for difference. In fact, Swami Vivekananda, whom the bigots ignorantly lay claim to, went farther, and spoke of the hallmark of our civilization being not just tolerance but acceptance - the Hindu idea of sarva dharma sama bhava, that all ways to the divine are equally valid. The Hindu Mahasabha and their ilk, out to despoil the innocent fun of Valentine's Day celebrants and even to impose their puritanical ideas upon them by carting them off to shotgun weddings, are fundamentally betraying Hinduism.
For where, in the Hindutva brigade's definition of "Bharatiya sanskriti," do the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho belong? Should their explicitly detailed couplings not be pulled down, as Fashion TV's cable signals were during the last BJP government? What about the Kama Sutra, the tradition of the devadasis, the eros of the Krishna Leela - are they all un-Indian now?
It may not seem to matter very much what some lumpen elements think of Valentine's Day. But it is precisely this kind of narrow-mindedness that also led to the notorious "pulping" of Wendy Doniger's erudite studies of Hinduism. If these intolerant bullies are allowed to get away with their lawless acts of intolerance and intimidation, we are allowing them to do violence to something profoundly vital to our survival as a civilization.
I trust that the police will intervene against the officious busybodies of the Hindutva brigades every time they try to intrude on a young Valentine's Day couple.And maybe the BJP government, with its fondness for rebaptizing Government schemes with new Sanskrit appellations, should give serious thought to just calling Valentine's Day Kamadeva Divas. Then the Hindu Mahasabha could be given a few ancient texts and told to rediscover the glories of their own ancient culture. It might actually broaden their bigoted minds.
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