February 15, 2008
by Amrit Pal

Valentine's Day the world over is more or less predictable to the extent of being boring. The lovers will spend their evenings together going ga ga over each other. However, in India things can get really very interesting and juicy. Take the case of Bhopal - Activists of Bajrang Dal who had vowed to get lover couples married if they are 'caught' on the Valentine's Day and if they refuse to do so, the girl will be asked to tie a 'rakhi'to the guy.  The 'search operations' of the group were on since Thursday morning and finally when they managed to find a couple and decided to get it 'married', it turned out that the couple was already married.

Women groups, who had vowed to protect the young lovers from such moral policing, also patrolled the streets of the state capital to prevent the lovers from being harassed by the Bajrangis. YAR (Youth Awareness Ring) - the youth wing of the Nari Kalyan Samiti, a voluntary organization, constituted a group of 30 students to protect the young couples from any kind of assault.

Down south in Hyderabad, the scene was no different. Activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s student wing Thursday attacked a shop selling Valentine's Day gifts here and set fire to greeting cards. They also threatened to marry off lovers found "misbehaving" in public places. Even the Muslim Girls' Association pasted posters in public places advising youths to desist from celebrating the day. "Valentine's Day is haram (forbidden). No Muslim boy or girl should indulge in such immoral activities," the poster says. Three Urdu newspapers also carried front-page appeals by the editors to Muslim youths to keep away from this "gunah" (sin).

In Bareilly (UP), a group of Shiv Sainiks not only beat up young couples in a public park they also made the girls hold own ears and apologise for celebrating the Valentine's Day while the boys were forced to do sit-ups and crawl on the ground.

In Kashmir also, the women's hard line separatist group, Dukhtaran-e-Milat (Daughters of faith), took out rallies in the capital city to protest Valentine's Day celebrations Thursday. Scores of activists of Dukhtaran-e-Milat marched through city centre Lal Chowk protesting Valentine's Day celebrations, labelling it "vulgar, impure and against the Islamic tenets".

Next: Train from Mumbai: Our only crime is we speak Hindi.