The Stupidity of the Moral Police

News this week has been dominated by two events. The first was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suddenly being admitted to hospital to undergo a heart surgery. Thankfully, that went off pretty well and the man is now on the road to recovery while newspapers and television channels discuss whether Sonia Gandhi has something against Pranab Mukherjee. The other incident, a more distasteful one, is what I will be discussing in this blog post. You guessed it, it is the Mangalore pub brawl where a bunch of 'activists' attacked a pub claiming that such establishments go against Indian culture.

Anyone who has read my earlier blog posts will know whose side I will be taking. In fact, I don't see why anyone would want to take the side of the Sri Ram Sene and its leader Muthalik. Unfortunately, people are taking their side and that is why I am writing about this issue. Moral policing, as a term, is a complete misnomer for it is neither moral nor does it involve policing, in its strictest sense of the term. It is, instead, a euphemism for goondagiri. These so-called 'Moral Police' and 'Social Activists' are no more than ruffians, scoundrels and hooligans of the worst type. The worst, because they justify their loutish, sub-animal behaviour with twisted reason and inane logic.

I'm personally not too fond of nightclubs. I go to them occasionally with a group of friends and far from them being exotic places of intrigue and passion, I find them quite pedestrian. I can have the same fun and enjoyment at any other place provided I am with a bunch of good friends. On the whole, I would much rather go to a restaurant or a cafe with those friends and chill with a couple of beers while classic rock plays in the background. Of course, to Muthalik and his gang, such things are one and the same. Anything 'western' is taboo and that includes beer, classic rock and quite possibly restaurants as well. What I would recommend for such idiots is the essay One Hundred Percent American by A.G. Gardiner. While Muthalik might balk at the title of the essay, let me describe some of the issues that Gardiner points out in his essay. Gardiner talks about how, the so-called One Hundred Percent American gets up in the morning wearing pyjamas that were invented in India; to an alarm clock first designed in Europe; washes his face using a piped water system conceived in the Indus Valley and ancient Rome; uses a toothbrush once again invented in Europe; drinks milk which was first used as a food by Eurasian hunter-gatherers; reads a newspaper which was invented in Britain and thanks god for being One Hundred Percent American.

Let me commandeer this concept for the benefit of moral policemen in India. Muthalik, members of the Sri Rama Sene and any other fool calling himself a moral policeman, let me ask you this. If you are against everything western then why do you travel by roads, trains or aeroplanes? They are all western inventions, ban them. Why do you drive around in cars? They were invented by Daimler and promoted by Ford. One is a German and the other, American. In other words, they are western and must be banned. Why do you watch television? Why do you listen to the radio? Why do you read newspapers? Ban them. Or do you strictly restrict yourself to 'culture'? In that case, let us ban the violin from Carnatic music. It is western influence, after all. Let us ban...I know! Let us ban Zubin Mehta from practicing his profession. After all, he is promoting western music, isn't he? Let us ban the works of B.V. Karanth and Vijay Tendulkar. Both of them worked indoors while Indian theatre is traditionally an open-air phenomenon. Let us prohibit the thousands of musical collaborations that occur between Indian and western artists every year. Pandit Ravi Shankar is a criminal because he worked with George Harrison, isn't he? Let us ban English novels. Let us ban English! Let us tear down all those heritage buildings in South Mumbai. Let us demolish Rashtrapathi Bhawan, Parliament House, India Gate, Gateway of India, the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Lutyens Bungalows because they are all examples of western architecture. In short, let us ban ourselves because all of us have been influenced by western cultures in one way or the other.

The sheer hypocrisy of these moral policemen is so blatant that I am constantly surprised as to why people even consider supporting them. The truth of the matter is that pubs, nightclubs and other such establishments are unfortunately seen as the haunt of the elite and this irritates the people who cannot gain access to them. This notion is hyped even more by media such as films which offer these people a so-called glimpse into these places but in reality presents a rather glamorized and distorted picture of them. This divides the (for the lack of a better word and not in a derogatory sense) 'have-nots' into two groups. There are those who promise themselves that they will work hard to earn enough money in order to lead such lives and there are those who distance themselves from such lifestyles, claiming that they find it immoral and unethical (and there is nothing wrong in that). Things do start going wrong however, when the latter group starts taking an active stance on this issue. It is one thing to have a personal opinion and quite another to force everyone to accept your opinion as well. When you are propagating your ideas as right and others' as wrong, you risk crossing a very fine line that distinguishes between healthy activism and domineering subjugation. As far as Muthalik is concerned, he went way beyond this line, as did several other activists in recent years.

What angers me the most is the attitude of Chief Minister Yediyurappa. Far from condemning the incident, he pompously declared today that he will 'not allow pub culture to flourish'. Mr. Yediyurappa, let me remind you that as an individual, you have the right to your own opinion regarding pubs and the environment they foster but in your capacity as the Chief Minister of Karnataka, you have absolutely no right to decide what sort of culture the citizens of your state wish to follow. You can go against the crimes and illegal activities that may flourish in such a culture such as date rape or drug dealing but you cannot decide whether dancing at a nightclub or having a drink with your friends is right or wrong because as much as you may hate it, there is nothing illegal about such activities. Let me also remind you that you weren't made Chief Minister by divine right and that you were elected by the people of Karnataka for certain reasons. I personally voted for the BJP in the state elections last year. Why? I voted for you because I thought that out of all the useless parties that were thronging the elections, the BJP seemed to be the least useless of the lot. You were talking about development then, about how to improve Bangalore's broken infrastructure, how to attract more industries to the state, how to increase literacy levels and provide for economic growth. I voted for you when I heard you saying such things because I thought that, like Narendra Modi in Gujarat, you will move away from communalism or moral policing and concentrate on development.

Clearly, I was wrong. You ended up forgetting all about development. Instead, you always seem to be in the news for reasons I didn't elect you. First, you support goons who vandalize churches in Mangalore. Next, you indulge in beating up people in Belgaum (an issue where I feel both the Shiv Sena and the Yediyurappa government overreached themselves). Now, you come out in favour of more thugs who advocate an environment of intolerance instead of supporting those who were victimized by them. Don't forget, Mr. Yediyurappa that the only reason I did not vote for the Congress was because they clearly didn't want to field S M Krishna as their Chief Ministerial candidate. Krishna has his vices and bad points, but he certainly has a better record than you as far as development is concerned. So, if like Mayawati, you want to make statements like "We had a landslide victory...therefore the people support us" remember that I, for one, did not vote for this. I don't really like dancing at nightclubs but I do like going for a beer with my friends in the evenings. Neither activity makes me immoral. I am still against drunken driving, drugs, rape or any other such activity. I am still concerned about my country and the way it is managed by politicians like you. I still want to work towards creating a society where people can live in an environment of freedom and justice. And that is more than I can say for your goonda friends at the Sri Rama Sene.