On the winter’s day of December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42 year old seamstress and civil liberties worker boarded a bus to head home from work. Parks, secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) had recently familiarized herself with Gandhian non-violence at a workshop for racial equality at the Highlander Folk School.
“Tired of giving in”, Rosa Parks refused to obey the bus driver and offer her seat to a white passenger. This individual act of civil disobedience began the Montgomery Bus Boycott that lasted 381 days, crippling the economy of the local public transport system, eventually leading to the Supreme Court declaring segregation on buses as unconstitutional.ci
On December 5th, 1955, a young churchman named Martin Luther King Jr. assumed leadership of the campaign to defend Rosa Parks. Four years later, he visited India to imbibe Gandhi’s principles. February 19th 2009, will make 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr. spent two days in a sparsely furnished room on the second floor of Mani Bhavan in Mumbai. Thereafter, he felt sufficiently empowered to motivate the Black Civil Rights movement with Gandhian principles of non-violence.
Marking the arrival of King Jr’s son in India, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his father’s pilgrimage, to the land of Mahatma Gandhi, on February 6th, 2009, Shruthi KS a student of St Aloysius College, Mangalore, was abducted from a bus along with her male companion Shabeeb; five hoodlums assaulted them to enforce their diktat of segregation of communities and faith.
Meanwhile, the Shree Ram Sena’s orchestrated efforts to ‘save’ the Indian woman from the evils of pub culture shall culminate in the following by Valentine’s Day; Mangalore’s Amnesia Lounge shall be endowed with Renuka Chowdhury’s defiant ministerial presence endorsing pub culture; the ‘pub bharo’ (fill the pubs) call will ensure roaring business in times of recession, pleasing pub owners and liquor barons; the sorority of ‘pub-going, loose and forward women’ marinated into the media establishment would have delighted their media bosses, with their sensational strategy selling more newspapers and Muthalik will contemplate an advantageous purpose for his knickers jackpot.
Within a week of its occurrence, the bus incident involving Shruthi and Shabeeb remains the concern of her parents, the police and the Human Rights Commission.
In a sinister refrain of events, on February 10th, fifteen year old Ashwini Moolya‘s bus was waylaid by a gang of youth. She was accused of “illegal activities” with Saleem a Muslim youth travelling on the same bus who was later arrested. Unable to bear the humiliation, Ashwini - a ninth standard student - committed suicide the next day.
Both incidents involve a woman and moral policing but ‘pub bharo’ remains the Valentine’s Day priority before the ogre of communal segregation can be addressed.
Though the incident involved a woman and moral policing, communalism is inconvenient with Valentine’s Day around the corner.
Amidst the thousands of accomplished pub-going women is there not a handful like seamstress Rosa Parks, ready to board a bus wearing ‘bindi’ or ‘burkha’ - with their male friends of other faiths - to defy the cultural and communal segregation of India?
On February 19th, when Martin Luther King Jr. III renews his conviction in Satyagraha at Mani Bhavan in Mumbai, would Minister Renuka Chowdhury lead a ‘Bus Bharo’ campaign in Mangalore, with the pub-going consortium and college students of various communities for company?
Would King Jr. III be able to take a message back to the United States of America that Gandhian strategies of civil disobedience still work on a bus decades later or, would he have to inform the world that in the India of 2009, “Gandhi’s non-violence is exported as parcels of packaged pink knickers?”
Madame Minister and the Consortium… your answer is awaited. February 19th is nigh
“Tired of giving in”, Rosa Parks refused to obey the bus driver and offer her seat to a white passenger. This individual act of civil disobedience began the Montgomery Bus Boycott that lasted 381 days, crippling the economy of the local public transport system, eventually leading to the Supreme Court declaring segregation on buses as unconstitutional.ci
On December 5th, 1955, a young churchman named Martin Luther King Jr. assumed leadership of the campaign to defend Rosa Parks. Four years later, he visited India to imbibe Gandhi’s principles. February 19th 2009, will make 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr. spent two days in a sparsely furnished room on the second floor of Mani Bhavan in Mumbai. Thereafter, he felt sufficiently empowered to motivate the Black Civil Rights movement with Gandhian principles of non-violence.
Marking the arrival of King Jr’s son in India, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his father’s pilgrimage, to the land of Mahatma Gandhi, on February 6th, 2009, Shruthi KS a student of St Aloysius College, Mangalore, was abducted from a bus along with her male companion Shabeeb; five hoodlums assaulted them to enforce their diktat of segregation of communities and faith.
Meanwhile, the Shree Ram Sena’s orchestrated efforts to ‘save’ the Indian woman from the evils of pub culture shall culminate in the following by Valentine’s Day; Mangalore’s Amnesia Lounge shall be endowed with Renuka Chowdhury’s defiant ministerial presence endorsing pub culture; the ‘pub bharo’ (fill the pubs) call will ensure roaring business in times of recession, pleasing pub owners and liquor barons; the sorority of ‘pub-going, loose and forward women’ marinated into the media establishment would have delighted their media bosses, with their sensational strategy selling more newspapers and Muthalik will contemplate an advantageous purpose for his knickers jackpot.
Within a week of its occurrence, the bus incident involving Shruthi and Shabeeb remains the concern of her parents, the police and the Human Rights Commission.
In a sinister refrain of events, on February 10th, fifteen year old Ashwini Moolya‘s bus was waylaid by a gang of youth. She was accused of “illegal activities” with Saleem a Muslim youth travelling on the same bus who was later arrested. Unable to bear the humiliation, Ashwini - a ninth standard student - committed suicide the next day.
Both incidents involve a woman and moral policing but ‘pub bharo’ remains the Valentine’s Day priority before the ogre of communal segregation can be addressed.
Though the incident involved a woman and moral policing, communalism is inconvenient with Valentine’s Day around the corner.
Amidst the thousands of accomplished pub-going women is there not a handful like seamstress Rosa Parks, ready to board a bus wearing ‘bindi’ or ‘burkha’ - with their male friends of other faiths - to defy the cultural and communal segregation of India?
On February 19th, when Martin Luther King Jr. III renews his conviction in Satyagraha at Mani Bhavan in Mumbai, would Minister Renuka Chowdhury lead a ‘Bus Bharo’ campaign in Mangalore, with the pub-going consortium and college students of various communities for company?
Would King Jr. III be able to take a message back to the United States of America that Gandhian strategies of civil disobedience still work on a bus decades later or, would he have to inform the world that in the India of 2009, “Gandhi’s non-violence is exported as parcels of packaged pink knickers?”
Madame Minister and the Consortium… your answer is awaited. February 19th is nigh
2 comments:
I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say? I get this sneaking suspicion that behind the garb of progressive politics, a lurking patriach is hiding. Are you getting moral pangs to see women occupying hitherto male spaces like pubs? Are you afraid to see women discarding their knickers?!
Tom
Ranjan you have made a very valid point.We are creating a Frankenstein by giving this deviant and his group so much attention.And like you rightly pointed out we have failed to recognize that we are have become so media savvy that the issue of communal segregation and the abuduction of Shruthi and her friend is somehow not fun enough than pink chaddis and pubs.
Kudos to you for making us think about it.
Anberin
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