Moral cops: recruitment open

February 14: Red roses, poem cards, teddy bears, ice-cream scoops, champagne, pecking, kissing, smooching, tickling, chasing, swearing, beating, kicking. In short: Goose pimples and black eyes. And empty pockets of course.

There are people who organize their love life by the calendar. And there are people who vent their frustration by the calendar. There’s a third category too: merchants who crowd the calendar with a day for every customer to spend his/her money. These super salesmen can be forgiven. They also help the twin sisters selling roses on Bangalore’s Brigade Road.

The day after Valentine’s Day, lovers have memories and shop owners and restaurateurs the money. “There pas kya hai?” let’s ask Bal Thackeray and Pramod Muthalik. “Mere pas sanskriti hai,” they might chorus. Thank all the gods that the culture they are talking about remains with them. Let them keep it. Otherwise, we would have been a nation of test-tube babies, born out of love.

An endless love of one’s culture unites Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolph Hitler, Tackeray and Muthalik. They have another thing in common – a constipated look. Culture or constipation, fascism or frustration, these men make it a point to make life hell for their fellow-beings. Luckily the Shiv-Ram Sena chiefs are not military geniuses like their European counterparts.

Social psychologists still speculate over the impact of the missing testicle of Hitler and the atrophied penis of Napoleon on the course of world history. How better off would Karnataka’s lovebirds be had Muthalik found love at an appropriate age, some wonder. Union minister Renuka Chowdhary says he doesn’t know how to respect women because he is not married.

The bald man who formed an obscure outfit called Ram Sena is just a symbol. But where did so many (or so few) flock to his single-point agenda – “protection of our culture”. (It’s assumed that Indian culture doesn’t require its practitioners to beat up girls.) Frustration runs deep in society. Anybody can tap it.

Osama bin Laden, the terrorist without a constipated look, would be tapping it. The rapist-terrorists, who banned love and lust in Kashmir Valley, and their recruiters in Kerala and Karnataka would be tapping it. Even Prakash Karat and Mulayam Singh Yadav would be tapping it. Though Muthalik lacks the magnitude and finesse of these tappers, how long can he wait and watch. After all, he is a fan of the “revolutionary sadhwi” Pragya Singh Thakur, who masterminded the Malegaon blasts.

Sagarika Ghose was heard probing Muthalik about his “constituency”. The humble man, who reminded his detractors on TV that he “had the duty as a citizen”, wouldn’t know perhaps. The latest of the senas finds its foot soldiers with its barbaric agenda: ‘Ambush the pubs,’ and any boozer intimidated by the high costs and broad bouncers would barge in. ‘Kick out the boys,’ and any unsuccessful romeo would have his day. ‘Chase the girls,’ and any potential acid-attacker would join the party.

When even teenage boys have to resort to violence (or hidden mobile cameras) to satisfy their libido, why blame the potbellied men in khaki. They have been on the job before Thackeray or Muthalik were accused of moral policing. Despite all the pending cases and evading criminals, India’s police force (with special credit to Kerala Police) have been leaving no stone unturned to locate and sermonize young couples caught on beaches and parks. Sometimes they collect a small fee for the sermon. Some of them go on to give the terrified girl intimate lessons inside police chowkis.

Ram Sena is just echoing the official sentiments. Maybe the sainiks themselves, in their previous avatar, had been caught and brainwashed by the moralistic policemen. After attacking pubs in Mangalore and Bangalore, they have threatened to tie down with a mangal sutra any unmarried couple celebrating Valentine’s Day. Something knotty here. If they are marryable couples, why object to their togetherness. More over, if marriage is something any passing goon can solemnize, why such a fuzz about somebody’s marital status.

There’s hope. The Delhi High Court chided the policemen for registering a case of “indecency” against a married couple in the capital. It’s not a crime to kiss, finally. But there’s a catch. You must be married.

It’s a crime to love, it’s the time to hate. So be it, Justice Muthalik.