Legal or Cultural Issue?

Mangalore Mayor has served a legal notice on the Union minister for women and child development Renuka Chowdhary for issuing statements that "tarnish" city's image. (HT, dated 13 Feb)

To my mind this little news item encapsulates a partly flawed debate relating to the incident in Mangalore where members of one'Shri Ram Sene' stormed a pub and assaulted women. In a democracy, everyone has a right to question. But, if we ask a wrong question, we will get misleading pointers. We will beat the stick at the wrong end. Just as the above mayor has done.

For instance,take a question like this: "Is it against Indian culture to go to pubs?" Maybe it is or maybe it is not. There is no official definition of 'Indian culture' and it is not mandatory to follow it. There are thousands of establishments in our towns and cities that serve all kinds of beverages to whoever will pay. For a certain fringe group to select just one such establishment to launch an attack is to generate publicity and reactions. Nobody had heard of Mr. Muthalik before this, now he is a welknown figure. We see this pattern all the time and yet are fooled by it.

Let's look at another question: "Should they be allowed to take law into their hands?" This attack was not taking law in their hand. It was breaking the law. You take law into your hand when say, you beat up a pickpocket instead of calling the police. The owner and the patrons of the pub were not engaged in any illegal act, therefore, preventing them from doing so was actually illegal and assaulting them was a criminal act.

In many cities people took out morchas to condemn the violence. One placard asked: "Is beating up women a part of Indian culture?" Well, may be it is and may be it is not. However, it is certainly against the law.

I agree that there are several other complex issues involved here as well. Issues such as right wing extremism, repressed behavior of controlling women, class resentment etc. It is evident that most politicians have empathised with the cause of the Sene (ie pub culture is bad), while only mildly denouncing the use of violence. Yet, I feel the nub of the matter is that
the sene members have publically commited violent crime and should be dealt with as a law and order situation. There is an increasing cult of violence and intolerance that gets couched in obsfucating issues and language.

We are a free, liberal democracy. Unless there is a rule of law that protects civilian freedom granted by the constitution, there is no basis for democracy. Unless groups engaged in goondagiri- attacking shops, establishments, theatres, art galleries, places of worship- damaging property and assaulting citizens- unless such acts are not promptly punished (actually
stopped), it is futile to argue about larger issues.