[dropcap]S[/dropcap]peculation wrapped through different Medias and social networking blogs that certain right-wing Hindus and ultra nationalist are threatening the couples, if they come out to celebrate their love onValentine’s Day, they will punish them with forceful marriage. Inciting fears andcreatinga lot of confusion in the minds of the people.The architect of such project tries to justify with the notion that this culture is procure from foreign land and one should do away with such practice to safeguard one’s culture. But how do we justify such notion in a globalised world? How do we negotiate such notion in country like India, where multiplicity is the core of it nature. The founders of this nation knows exactly the complex nature of this country and to safeguard the interest of every citizen, they choose to adopt the path of secular, where every citizens are entitled to freedom of conscience, and the right to propagate one’s own religion. In such a pluralistic state how can we come up with the notion like pure and un-alloy culture? Are we not playing the role of a hypocrite, by forcefully imposing our notion of good and bad to others?
I think to talk something like, pure, un-alloy culture, in a country like India is a crime. How can we deny the fact that multiplicity defines the very nature of our country, be it culture, religion or language. How can one think that his/her culture is the best and should represent the entity of the whole? Are we not undermining the whole concept of pluralityand the notion of ‘Unity in diversity’ that this country takes pride? I think it is high time we as a nation should come forward and remove those elementsposing threat to the vision of the founder of this great nation.
The commotion that envelops around the notion of celebrating Valentine’s Day, forces us to come up with certain questions like, why should we have problem when someone wants to celebrate their love? How can we say Valentine’s Day is the only culture that we employ from the foreign shore? How about the popular cultures like, music, movies, fast foods, life styles, etc. etc. why this things are fine with us? If we think that Valentine’s Day has foreign root and it polarises our culture, then we should be doing away with all other things that has foreign origin.
Why should people have problem when people exchange flowers in the streets, showing affection or showering kisses in public space. In today’s context such affection is visible everywhere be it, in prime TV or in Bollywood movies. We are all aware that lately, Bollywood is taking pride in item numbers and intimate scenes which were not the culture Indian cinemas before. I think we should take Valentine’s Day asjust another occasion to celebrate love, friendship and admiration. And it is on every 14 February, people celebrate by sending love messages to friends, families and to their beloved. People organised special dinners and spend time together honouring their love for each other. It is also rumoured that one of the reason of opposing the celebration is that, it has origin in Christian theology, but if we contextualise and see the meaning of celebration among the youngsters they are just celebrating their mutual love and not celebration in reverence of St. Valentine and has nothing to do with Christian theology. If we are to pull the strings of the above observations,we cannot deny the fact that this is a deliberate attempt to impose one’s morality and an act of intolerance towards the other. So, I think we must wish all the lovers who wanted celebrate… a very happy Valentine’s Day!
Wungnaongam Pou
