Pro-Hindutva Group Threatens Hindu Women from Inter-Religious Mingling

Veera Kesari is a Facebook page run by right-wing groups is notorious for promoting inflammatory views and passing misogynistic comments. In its latest post, it raised a warning:  "all Hindu women to stay away from men belonging to other faiths”.

The complete post reads -- “Verbal lessons are over, warnings were also given, now is it time for a tight slap”, and it dictates “Hindu girls of Moodabidri area” to stop befriending men from other religions or face dire consequences."

'Verbal lessons over, time for slap’: Pro-Hindutva group Veera Kesari, has put up an FB post asking Hindu women to stop mingling with men of other religions or face the consequences.

— The News Minute (@thenewsminute) January 3, 2018

“It has come to our notice that certain anti-religious activities have been going on and these are spoiling our culture. The reason for this is love jihad. If religious education is strong enough, such incidents will not happen. This is the last warning to all women in Moodabidri and surrounding areas. If there are people of other religions in your college and you interact with them, without listening to you, we will resort to mob justice and beat you up. There may be a hundred reasons but we won’t give any explanation,” the post reads which has now been taken down.

The self-styled moral cops further announced that from now on few activists from the organisations will monitor college-going women and their activities.

The post further warns, “We have tried giving advice, we have tried to warn you (women). Those who are clever listen to words, those who are not clever enough, will get beaten up. In the name of college photo shoots, a lot of girls are stepping out of college with men of other faiths. Our young men are there in every college to monitor your activities. Even if you go to another village to have fun with men of other religions, we will find you. If you (women) are with any Beary man, then you will receive more beatings than the man you are with.”

This post comes after the pro-Hindutva group, Hindu Jagarana Vedike attacked a college girl for talking with men of other faiths on Tuesday (Jan 2) in Mangalore, south Karnataka.

With rising incidents of such Self-styled moral cops talking law and order in their own hands, SheThePeople.TV took the responsibility too to ask some women activist about the nonsensical drama.

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ElsaMarie D’Silva of Safecity, a platform that uses tech and location mapping to identify ‘places’ of sexual harassment said to SheThePeople.TV, “India is a secular and democratic country where people of all faiths are free to interact and socialize. For any group to impose restrictions would be an infringement of one's human rights and unconstitutional. Physical violence without justification is also a criminal offence. I believe people should not give into these threats and I hope the law enforcement would take these threats seriously and prevent any untoward incident as it would amount to break down of law and order.”

Physical violence without justification is also a criminal offence.

She further added, “As for the particular focus of putting the responsibility of women to stop social interactions with any males of other faiths, I am not surprised. This patriarchal and misogynistic mindset is deep-rooted in sociocultural practices and thus manifests itself in violence against women and girls.”

What should anger us equally is the media channels that instead of holding India's ruling party responsible for such fascist violence against women, instead collude in justifying such violence by reinforcing the myth of 'love jihad'!”

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Kavita Krishnan, a known activist and Secretary of the AIPWA (All India Progressive Women’s Association) claimed, “Such threats are nothing new. Sanghi groups and even BJP leaders openly commit violence against women to enforce their patriarchal, casteist, and communal outlook. Remember the BJP woman leader who slapped a Hindu woman in Aligarh for befriending a Muslim man? Remember the Mangalore pub attacks? And remember the Cobrapost sting that caught BJP and RSS leaders on camera boasting of beating up women to force them to give up inter-faith relationships? This attitude to women further exposes the fascist character of the RSS and BJP - fascism has always hated women's independence and sought to control women.

Hitler's regime also sought to restrict women to 'kitchen, church and nursery', and tried to prevent so-called 'Aryan' women from mingling with Jews and black people. What should anger us equally is the media channels that instead of holding India's ruling party responsible for such fascist violence against women, instead collude in justifying such violence by reinforcing the myth of 'love jihad'!”

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I'm terribly appalled at the post, and the brazen issuance of a threat is nothing short of unfair and wrong," -Kirthi Jayakumar,

"It breaks my heart, in all honesty, to see that violence is so easily resorted to. I refuse to believe that there is anything wrong in mingling with anyone - the world is meant to be a free place, and we inherently have the right to decide who we interact with and how we choose to do so, so long as we are not harming anyone. I simply don't understand why a girl / woman should be policed or told whom she can interact or mingle with, and be threatened for violating what someone else deems as acceptable. I'm terribly appalled at the post, and the brazen issuance of a threat is nothing short of unfair and wrong," said Kirthi Jayakumar, founder of The Red Elephant Foundation.

Such incidents raise some pertinent questions. Is this the kind of behaviour towards women correct? Does being a woman in this country means to undergo torture, dictatorship and be homebound?

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