Join the Pink Chaddi Campaign already!
For details on how to get involved, check out the official blog and also join the Facebook page.
This is all over the Indian media, so don’t pretend you don’t know what this is all about.
For my luffly foreign friends, though, “The Pink Chaddi Campaign kicked off on 5 February 2009 to oppose the Sri Ram Sena. The campaign is growing exponentially (20,035 members at this point in the life of our Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women) and that is not surprising. Most women in this country have enough curbs on their lives without a whole new franchise cashing in with their bully-boy tactics. Of course, a lot of men have joined the group as well.”
To explain further, this is a movement in response to a disgusting case of moral policing that happening in Mangalore, a coastal city some kilometres west of Bangalore, which is, incidentally, my native town. A group of Hindu fundamentalists who call themselves the Sri Ram Sena, under the guise of “safeguarding Indian culture” (yes, becuase there’s only one, which was invented by the SRS) assaulted women drinking at a pub, because women aren’t supposed to drink. It’s anti-Indian, according to them.
They’ve been numerous reactions to this sad event. Like, the SRS shouldn’t have taken matters into their own hands, but drinking is un-Indian, and the only thinking worse than that is women drinking. The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women think that is bullshit and we’re responding with undies.
Oh yes, chaddi = underwear. Nice bright pink underwear mailed to Pramod Muthalik, the leader of the SRS, whose next plan involves forcing unmarried couples seen together in public to, well, get married. Because Valentine’s Day is also against Hindu — oops, Indian — culture. Frankly, it’s not even against Hinduism, considering how vast and inclusive the philosophy of Hinduism is. But what to do, idiots will be idiots.
Right. So join this awesome campaign spearheaded by Nisha Susan. Click the links above to find out where to send your undies and how. Go out to for a drink. Hold hands with someone in public. Wear pink undies and let them show off the top of your jeans. And you don’t need to be a woman to do this, yeah?
