The Media Wrongs In Mangalore

The discussion in the public sphere that followed the Amnesia pub incident inMangalore, particularly in the discussions in the popular media, leaves much tobe desired. Images of the hapless girls being physically assaultedshould, without a doubt, leave us all indignant. Nevertheless, it is a matter of concern howthe media and others in the public sphere, in an avowed attempt to championprogressive, liberal ideals, resorted to condemning the attack largely incultural terms, completely side-stepping the issue of what the Constitution andthe law had to say on the matter. In doing so, two grievous errors werecommitted.

First, the entire incident was trivialised into a question of what constitutes ‘Indian’ culture and who had the right to enforce it.  But this was not merely a matter of culture; there were other factors at play. But, most importantly, this allowed the Sri Ram Sena and their sympathizers to side-step the question of the criminality of their act and instead turn it into a debate about the definition of culture, a matter so woolly and problematic that it is best left alone.

Second, the rabidly liberal media did all it could to portray the culturalconservatives as nut-cases. This agenda was palpable in a Big Fight talk showon NDTV and politicians throwing around phrases such as ‘Talibanization of Mangalore’. Everyone with culturally conservative viewswas equated with hoodlums who would beat up women in the name of culture withouta qualm. This stance of the media quickly isolated the conservatives, who nowhave no reason to engage in a discourse via the popular media. An interestingmanifestation of this sentiment is that under every pro-liberal reporting of theincident online, the comments pages are usually filled with anti-liberalsloganeering.

There are several layers of understanding to the incident and the subsequentverbal jousting that took place in the public sphere and it is important tocarefully pry apart each layer and not confuse one with the other.

At the most immediate level is the violation of personal rights and liberties, embodied in the brutal physical assault on the women and those men who tried to offer them protection. At this level it is inconsequential whether or not the women’s actions were outside the bounds of Indian culture. It is inconsequential whether women offered men soma in some ancient Hindu texts. Even the matter of women’s rights should be set aside for the purpose of this debate as it is very easy for such arguments to degenerate into arguments about women’s roles and proper place in Indian culture and society. What is important here is that basic human freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution under article 21 were violated. 

The law of the land was violated and regardless of the broader implications, this violation must first be addressed.

To assess whether or not this fundamental issue was addressed, one simply need ask whether the discourse would have been any different had the victims been male or juvenile or had the incident occurred in another setting with other motives. If the answer to that is ‘yes’, then quite clearly the question of fundamental rights has been side-stepped. By definition, a fundamental right would apply to any context without any change in its force or relevance.

That is not to say questions of culture or women’s empowerment are any less relevant. However one must be clear not to confuse one with the other. There might be many definitions of culture or of the role of women in society and each just as valid as the next. However there can be no negotiation on the matter of one’s fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, for any concession in this regard would mean a breakdown of the very basis of our civil and public spheres of existence.

It was quite disturbing then to see how most new reports and analyses of the incident spoke about matters of Indian culture and fundamental rights in the same sentence. To quote Arvind Narrain of the Alternate Law Forum in an article published in the Indian Express:  "Indirectly, the Amnesia pub incident challenges the legacy of the women’s movement in India, which has fought for women’s right to autonomy of decision making." In the same article, he goes on to say: "When women choose to go to a pub, they challenge a patriarchal heritage which says that public spaces are by definition male, and when women wear noodle straps and tight jeans they are saying that their body is nobody’s business but their own, a flat contradiction of the conservative code."

Nowhere in the article does he make a definitive argument against theperpetrators on the basis of personal liberties and civil rights, except to referto it in passing. One might have expected differently of someone so closelyassociated with a legal think-tank. The rest of the article was largely in defenceof women’s right to express themselves vis-a-vis attire and behaviour. Onegets the uneasy feeling that he goes too far to defend feminist identities. Onecould argue that whena group of girls dress up in the latest fashion and go to a pub to party, it isusually with the intention of enjoying themselves rather than trying to make astatement that "their body is no nobody’s business but their own." What ifthey weren’t saying that? What if they went out with the explicit intention ofsnubbing cultural sentiments to no greater end? Does that make their right topersonal liberties as guaranteed by the Constitution any less legitimate?

To some, separating out issues of women’s rights and the right to one’s own definition of culture from the issue of personal liberties might seem an exercise in triviality. Quite the contrary, this is of utmost importance to the case in question. To illustrate, it is like debating the rules of the game and debating the skills of the players. The latter is a matter of personal opinion, the former a defining feature of the game itself. If a team plays badly, it is a matter of shame for the supporting side; if it breaks the rules it incurs a penalty.

The fact that a large section of the polity and civil society see it fit for women to confine themselves to domestic roles is a matter of shame; but when that section takes it into their hands to enforce those beliefs, it is a breach of law. True, the two are not mutually exclusive and it is the prevailing beliefs of the majority that gets written into law. But law, once written, stands on its own merit until further debate decides it must be changed.

What Went Wrong in Mangalore?

To fully appreciate the importance of the need to separate out issues, onemust go into the recent history of non-tolerance in the picturesque town ofMangalore. Non-tolerance, particularly in its ugly religious form is not new toMangalore. In recent years, it has been spurred on by growing cadre of the religiousright. The presence of a BJP government at the helm in Bangalore (indeed, thefirst in any South Indian state), has emboldened right wing groups manyof whom view this as an opportunity to retaliate against their perceived ill-treatment underprevious Congress governments. "Ona single telephone call from Muslim ministers, people accused of murder werereleased in the past," alleges a Sangh member.

In September 2008, 18 churches were attacked, allegedly by Bajrang Dal cadre.Since then clashes between Hindu and Muslim communities have kept erupting sporadically andmoral policing, in general, has been on the rise.

Yet, Mangalore remains very cosmopolitan. Each of the three large communities, namely Hindus, Muslims andChristians, constitute a sizeable proportion of the population. Median incomes of the populace are generally amongst the highest in Karnataka and it isinteresting that there is near total absence of permanent slums in the city(although, in recent times, their number has been growing). The uniqueness of thecity stems from the coexistence of modernity and tradition, visually exemplifiedin the side-by-side space shared by high rises and early twentieth and latenineteenth century bungalows. Traditional Udipi restaurants are as popular as PizzaHut and Subway. Very recently, the city boasted of its firstmultiplex-cum-shopping centre. Big business too has found a home here fromInfosys to the 21,000 crore ONGC refinery, bringing with it workers from allover India.

This influx of the outside world into the Mangalore social space in recent times has led to a growing assertion of modern and post-modern identities. The Yakshagana is still a popular source of entertainment but so are the growing number of pubs and discotheques. Most of the schools and colleges in the city still remain all-boys or all-girls (most of them run by the Catholic Church) but hang-outs for mixed groups are increasing. Most of the older theatres have lost out to the newer ones screening the latest Hollywood movies.

The social space is in a heightened state of flux and tensions are,understandably, high. Many of the older generation see the infiltration of‘western’ culture with its accompanying themes of equality of the sexes,youth liberation and a general questioning of inconvenient social mores asthreatening to rip apart the established social fabric. A childhood friend of myfather, who still lives in Mangalore and has a son in his early twenties, recentlyremarked how when he was growing up, a man only purchased alcohol with his ownmoney whereas today, children, who were still in high school, had taken to drinkingbecause of the easy availability of money and access to bars and pubs. He went onto lament how ‘this whole boyfriend-girlfriend business’ had made him feeluncomfortable to allow his daughter too much free time outside the house. This,in spite of him being well-educated and a highly affluent hotelier in the city.

These sentiments of resentment have quickly been seized upon by the political right to strengthen their influence in the city. Pramod Mutalik and his horde of Sri Ram Sainiks, who were literally unknown till the pub incident, are today a household name. The amount of political mileage that the Ram Sena has been able to extract out of the incident, thanks in no small amount to the way it was reported by the media, is simply phenomenal. It was a calculated move on the part of the Ram Sena, who had informed local news agencies about the impending attack.

The Sri Ram Sena has largely remained a fringe organization, shunned even bythe RSS and the rest of the Sangh Parivar. Their attempts at gaining anelectoral victory in Karnataka have failed miserably as have their forays intoneighbouring Andhra Pradesh. Today, however, many conservative middle classfamilies exhibit a not-too-subtle admiration for the Sena, who for them hasbecome a guardian of Hindu culture. The horrifying violations of the  rights and libertiesof the young are quickly brushed under the carpet. One is tempted toask whether these individuals would be equally approving if some organization,more hardliner than the Sena, violated their personal freedoms in the name of[perhaps a more Manu-esque] Hindu culture.

But the roots of the current conflict run a lot more deeper. The initiation of land reforms by the Congress government in 1974 quickly isolated the powerful land-holding Bunt community in Mangalore. Then, during the Emergency, differences were further deepened as a result of Congress politics, which sought to divide the polity along caste lines by propping up backward caste communities and minorities. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 was the final straw.

Another source of conflict is the growing level of inequality in the close-knit community. Although it might seem like pop sociology at its best, it is impossible to dismiss the resentment inequality creates, especially among youth of the same age group. From there, it is a rather simple matter of connecting wealthy members of the community with decadent lifestyles which can then be targeted on the pretext of ‘defending Indian culture’.  Ironically, at higher levels the perpetrators are themselves extremely well-to-do individuals who nevertheless exploit the sentiments of the lower income youth.

Thus we see that the causes for conflict in Mangalore society are myriad and often run much below the surface of their manifestations in everyday life. To simply attribute the conflict to one set of individuals or one set of beliefs or a section of the polity is to act with unpardonable naiveté. By indiscriminately lambasting Mutalik and his honchos and by proclaiming the obvious superiority of a liberal social paradigm, civil society might have lost its most important battle yet.

The key problem lies in the failure to separate the issue of violation of personalrights from the issue of what constitutes ‘[pub] culture’ in theMangalore pub incident. As a result, a potentially powerful condemnation of theformer has been reduced to a debate on the latter. This has dangerousimplications. A system of personal and civil rights founded on the question ofwhat constitutes ‘Indian culture’ is bound to be an uneasy system.

Worse, it is playing right into the hands of the Sena. Notice how Mutalik, in an interview, did exactly the same thing. He said:  "The way has been wrong. I apologise for this. The way should not be like that. But it is our right to save our mothers and daughters. Pub-culture is not our culture...Media should highlight and show the aim behind our act to the society."

Thus, a matter of ‘Constitution’ is diluted into a matter of‘culture’.

Dialogue, debate, discussion, argumentation et al are the cornerstones of ademocracy. Yet, in a dialogue, one must be careful how one deals with mattersthat are constitutional to our shared social existence -- the ‘rules of thegame’ -- and matters that are of a less fundamental nature.