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Kiss and tell: of the right to Protest

The Kiss of Love campaign that started in Kerala moved to Delhi last week. Gargi Gupta meets Pankhuri Zaheer and Pratik Ali, the duo who spearheaded the movement

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Pratik Ali and Pankhuri Zaheer
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Pankhuri Zaheer and Pratik Ali knew there would be trouble when they decided on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters in Delhi's Jhandewalan locality as the venue of their Kiss of Love (KoL) campaign last weekend, but they did not, perhaps, bargain for the notoriety they'd attract in the media. "This is a kissing protest — so kiss each other. One reporter actually started directing couples to stand opposite each other and kiss," marvels Pratik. "'Eight kisses in JNU', the headlines said," laughs Pankhuri, referring to newspaper reports of the KoL protest at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

What the two Delhi students, who along with their friend Sumintran spearheaded the KoL Delhi movement against moral policing and the suppression of the right to love, can't seem to stomach is the frivolous light in which their protest was depicted in the media. "There is a perception that we are just hormone-driven young people who want to kiss on the streets. But there was so much more — it was against the lies of love jihad, against Dalit lynching and khap panchayats openly killing couples. We spoke about the 400 women workers protesting for wages who had been molested by management goons at the ASTI factory near Gurgaon," says Pankhuri.

Adds Pratik, "This is not about kissing random people; we are talking about love that happens on the basis of consent. The right to kiss is also the right to not kiss."

Both Pankhuri and Pratik come from left-liberal, progressive families. Pankhuri, 22, a first-year MPhil student at JNU's women's studies department, is the granddaughter of Sajjad Zaheer, founder of the Progressive Writers' Movement. Her mother Noor is active in left politics and her father is a theatre person. Pratik, 24, is in the second year of his MPhil in linguistics from Delhi University. His father, a Muslim from Kerala, was a member of a public sector union, while his mother is a Punjabi Hindu. So, there wasn't much opposition from the families to their protest.

The KoL campaign is also not their first brush with political action; both have been part of protests against sexual harassment, students' issues, workers' rights and the like. They are regulars at gay pride parades. And so they're quite matter-of-fact about the threats from the 'sanghi gunday', as they call them in their social media posts, though they have been of some concern. The threats on the phone have continued, especially against Pankhuri where the threat of sexual assault has been explicit. Her mother too has been getting threatening messages on her Facebook page, and morphed nude images of her have emerged on the Internet. Fed up, she's stopped taking calls from unknown numbers and got a second SIM card. "Since my face was everywhere, I have been asked to move with friends for some weeks," says Pankhuri.

Thankfully, there's been no criticism from the university administrations, and the teachers have been "super encouraging".

However heartening these pockets of encouragement, Pratik and Pankhuri know well that even JNU, traditionally a bastion of radical left-wing thought, is no longer safe. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a rightwing students' organisation, has been spreading its presence in the university and came second in the elections earlier this year for vice-president and general secretary of the students' union. Everywhere in the university, there are uniformed guards, employees of a private security agency, who go about flashing torches in the faces of couples who would, a few years ago, have been left well alone. Just last month, there was violence between the ABVP and tribal students, over the latter celebrating Dussehra as Mahisasur Shahadat Diwas.

Going ahead, the plan, say Pankhuri and Pratik, is to take the message forward by writing on social media and news and opinion websites, and organising public discussions in universities. While they are in touch with various groups across India who want to organise similar protests, they've decided to abjure from any more street action. "Somebody called me the other day to give an all-India let's kiss call. But I don't know how responsible that is," says Pankhuri. "We were protesting in the capital and we got a lot of coverage, and that was one reason the rightwing assault was not that bad. But there are other parts of the country which do not get that sort of coverage where right-wing assault happens on a daily basis. You see, the youth is always taken to be politically unaware, but we are responsible and taking a thought out approach, not going all out."

gargi.gupta@ dnaindia.net, @togargi

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