Sri Rama Sene makes bizarre threat for V-Day

Finally, love was cautioned. As expected, Sri Rama Sene chief Pramod Mutalik did not disappoint at a news conference. He quickly and loudly explained his disdain for Valentine's Day and other such days which were “western” and did not belong to “our culture”.

“We will not take the law into our hands on Valentine's Day. Instead, we will visit places where the day is being celebrated and ask them to stop it. We will appeal to shop owners to not sell Valentine cards,” he said at the Press Club on Thursday. 

“Couples seen displaying affection in public would be whisked to a temple and married off; if a boy and girl seen together are found to be siblings, they would be made to exchange a rakhi,” he said.

Sene activists will be accompanied by priests and, if any couple is seen in public, they would take them to the nearest temple and solemnize the wedding. “We will also register the marriage in the nearest office of the marriage registrar,” Mutalik said. 

On the Mangalore pub incident, Mutalik said his men had taken up a rightful cause. He said there were preparations to shoot a porn film in the pub. Ranjana Shetty, mother of one of the girls shown in the TV footage being beaten up by Sene activists, called and thanked him for disciplining her daughter, he said.

So, was he against consumption of alcohol or against women going to pubs? “We are against consumption of alcohol. We want to stop the misuse of women in the name of Valentine's Day,” he said. “All these concepts belong to Christians.  They have no place in Hindu culture,” he said. 

There were more uncomfortable questions to be answered. So would he direct his colleagues at the back to maintain silence as this was Press Club, not a pub? This casual remark by a journalist sent Mutalik into a fit of anger.

“You have no right to speak about one of our group members like that,” Mutalik said. When the crowd protested in unison, he shot a quick order to the leader of the local unit of the group to quieten his men. Regaining his composure, Mutalik returned to the topic of acceptable behaviour as prescribed by “Hindu culture”.