India - Moral Police: Meet Kerala's young hair-gelled Freakers, who oppose kissing in public

Meet Kerala's young hair-gelled Freakers, who oppose kissing in public: Group joined right-wing protestors in Kochi because they want to protect Indian culture.
by Mridula Chari
6 Nov 2014

When the Kochi police and right-wing groups moved to prevent the Kiss of Love protest from getting underway on Sunday afternoon, they began to beat up anyone in a T-shirt and jeans who looked like they could be potential lip-lockers. In the process, they ended up assaulting a group of stylish young people who were actually there to express their outrage at the phenomenon of public kissing. they called themselves the Freakerz of Kochi.

The mistaken attack put the spotlight on the startling Kerala subculture of Freakers, known primarily for their striking gel-supported hairstyles, oversized sunglasses, bright clothes and highly Photoshopped social-media uploads. There are hundreds of Freakers groups on Facebook, all with thousands of "likes" and endless photographs of young men with a fixation for scooters, motorcycles and guitars.>

Despite their youthful flamboyance, though, many Freakers are startlingly conservative. In fact, one of them had even set up a Facebook page titled Ban Kiss of Love – Freakerz in Kochi. Though the group started less than two days before the event, it already has 21,000 "likes".

That's about a fifth of the number of people who approved of the page of the Kiss of Love campaign, which was called on Sunday to protest against an attack by Bharatiya Janata Party supporters on a cafe in Kozhikode on October 23. The BJP youth said they had attacked the establishment to stop the "immoral acts" that the cafe's young patrons were indulging in, such as hugging and kissing.

The Kiss of Love event asked people who opposed such "moral policing " to gather on Kochi's Marine Drive to signal their disagreement by kissing in public. They faced a jeering, violent mob of right-wing political organisations. But also yelling their disapproval were the Freakerz of Kochi and their friends from the Revolters Motor Club, a group of Harley Davidson bikers. They were standing outside the Marine Drive police station, away from the protests, shouting, "Ban ban, Kiss of Love."

That didn't prevent them from being beaten with fists and sticks. “The Shiv Sena, RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] and BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] suspected that with our freaky hair and stylish clothes we too were part of Kiss of Love,” said Sreeya Bashi, a 24-year-old TV anchor and one of the Freakerz of Kochi. “The police knew that we were against Kiss of Love, but they also joined the lathi-charge.” [. . .]

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