(The Telegraph
February 12, 2007)
Sticks out for V-Day
By Rasheed Kidwai
Muscle-flexing
Bhopal, Feb. 11: It’s meant to be a festival of love, but the preparations couldn’t have been more warlike.
Sticks are being polished and swords have come out of their sheaths as Valentine’s Day nears in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh.
Even axes have been kept ready in case it comes to a showdown — between those against celebrating a western “concept” and their rivals who wouldn’t brook any interference in personal freedoms.
The Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Sena are determined to “stop” what he called “the attack on Indian culture”.
Vishal Purohit, who heads the Dal’s Bhopal unit, said: “We have prepared our sticks by worshipping them to use against people who promote western culture.” Purohit said he and his men will visit hotels and restaurants and stop celebrations on February 14. State Sena chief Rajendra Gupta said his men will “do whatever possible to stop the celebrations”.
On the other side of the divide, the Swaran Mahila Morcha, an outfit that claims to represent upper castes, said its women would use “sword, gada (mace) and battleaxe” to take on the Dal. Another group, the Rashtriya Secular Manch, said it would field stick-wielding women to “provide security to citizens which the Shivraj Singh Chauhan regime has failed to provide”.
“If the Bajrang Dal uses force, we will match them,” said Monu Saxena, state general secretary of the Congress’s National Student Union of India.
State police chief Anand Rao Pawar has asked district police chiefs to ensure that nobody interferes with the personal freedom of anyone.
In the last three years that the BJP has been in power in Madhya Pradesh, the day has seen violent clashes. Even brothers and sisters were made to do sit-ups for travelling together.
