To Muthalik, with love!

Sene warns against noodle straps, V-day revelry

Why choose the humble chaddi as a weapon?'The idea is to show that we also have a voice and want to register our protest. But we thought of introducing a fun and humour element to it. And what better than the chaddi. And pink of course is the colour associated with women,' says Vivek Nityananda, one of the co-ordinators of the ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign.

''A garment manufacturer has also assured us to send 200 pink underwear rejects to register his protest against the Sene’s act,'' he adds.

The protest campaign, launched just about a week ago, has caught the fancy of web users so much that by February 10, it had around 5,000 users having joined the movement. 'This shows the anger that is pent up in the younger generation. All they need is a platform and internet was the best,' feels Renuka, a social activist.

'Though it started as an inane campaign to register individual protest, to see it grow into a mass movement shows the power and reach of the internet media,' says Balaji, a search engine optimization professional employed with a news portal.

But online protests apart, the team also plans to demonstrate its dissent offline. The team has set up chaddi collection centers and has asked people to either mail or drop pink underwear at various collection centers in Bangalore and New Delhi.

Sene’s bizarre threat for V-Day

''We have plans for a pub bharo campaign on February 14, to meet as a group at pubs and raise a toast to Shri Ram Sene,'' says Vivek. The inspiration seems to have come from Renuka Chowdhury, Minister of state for women and child development, plea to launch a ‘pub bharo andolan’ to cock a snook at Shri Ram Sene by going to pubs in droves on Valentine’s Day.

After ‘pub bharo’, there is also a ‘hug karo’ campaign proposed by another group of Bangalore bloggers to make their point. The group plans to offer free hugs to the people of Bangalore and also insist on carrying placards like, ‘Happy Valentines Day, I love you, Hug me, ‘Public Display of violence is not part of Indian culture’, etc.

Yet another group, with 500 supporters, is also doing a ‘Send Pramod Muthalik a Valentine’s Day Card’ campaign in which they plan to send 'love' cards to Muthalik.

With the reach and convenience of the internet, the country’s youth have found an intelligent and non-violent way of making their point.