THE PINK CHADDI BRIGADE

THE PINK CHADDI BRIGADE
It was a shoe for Bush and now it’ll be a pink chaddi for Mutalik. Bangaloreans have stumbled upon a St Valentine’s Day gift for the self-styled moral police chief
ADITI SONI


Stare an issue in the eye, and slap on a lot of humour. Sarcasm, it seems, is the best way to deal with Pramod Mutalik and his Sri Rama Sene’s stern instructions for Valentine’s Day, some Bangaloreans think. So here’s a move that should have Mutalik going red. Called The Pink Chaddi Campaign, this Facebook group is fast gaining popularity in the webworld and out of it too. Their brazen mission: To collect pink underwear and send to Mutalik on February 14.
The response so far is a telling dipstick of how women view attacks on personal freedom. From a 17-year-old collegian to a 68 year-old woman, 500 people have dropped in chaddis at a collection box put up at Alternative Law Forum, Infantry Road. That’s since February 5 when the campaign took off on the social networking site. Interestingly, it was a suggestion by supporters of the campaign that forced the orgainsers to have the box. Some girls have even volunteered to deliver the box of chaddis to Mutalik’s residential address. With more than 1,500 persons pledging support online, The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women has made the funny business a serious one.
“Already women have enough restrictions to deal with. They don’t want any stranger to teach them how they should dress and with whom they should roam. It’s very much their private life,” says Divya Raghunandan, an environmentalist, who is among the Bangalore representatives of the campaign started by Delhite Nisha Susan. “Mutalik has said that he doesn’t want anyone to wear red or pink on Valentine’s day. Also pink symbolises love. So we thought of picking on pink chaddis,” says Nithin M, another representative.
Pink chaddis are also meant to ridicule the metaphor for Sri Rama Sene ‘the khaki chaddis’ and has a poster on the campaign site to show for it. “I was surprised when a 68-year-old woman called up to say she too would like to contribute a pink chaddi. It very much reflects the fact that irrespective of age, women have taken very strongly to the Mangalore attacks. Everyone thinks it was disgusting and some action should be taken against those involved,” adds Divya.
The campaign has managed to cross the gender barrier. Says Benson Isac, a programme director with a social work organisation, “These men have got no right to determine what girls should wear, what they should eat or who they should roam with. By gifting them pink chaddis, we want to show we can be more ridiculous than them. Our silence should not be misinterpreted as weakness. We too can rebel to support a good cause.”
The tongue-in-cheek message may not go down well with the Sene but the campaign organisers seem unruffled by the consequences. “When we did nothing, they made a mountain out of a molehill. So we believe keeping quiet is cowardice. Sending them chaddis is a non-violent and yet more humiliating way to teach them a lesson,” says Supriya Naidu.