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By Hemangini Gupta To what extent did the media help – and hinder – the Pink Chaddi campaign against moral policing in Karnataka and initiatives that followed, such as Fearless Karnataka/Nirbhaya Karnataka?
The Mangalore pub attack Some people might be misled into thinking that it all began with the video footage that came streaming out of Amnesia pub in Mangalore, Karnataka, on January 24, 2009. ‘Breaking News’ flashing across news channels framed jerky shots of young girls rushing out of a pub while being beaten and thrown to the floor by men with red wristbands. The young men, apparently members of extreme right-wing group/s, had taken it upon themselves to enforce a nebulous notion of their ‘culture’. It seems that a bunch of girls eating lunch at a pub to celebrate a friend’s birthday had gravely threatened this ‘culture’. The media outrage and condemnation was unanimous, as it should have been.  But the story from Mangalore began several months before this attack, and through those months media coverage of erupting communal violence and cultural vigilantism had been scanty. The “pub attack”, as it is now known, seems to have shot to national headlines mostly as a result of that peculiar but distinct combination of factors which guarantees editorial obsession: the right protagonist -- young, urban, middle class women; the right venue -- a pub, although other places of entertainment might have done just as well; the right enabling factors -- ample footage from previously alerted TV crews, photographs and phone video. ‘Cultural policing’ in coastal Karnataka has since come under the national media glare, meriting multi-part reports by leading dailies (see the Hindustan Times’ reportage online, for instance, at: http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/india-yatra/2009/03/24/faith-accompli/#more-166), but it took the “pub attack” to force attention on the larger issue. For at least six months, attacks in the name of the “Hindu” religion -- whatever monolithic construct that was assumed to be by bands of zealous young men affiliated to right-wing outfits -- had gone woefully under-reported. Possibly the only insistent and dogged reportage on the issue from an English daily came from The Hindu’s Mangalore correspondent Sudipto Mondal whose efforts quickly earned him disapproving mention on the no-holds-barred blog of Karnataka’s Home Minister V S Acharya: http://drvsacharya.blogspot.com/2009/02/bitter-truthclick-on-image.html. The Pink Chaddi campaign Under the arclights of the new media glare, the Sri Rama Sene decided to announce their offensive for Valentine’s Day -- they would forcibly marry off couples seen together. In response, a correspondent with an investigative magazine decided to launch the Consortium of Pub-Going, Loose and Forward Women which would send pink chaddis (panties) to Pramod Muthalik on Valentine’s Day. The campaign was launched on Facebook as a group, and the few friends who initially signed up were joined in just days by hundreds others. The Facebook group is now being hacked consistently, but at last count the number of members was around 58,000. The Consortium became the darling of the English media. The tone of the campaign -- youthful and irreverent; the approach of the protest -- arresting and unlikely; and the nature of the conflict -- positing young, urban, apparently empowered and independent women against the seemingly boorish men who opposed them, all made for ideal news matter. The Pink Chaddi campaign invoked, almost universally, applause from the English-language media that extensively featured photo coverage (including the arresting image of Sri Rama Sene activists gamely holding up frilly pinks for the camera), news reportage and editorial comment. This kind of media coverage has led to the term ‘pink chaddi’ cautiously entering editorial dictionaries. In April, a good two months after the panties were dispatched to the Sri Rama Sene office, the phrase ‘pink chaddi’ weaves itself into a headline in the Sunday edition of a leading national daily and, separately, ‘pink chaddi’ is explained as a phrase in the ‘Word of the Week’ listing in the same newspaper. Whatever the scepticism about the mode of protest that the Pink Chaddi campaign employed (discussed here for instance: http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/02/understanding-underwearing.html), it seemed to reach out to a section of India that might not have participated in, say, a conventional rally against the Sri Rama Sene. Actual protests on Valentine’s Day in Bangalore included slogans involving the Queer Movement (‘Love knows no gender’) and saw protesters troop off to the nearest pub to defy the Sri Rama Sene’s violent disapproval of the idea of women drinking. The campaign was not defensive about its location as middle class and urban, and the media seemed overjoyed at their most feted demographic finally coming out onto the streets, ready to talk and happy to be photographed with provocative sloganeering. The middle class was making real news, and the English media was covering it every step of the way. Attacks on women in Bangalore In this environment, charged with media disapproval of extreme right-wing forces that were attempting to clamp down on women’s behaviour and movement, came a series of attacks against young, middle class women in Bangalore. The first report that emerged was widely forwarded on Facebook and on email: women attacked outside a pub in Bangalore’s central district. The second was a daytime attack on a woman who was followed while driving and punched in the face when she retaliated. The third was an attack on a filmmaker by men who tried to drag her out of the autorickshaw she was attempting to flee in. The fourth was on a mediaperson who suffered the humiliation of her attackers trying to tear her clothes off while asking her if was part of the Pink Chaddi campaign. The fifth was on a correspondent who was trying to hail an autorickshaw after her bike broke down late one night. There were reports of another attack near Cunningham Road as well. At least two of these victims worked for a media house (the others had journalist friends) and, not surprisingly, the attacks were well covered. Initially there was the sense that these were reprisals against the Pink Chaddi campaign, since there was mention of “pink chaddis” in one of the attacks. Later it seemed as though the Pink Chaddi campaign might have triggered anger against a certain kind of woman, since there was mention of “western clothes” in one attack; several had taken place against women in western clothes (one occurred right outside a pub, in fact). But when a later attack took place on a woman in salwar-kameez, it seemed as though the attacks might not be linked and might have nothing to do with the Pink Chaddi campaign. The media, however, showed the same kind of enthusiasm while reporting these attacks as they did reporting the earlier “pub attack” and related protests. Perhaps some media outlets sensed a possible link between the attacks coming so soon on the heels of the Chaddi campaign and felt invested in an issue that they had covered so thoroughly. Perhaps some jumped onto the story once they saw coverage by their competitors; or perhaps everyone had their eyes peeled for similar stories once the first few attacks were reported. The media coverage and the buzz created in activist circles in Bangalore led to a spontaneous meeting, on February 26, 2009, to frame a response. The group that formed that evening is now called Fearless Karnataka/Nirbhaya Karnataka (FKNK) and its activities are online at baware.in. There were at least three journalists from major English dailies at the group’s first meeting, and from then on FKNK received ample media attention and sympathy. Attacks on young articulate middle class women at different times of the day and night became an important media story involving coverage with large photo-spreads. Media ‘ownership’ and campaigning Whether or not these attacks on women were coordinated or targeted will probably never be fully known. But the sudden spurt in media coverage led to a sort of moral panic amongst readers and viewers. It seemed as though Bangalore had suddenly become an unsafe city overnight; friends began calling each other worriedly to check that they had returned home safe, and a month later a leading daily reported that this time period witnessed a surge in sales of pepper spray (a rise of 50% over the last year, reported a large health and beauty chain selling the spray). Papers and TV channels were consciously onto this “big story”, and each response, whether it was Shobhaa De’s formation of the ‘Sita Sene’, Fearless Karnataka’s activities, or irresponsible statements related to harassment and violence by officials and ministers were all given ample air time and page space. Eager to “own” an issue and to present themselves as crusaders for change, media houses were quick to identify the attacks as possessing the potential for a “campaign”. A senior editor with a leading Karnataka daily phoned a Fearless Karnataka member right after the collective was formed, wanting to “work together” to address the issue; another Mumbai and Bangalore-based daily soon launched the ‘It’s My Night’ campaign, where all editorials and coverage of the issue of violence against women was branded with this phrase. They selected the founding member of a public art collective for their ‘Super Citizen’ slot, raising the question of how, and whether at all, selective media spotlight can skew the otherwise egalitarian relations between different groups and individuals working together in a collective. The two largest events planned by Fearless Karnataka were: - Submission of a memorandum to the DGP, Dr Ajay Kumar Singh, on March 7.
- Interventions in the neighbourhoods of the attacks to involve bystanders, and a large ‘Take Back The Night’ on the evening and night of March 8.
‘Live’ action and performance These events were covered extensively by TV crews and the presence of live television brought in an interesting dimension -- that of protest as performance for TV. The Fearless Karnataka events on the evening of International Women’s Day -- March 8 -- included street plays at one venue by the media collective, Maraa. A leading national English TV channel wanted to broadcast live from the venue at 6 pm, exactly when the play and the intervention was scheduled to start. Calls from the cameraperson began to come in minutes before 6 pm and the group was hastily assembled so that the ‘live’ broadcast could be slotted near the start of the channel’s 6 pm bulletin. Because the ‘live’ seemed sacrosanct, the street theatre performance was forced to adapt to its demands. The TV camera appeared insistently between the performers and the audience, diving in and out of the assembled crowd, disturbing the potential of the performers to completely transfix the audience. The performance ended and the TV crew, still ‘live’, conducted interviews as the assembled audience watched. Their next ‘live’ was at the start of the next hour, and the performers who had intended several spontaneous stops along the way to the next venue were forced to decide on a fixed time and location large enough to accommodate the OB (Outdoor Broadcast) van. The channel’s bureau chief rightly pointed out that these inconveniences were compensated by the fact that coverage on the channel would ensure wide publicity to the cause. But how much might the impact of the theatre have been ruptured by the invasive presence of the camera and subsequent dispersal of attention of the on-site audience? In fact is it even possible for television to cover this kind of activism without implicating itself in the action and altering the dynamics of the event? At the final ‘Take Back The Night’ event too, a ‘live’ broadcast by a local TV channel involved the training of lights on the assembled interviewees even as the event was unfolding metres away, distracting and taking away from the intense energy of the stage performances. Media comfort The stage performances were part of a ‘Take Back The Night’ that invited people to celebrate the night, speak out against violence, and show solidarity with victims of violence. An integral part of most ‘Take Back The Nights’ across the world includes the sharing of personal narratives of violence, usually from behind the protection of a white screen. In Bangalore there seemed to be no need for a screen. Young women from activist groups of dalits, sex workers and sexual minorities gamely came forward to speak strongly and powerfully about the violence inflicted upon them, in front of an audience of several hundred people including a large police presence. Surprisingly, there were no voices from the many middle and upper middle class women gathered, many of whom are willing to share frank and intimate narratives if these are refracted through media such as blogs or the news media. Many of the victims of the recent attacks were hesitant about having their names mentioned in the press; they chose to use pseudonyms and asked not to be photographed, although some were frank about their names on their own blogs. Blank Noise, a public art collective working on issues of street harassment, regularly invites testimonials from women on experiences of harassment in public spaces, and a large number of the hundreds of entries are from affluent urban women. It seems as though the employment of a particular kind of media interface which ensures anonymity and appears to reach out to a clearly defined section of society is the privileged carrier of the middle class female voice. Politically inclined dalit women and sex workers are more embracing of the open unprotected forum to voice what are undeniably very personal experiences. The triumph of good over evil Through the attacks, some sections of the media seemed quick to assume that what they reported entirely captured what was happening in the city. The intense coverage of Valentine’s Day protests and the subsequent lack of any major untoward incidents in Bangalore quickly prompted this confident headline in a leading English daily: ‘Only the might of people power helped snub culture policing’. Yet, only days later, attacks on women in Bangalore began to be reported. The apparent success of these interventions and the ‘Take Back The Night’ event coincided with a meeting of FKNK with the DGP who promised to follow up the FIRs filed by victims. This was followed by what seemed like a lull in attacks against women, or at least the reporting of them to the police and media. The combination of the lull with successful interventions encouraged some sections of the media to once again believe that activists had triumphed over unruly attackers; a ‘victory’ that they could claim some credit for, thanks to the committed and consistent coverage. When the next attack took place on March 22, against a lawyer in a sleeveless top and, separately, on a woman while she was shopping, the report in a leading daily began by declaring: “It was a lull. While it seemed the assaults on women have stopped after intense protests by activist groups, they seem to be erupting again in different parts of the city, on men as well as women.” Will we ever be able to gauge if the media coverage and activist interventions really did stem the attacks for a while? Will we ever ascertain what the long-term impact of the month-long activism was, if anything at all? Some sections of the media seem to have no doubt about the success of the interventions: more than one editorial linked the “successful activism” (whatever that is, and however it is measured) to a reduction in attacks, painting a comforting picture of good triumphing over evil, aided, of course, by the ever-helpful media. (Hemangini Gupta used to work with CNN-IBN and The Hindu. She helps coordinate Blank Noise, a public art collective working on issues of street harassment, and is a member of Fearless Karnataka) InfoChange News & Features, April 2009
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