Smooch ado about nothing - Calcutta Telegraph

Thiruvananthapuram, Nov. 2: If anyone ever wondered what might happen if people took to kissing in public in India, this city may have provided the answer today.

Only a small group turned up at Marine Drive to carry out the threat of a “kiss day” in a publicised protest at moral policing. A bigger group, cutting across political and communal divides, arrived to prevent them and presumably protect “Indian culture”.

A much larger group came to, er, watch. And of course, the police had to spoil it all — or maintain public order, according to your point of view — with a mild baton charge.

It was a group of youngsters and their elders, gathered under the banner “Kiss of Love”, that had announced the programme. It wasn’t to be only about romantic lip-locks between couples, people of any age or gender could peck each other in an expression of universal love.

The opponents were the first to start collecting — by afternoon, long before the 5pm start. Among them were 500-600 activists of the BJP youth wing, Congress student arm, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, Social Democratic Party of India and the Sunni Yuvajana Sangham.

The “kissers” and their supporters merely numbered 200-odd, belying the organisers’ bluster. But at least 5,000 “curious onlookers” gathered, swelling the crowd.

By 5pm, traffic was out of gear and utter chaos prevailed. An ill-prepared police ran helter-skelter, waving batons.

As fear of violence loomed, about 50 of the “kissers” shifted to the nearby Government Law College with placards denouncing moral policing. But the cops had had enough and began dragging them away to place them under preventive detention.

Some of the “kissers” just hugged and exchanged cursory pecks while being taken away, raising the doubt how much of their threat was mere bravado.

By then, a few other small groups of “kiss day” supporters had begun trading hugs and light pecks at Marine Drive, enraging the protesters. Some Sena workers were seen roughing up a few “kissers”.

Eventually, the police chased the protesters away and peace was restored by 6.30pm. A few journalists suffered minor injuries in the baton charge. Unconfirmed reports spoke of pepper spray being used without identifying the perpetrators.

The organisers claimed success. “The question isn’t whether we kissed or not. Moral policing is goondaism and we believe we succeeded in sending out a message against it,” Rahul Pasupalan, a short-film maker and one of the organisers, said at the police station where he was detained.

The immediate provocation for the “kiss day” was vandalism by BJP youth at a Kozhikode restaurant on October 24 after a TV report alleged sleaze at the eatery.