Why can't we "Kiss with Love"?

God conceived it as an essential human virtue- Adam followed it but Casanova abused it; Romeo popularized it and Shahjahan externalized it, Devdas died for it and Chadramukhi waited for it- It is a feeling no one can ever hide or escape from! “It’s only in the mysterious equations of LOVE that any logical solutions can be found” says Russel Crowe in The Beautiful Mind!!

In the innumerable ways that love can possibly manifest and express itself, kiss is one such form that, in fact, supersedes all the others. A “kiss of love” is that ethereal carnal perception which transcends a troubled soul into an idyllic paradise of pure and immortal love. Someone has rightly remarked, “A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”

One can “kiss, but not piss” on a road in a western country-while the reverse is true in India! I neither completely agree nor half-heartedly disagree this notion so firmly rooted in our desi minds. So, in India, PDA (public display of affection) is a strict no-no!

Now come into play those self-declared-moral-keepers-of-the-society, apart from the galaxy of law enforcement agencies we’ve already had, who have coaxed the blogger enough, directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, to write this blog.

These moral-and-social-policing-organizations have launched an exhaustive campaign of carrying out social and moral policing in India, which they feel is their bounden duty-and-responsibility to protect. For them, every young couple walking on the road or sitting in the park is cuddling, every girl roaming on the road with a guy is a low-class-manner-less-woman, late-night partying is a poisonous-western-culture and kissing is as good as blasphemy. Posters in English are inflammatory and speaking in English is derogatory. Inter-religious marriages are love-jihad and Intra-caste marriages are sacrosanct.

So, what is this social or moral policing that I’m talking about?

Well, social and/or moral policing has been around for quite a time. It refers to the use force, threats, slander and sometimes violence by a group of overtly socially conscious individuals to unlawfully hurt, vandalize, harass and molest a person or a group of people for not honoring and abiding by the primitive and traditional customs of social conduct expected of them, either publicly or privately, imposing their unrealistic and misplaced ideologies on to the public and thereby, ostentatiously displaying their clout as the guardians-of-morals of Indian society.

The foisted “kiss of love” protest campaign in Kerala against the alleged high-handedness of some right-wing-Hindu-outfits and radical-Islamic-organisations on a couple in a café shows how a growing cult of intolerant parochialists whose categorical rejection of evolving society compounded by its senseless dichotomy with the orthodox and traditional customs is fast transforming itself into what can be branded as propagated-anarchy endorsed by their political bosses.

The 2009 Mangalore pub-attack, Valentine’s Day attacks every year shows how mobocracy is fast catching over. There have been demands for the ban of such narrow minded, radical political off-shoots in the past- but nothing concrete has come out yet.

Let me alert the readers, there is no specific Indian Law that bans public kissing. However, u/s. 294(a) IPC (Indian Penal Code) can book you. It says, “Whoever, to the annoyance of others.
(a) does any obscene act in any public place, or
(b) sings, recites or utters any obscene songs, ballad or words, in or near any public place, 
shall be punished with imprisonment of either description of a term which may extend to three months, or 
with fine, or with both.”

So, for these social despots, three simple questions from my side:-

If violence and vandalizing during political bandhs isn’t categorized as annoyance, then how can kissing in the public be?

If an extremely vulgar/obscene act of PDA is encountered, the law enforcement agencies should be called in, rather than taking the matter into own hands for worse. Are their laments of deteriorating Indian culture justified, when they themselves so blatantly violate the law and order?

Will they fight for the ostracizing & incarceration of homosexuals as their sexual orientation is impious & unnatural-not as per the holy book they so stringently follow?

There is a school-of-thoughts which says there is a need to humanize the standards of “obscene” human behavior. And I, for one, firmly stand against such unwelcome fascist ideologies which are irrational enough to be applied to the present day society.

Even the apex court, disposing off a lower court ruling in a u/s 294(a) case has remarked, “They (the lower court judges) should have been sensitive to the changing perspectives and concepts of morality to appreciate the effect of Section 294 IPC on today's society and its standards, and its changing views of obscenity. The matter unfortunately was dealt with casually at all levels." 

By doing so, it has not only exhibited its farsightedness but also negated the Victorian stereotypical attitude of which it often cursed of!

Just because humans descended from apes doesn’t mean we should always hang upside down! Times change and consequently the human behavior too! Changes, good or bad, bring development- some are welcome, some are not.

This reminds me of the story of those uncanny 99 bulls, which attack the 100^th bull for bearing horns while all the others don’t have them. And the next day, the same 98 attack the 99^th which doesn't bear horns while all the other start having them.

“Majority makes authority” is best when read and forgot- not professed and practiced.