The plan of a Facebook forum of Kerala youngsters to hold a “Kiss of love” programme at Kochi on Sunday to protest against moral policing has run into uncertainty in the context of objections aired by local people and several outfits and the unwillingness of the police to grant permission due to apprehensions about the possibility of law and order problems.
However, the Kiss of love collective has announced that it would go ahead with the programme. “We should have the freedom to express ourselves. We are holding the programme just to say “Stop Moral Policing”. Actually, it is the responsibility of the police to give us protection if we are attacked amidst the peaceful programme,” said Rasmi, one of the organizers.
The Facebook page of Kiss of love has attracted thousands of young men and women. Over 10,000 had ‘liked’ and ‘shared’ it and nearly 4,000 had expressed willingness to participate in the programme. The page said that the Kiss of love protest was to convince the “wholesale dealers of morality” how human beings expressed love.
Kiss of love was planned by a group of young men and women through a Facebook campaign in the aftermath of a Yuva Morcha protest on October 23 against a new-generation coffee shop in Kozhikode where “immoral activities” were allegedly going on turning violent. The protest was based on a report on the coffee shop that appeared on the Congress’s Jai Hind TV channel.
One of the Kiss of love FB posts said, “We are inviting to the programme all moralists who think that morality will crumble if people kiss in public. What we are planning to do is to convince the people that kissing is one of the ways for homo-sapiens to communicate between them. This is a collective. We don’t want moral police.”
Wednesday presented an indication of what might happen on Sunday evening at Kochi’s Marine Drive if the programme was held. Some men tried to rough up a group of about eight Kiss of love campaigners, who had gathered there late Wednesday morning with placards reading “Stop Moral Policing” in order to explain their plan to the media.
Those who tried to rough up the love campaign organisers claimed that they were Congress workers and said that they would not allow any such kind of “lawlessness” in Kochi, Naveen, one of those who opposed the campaign said, “This will set a bad precedent. Is this the lesson we are going to give our little sistersIJ This is Kerala and not Europe or America.”
However, Kiss of love campaigners termed this approach as hypocritical. “We are not asking anybody to kiss or hug or to do other things. This is a protest against moral policing. I am here with my wife. Why can’t I hold my wife’s hand in public without attracting obscene comments from those around usIJ” Rahul Pasupalan, a short-film maker, asked.
Incidentally, some of the youth organizations which had come out strongly against the Yuva Morcha protest in Kozhikode have turned now against Kiss of love. DYFI leader AN Shamseer said, “We are against all kinds of moral policing. But the organizers of this programme should ask themselves if it is all right to do things which are unacceptable in a society like ours.”
Several leading cultural personalities have declared support for the programme describing it as the Pink Chaddi movement of Kerala. Many of them also warned the organizers as well as participants to be cautious about vigilantes among the public and the equally “vigilante” police who might misuse IPC provisions regarding public display of affinity.