Pink 'chaddi': A startling show of defiance

By poking fun at Pramod Muthalik and the Sri Rama Sene, the organisation he founded, did the pink chaddi campaign inadvertently make them a bigger brand?

"Absolutely," says Anuja Chauhan, vice-president (creative) and executive creative director, JWT, an advertising agency.

"You create an enemy, hit out at them, and you grow. When Sprite came into India, no one knew the brand. But people knew Pepsi. By pitching into Pepsi, Sprite became well-known. Similarly, Monica Lewinsky, who was she? The man who threw shoes on Bush — who knew that man? I think it has been great for him. He got his publicity one way or the other. Muthalik has become the Rakhi Sawant of Indian politics."

Chauhan believes the Mangalore incident should be treated as an open-and-shut law-and-order issue. "I really don't understand why we are being so clever and sarcastic about it. These people should be locked up. It's that simple. For me, you have physically assaulted people and broken the law; you should be in jail and it should be a non-bailable offence. He has really got away with murder. It's disgusting."

So with mangalsutras on one hand and pink chaddis on the other, has this degenerated into a war of gimmicks? "I think people have let it degenerate because they want to vent their anger," says Chauhan. "Normal citizens want to do something. How many times will you carry out a candle-lit march? People are simply venting their frustration because the law is not doing anything."

But if Muthalik or his supporters do contest elections, Chauhan believes they are in for defeat. "Every day in advertising we are told that India is the youngest country in the world. I don't know who this guy is appealing to with this agenda. I don't think he is going to win the elections."

Even as scores of pink chaddis made their way to Muthalik's house in Bangalore, some wondered whether the symbol had become bigger than the real issue or if it was a trivialisation.

Lakshmi Lingam, director, R&D, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, disagrees: "All movements that are spontaneous — like the pink chaddi campaign — have used symbols. In this case, women picked up the pink chaddi, an intimate piece of clothing, and threw it on the faces of the perpetrators, saying 'I give a damn'."

In the recent past, a woman in Ahmedabad took to the streets in a bra and panty because police wouldn't take her complaint against her in-laws, who were harassing her for dowry.

In Manipur, some women, in a protest against rape, went naked to army men and asked that they be raped too. "When you bring nudity out in the open, it startles society. The pink chaddi campaign is like that," says Lingam.

The campaign, according to her, sends out a message to all the senas who are out to control women: Don't mess with us. "As it is, there is no single understanding of Indian culture. And women need not be made solely responsible for this so-called Indian culture," she adds.

According to Urvashi Butalia, publisher-writer of Zubaan, the feminist publishing house, the campaign reflects the lack of belief in the system and is not a distraction from women-related issues.

"People who are involved in the campaign might have been aware of the fact that it could lead to laughter. On the other hand, if they had chosen to do something less high profile, they wouldn't have got any attention. Somewhere, you need to find a way to register protest and gain attention," says Butalia.