The Pink Panties (Chaddi) Campaign

April 1, 2009
The Pink Chaddi Campaign: Landing a Pink Slap on the Face of Moral Policing in India
Charukesi Ramadurai

by Charukesi Ramadurai
- India -


India is now the land of The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women. Who would have thought?


• In another protest against Pramod Muthalik, people took the streets on Valentine's Day offering free hugs in Bangalore. Photograph by Charukesi Ramadurai. •
Over the last two months, a group of activists calling itself the Sri Ram Sene (Lord Ram's Army) led by Pramod Muthalik attacked women in a pub in the South Indian city of Mangalore. They followed this up by bullying and slapping a college girl who was sitting on a bus with a boy her age "to teach her a lesson” for speaking with a Muslim boy. More recently, several copy-cat instances of violence have also taken place in Bangalore, where groups of men have attacked women for wearing jeans. Politicians have issued banal statements about how "such behavior will not be tolerated." A few have gone further calling it the beginning of "Talibanization in India" while taking no concrete steps to punish the guilty or prevent such incidents in future.

In quick response to the Mangalore incident, the Bangalore-based Alternative Law Forum (ALF) started the Pink Chaddi campaign (chaddi is Hindi for underwear), urging people to send pink panties as a symbol of love to the Sene office, which had also threatened to attack couples celebrating Valentine's Day (another threat to "Indian culture"). In just over two weeks since the campaign was first announced, it evoked unexpected interest and support across the world through blog links and networking sites. At last count, there are nearly 59,000 supporters - men and women - on just the campaign’s Facebook group.