Why I Support The Kiss of Love’ Movement in India
By Merlin Flower
12 November, 2014
Countercurrents.org
There are a few moments in life when I feel like writing a poem. Obviously, when in love as it happens ever so often, many a times in a year. Otherwise, when something affects me deeply that I go, “Oh, wow”.
That profound feeling happened when I heard of the ‘Kiss of Love movement’ back home in India[i]. You know, where people come together to protest against the rampant moral policing in India by kissing each other. Seeing images of friends, couples, children and parents kissing each other made me swoon. Way to go, people. Indeed, there had to be a mass movement like this since, you know, one can do a lot of things in India like pissing and shitting in public but can’t kiss the person you love out on the streets. Neat, aint’ it?
So, we had ‘Kiss of Love’ protests in cities like Kochi, Kolkata and Delhi, where people gathered to kiss. Except for Kolkata, the police and the ‘moral brigade’ chose to chase the protesters. After all, it’s natural to respond violently to such protest as they are ‘against the culture of India”, as a fringe organization has argued[ii]. Well, what exactly is Indian culture? Asking a widow to burn along with her dead husband in his funeral pyre, which was so common in India not so long ago or practices like female infanticide and foeticide? What about these distinction’s still-High caste, low caste? A recent UN study says that six out of ten men in the country admit to using violence against wives or partners. That could be, I guess, the culture people brag about[iii].
I’ve seen all my life: a. Men masturbating in the streets b. How men in India use the whole of India as a toilet, yet I have hardly witnessed couples, married or not, kiss in my country. There is something wrong in a culture that permits the anomaly. Equally, disastrous would it be to let the anomalies fester. Hail, kiss of love.
The movies from here, more than half of them have romantic plots and all our songs celebrate love, so it isn’t that we don’t understand or aren’t used to the concept of ‘love’. Why, then, do people raise red flags when a woman goes out with her male friend or two people hug and kiss in public? And, I am not even going to the fact that this is a country brimming with people. Perhaps, the stork does bring in all the Indian babies. Perhaps, the vultures brought in those temples depicting people in various stages of passion. Told you, I concede defeat.
In many parts of India, women who have periods are barred both from the kitchen and places of worship. Bah, to culture. A hug and a kiss are the quickest, easiest and heart-warming way to express love. That some Indian find these expressions unethical is such a shame.
So, there we go. If protest like ‘kiss of love’ is a death knell for hypocrisies in the name of culture, I’ll gladly contribute the nails for the moral coffin. It’s past the time.
So, my poem on ‘kiss of love’. About that.
Merlin Flower is an independent artist
[i] https://www.facebook.com/kissoflovekochi?fref=ts
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