Seraphim

It is only the political party ShivSena who keeps on demonstrating against Valentine.

My reply : So it is political stuff and nothing to do with religion ... thought so ...

Besides, I like Valentine ...

ThinkDifferent

There are other reasons

1) Valentine's day is grossly commercialized by industry. They see it as another oppurtunity for marketing and this is what lot of people oppose.
2) In a conservative society like that of india, public demonstration of love(especially physical aspects of it) are disliked.
3) "Indian's don't like love" is totally wrong. It is opposed because it is a foreign concept and alien to the land.
4) Finally, these celebrations are opposed by the hindu right as it is seen as a "plot" by christians.

Hinduthvaite

I am a Hindu nationalist. Why do I oppose Valentine's day? On 1998 Feb. 14 at Coimbatore the industrial heartland of South Tamil Nadu, (also called Machester of India by colonialists, - I prefer calling Manchester Coimbatore of England),
Jehadis did a serial bombing that killed more than 100 Hindus. Even hospitals with maternity wards were not spared. THen in Januray 26,2001 a killer earth quake struck Gujarat. It killed more than 2,00,000 Indians. On Feb 14 , 2001 the Multi National Card companies and channes like MTV and Channel-V went on with their gibberish of Valentine day and the day after announced that the choclate and cards sales touched a new high. In India if some one dies in the family the family does not celebrate any festival for an year. And here is a national tragedy and not a month has passed and all the MNC card companies care is about spreading a consumerist behaviour inthe urban elite. I think te educated Indian youths should be made to understand hat they owe the luxury of education they have to the 900 million toiling masses who are wed to their sun scarred land and bony cattle.Every calorie that we - the urban elite class- spend should be spent for them the masses of India. A knowledge society where the knowledge serves the only God who is true for me - the poor and deprived Indian should be the aim of popular culture in my nation. India cannot afford the luxuries of a consumerist culture. While we reject the consumerist western crap, we accept whole heartedly the knowledge aspect of all the world. Thus we just recently organized a Darwin's Day function by the ABVP (student wing of RSS). India needs development and empowerment of Her masses. To serve them is not charity for an educated elite but a service and a duty.
"Him I hold a traitor who educated at the expense of masses of Indians, then choose to forgetthem and imitate the colonial rulers in their dresses and fashions slavishly." said Swami Vivekananda who also said that the salvation of India can come through education and science. While I reject and condemn any violence against Valentine day celebration, I think to make a developing nation celebrate a totally nonsensical consumerist non-event for the upward slope of the profit curves of some companies is contemtous. To compare this protest with some Islamic fundamentalist fatwa against some beauty contest is, to say the least, peddling pathetic ignorance as perspective.
Shiv Sena this year around has asked its cadre to celebrate Valentine's Day as the remembrance day of Kalpana Chawla,
bringing light instead of blaming darkness?
-Aravindan Neelakandan

phaedrus

Its got more to do with people opposing cultural invasion and not much to do with religion and moreover one cant take the stand of one party and generalize it against a whole nation.

Anyhows on a personal note i think valentine's day is a stupid concept and cant understand why people need a "day" to celebrate something. They dont "love" the other days of the year? All the "days" are nothing but commercial hype

andy_d

There's a certain ammount of grumbling about this in the West, too.

Personally I don't see what harm setting aside a day specifically to celebrate love can do, but I understand that it may not be appropriate to simply transplant a certain tradition directly into another culture.

hinduwoman

Anyway, Shivsena shouldnot worry about loss of cultural values. A survey among urban youths in the 4 metropolises reveal that they want to have arranged marriages. It is ok to have fun, send cards and even have premarital sex (apparently a number of the respondents including females already has affairs), but when it comes to marriage it is the traditional ways.

Seraphim

Anyway, Shivsena shouldnot worry about loss of cultural values. A survey among urban youths in the 4 metropolises reveal that they want to have arranged marriages. It is ok to have fun, send cards and even have premarital sex (apparently a number of the respondents including females already has affairs), but when it comes to marriage it is the traditional ways.

My reply : O_o Oh yeah ... very traditional indeed ... (Sarcasm)

Fun and cards in OK, but in what term does premarital sex have to do with being traditional?

Your Shivsena party should concentrate in giving the public proper education about culture and heritage and don't simply choose what to follow and what not to follow based on a group's or several person's choice.

Amit Misra

Phaedrus, good to see you, though its mainly my fault for being away more often than looking in! You wrote:

My take on the V-day imbroglio in Urban India differs from my impassioned friend, Aravindan's (below). I see it as a festival of the middle- and upper-class Indian, who is likely to spend the same resources on something equally trivial and meaningless if he is bludgeoned by the Hindu Right into a low-key celebration of Feb 14. As for the opposition to celebration, it is yet another instance of the Hindu Right's aggressive campaign to occupy every available inch of public space. They are on a major mind-control, Goebellsian campaign whic has a simple formula: Hindu=good, non-hindu=bad. (Maybe I should have put in George Orwell's "four legs good, two legs bad" here as well, but Orwellian in conjunction with Goebellsian would have been too much-sian)...

phaedrus

Amit

Yes and no ...actually. End of the day, its all propaganda as chomsky puts it, whether it is the ruling party which is indulging in it or the anyone else. Do agree on the part about Hindu parties indulging in branding. Is an average indian concerned about the MTV culture being imbibed into its younger generation, the answer would be yes, so these idiots have taken the position of anti-western to a very extreme position where they will burn and cause violence. Am sure the average indian doesnt want this to happen, but since they are conerned about the western influence on their kids, they keep quiet.

Actually it would be a nice debate if someone can take the positon that things like valentine day and western value system will do good for indians.

hinduwoman

Seraphim, when you have freemixing, premarital sex is inevitable. We must learn to live with it. Besides do you think that such activites were not going on in past ages in India as well? On the other hand, arranged marriages have more to do with wanting a rational relationship and approval of family, which is very traditional.

Shivsena is just a political party who decided to take up the cause of culture to get votes; so don't expect it to do anything useful.