It's been like the Tom And Jerry show, with the police trying to control group after group of student protesters and us eventually landing up at the Parliament Street Police Station and organizing a sangeet ceremony - inside the thana," said Arun*, a protester from DU, after being released from police detention in the evening on February 14. He, along with hundreds of other students, was detained for being a part of Shuddh Desi Romance: Hindu Mahasabha Style - a protest organized by students from DU, JNU and other universities against Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha's recent declaration that they would marry off any couples spotted in public on Valentine's Day.
Chandra Prakash Kaushik, the Mahasabha's national president, had said, "We are not against love,but couples need to be taught that the only way to express love is by tying the knot in the presence of fire, not by exchanging roses." In response to the statement, the Shuddh Desi Romance event was created on Facebook last week, using a fake profile. It was an open invitation to couples 'who were struggling to get married because of financial, familial or other issues',to make the most of Hindu Mahasabha's declaration and get them to organize their wedding for free. Around noon on Valentine's Day, a group of students made it to Mandir Marg,'dying to get married.' Dressed in saris and kurta pyjamas, carrying garlands, trumpets and big red cardboard hearts and accompanied by dholwallahs, the protesters faced a row of barricades blocking the road leading to the Mahasabha's Mukhya Vivah Karyalaya. One of the female protesters said, "I don't even believe in marriage but I'll get married to a fellow protester today if it comes to that." "Jaane toh hum denge nahin kisi ko andar. Kuch nahin hoga yahaan, madam," an on-duty police officer had told us earlier in the day. But the students forced their way to the Mahasabha office, shouting slogans of 'Right to live, right to love.' When they reached there, the police had to call for backup. They beat up the students and stuffed them inside the police bus. And as they were being taken away in the police bus, the students kept shouting slogans of `chheen ke lenge pyaar ki azaadi' and held their cardboard hearts, roses and garlands out of the bus windows.
Before onlookers could figure out what had just happened or the police could realign the barricades, another group of students, with similar wedding regalia, had reached the Karyalaya. They met with the same treatment the last group had got, and as they were being taken away in the second police bus,one of them said, "This is not it. Another group of students is coming." And another group did come. The police had barricaded the area again, but the protesters forced their way to the office, again. Lalit*, a JNU student, explained, "We knew that we might not even get the chance to get to the shaadis.We had expected the police and the Mahasabha people to stop us, so we had decided to come in four-five small groups.Using the few minutes between reaching the office and being detained, the groups will make our point over and over again - till the detainers are tired."
Five such groups came to the venue of the protest. The first three were forced inside the police buses, the fourth one was detained even before they could hit the Karyalaya. The fifth one, a group of 10-15 students, waited for the police to detain them, and when they didn't - because as long as the students didn't create a ruckus outside the Karyalaya and stood there peacefully, the police was fine - they chose to walk to the Parliament Street Police Station to meet the rest of the their mates.
Pratik, a JNU student, told us, "We are singing and dancing inside the police station and even the officers seem amused." The students held a `sangeet ceremony' inside the police station where they `married off ' guys to guys, girls to girls and guys to girls. Vidhyalakshmi Kumari, the creator of the Facebook page, posted around 6pm, "Bidaaai shuru! Finally released. But the shaadi goes on outside."
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