Someone recently described the computer as the charkha of the 21st century!
In the last few days, Nisha Susan has shown us a new way of fighting back mindless violence, 21st century Gandhi-style.
This is a case study of how an imaginative approach using the power of digital media, combined with mainstream media, can take on the sledgehammer methods of the muscled and the powerful!
Barely three weeks after he vowed to go round Mangalore on Valentine's Day, with goons, priests and video cameramen in tow, and forcibly marry off unmarried couples celebrating Valentine's Day, Pramod Muthalik has been forced to sit out Valentine's Day in a police cell so that women can celebrate their right to love!
It is a powerful victory for the rational and the balanced.
Barely three weeks ago, this self-styled leader was threatening to force his belief that women ought not to go to pubs, because it was against "Indian culture", on the rest of the world.
What made the difference?
The power of click! Nisha Susan had two options -- stay quiet and accept everything, or meet these people head-on and make fun of them. She chose to click off an imaginative "Pink Chaddi Campaign" of the "Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women" on Facebook on Feb 5 – and made a difference!
"Most women in this country have enough curbs on their lives without a whole new franchise cashing in with their bully-boy tactics. Be imaginative, have fun and fight back!" was her approach.
Print and television media picked up the story of the "panty-bombers vs the pub bombers" five days later, on February 10. Other social networking sites took it up. Bloggers and media columnists jumped in and the word chaddi, normally an unmentionable in conservative Indian society, acquired acceptance as the campaign became the buzz of the country.
By 5 pm on Feb 10, over 5,000 had signed up for the campaign on Facebook. By 8 pm, the number had crossed 8,000, by 11 pm it was 11,000 and by Friday night it had crossed 33,000. By Valentine's Day morning the number was 38,150 and still climbing!
"The content and the form of the movement enthused me. It'll make a point in a cheeky way. This is a way of taking back the space the guardians of morality are trying to take from us. This movement isn't just an activist movement, it's by ordinary women who want to speak up and fight back," one woman told the Main Stream Media (MSM).
Media reports say that the BJP top brass picked up the signals that Yedduurappa did not! He had come out in support of Muthalik's anti "pub culture" campaign, though he said he was against his methods! They packed him off from the Nagpur meeting a day earlier than scheduled and told him they wanted no more negative headlines from Mangalore.
Which is why Muthalik's men called a news conference yesterday, eve of Valentine's day, to announce a change of plans – instead of forcibly marrying of couples or compelling them to tie rachis, they would be good law-abiding boys and merely inform the police about "obscene displays of love in public "!
What a change of heart!
Hurrah for the new digital media – and for Nisha and those have shown us a new method of fighting back! Thank you!!!
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