If zealots of “Indian culture” — frequently “Hindu culture” — were taken at face value, this much-valued entity should have long been extinct. If self-appointed proponents of Indian-ness and our value system are to be believed, this abstract quantity, which is very real to those who live by it, faces dangers at every turn — when we stare at a calendar, gaze at sea-bathers, or even look at a soda advert.
The PWD minister of Goa is clearly one such keeper of the flame. If he could have his way, bikinis would be banned on Goa’s beaches, and pubs or drinking bars banished from the face of the sea-kissed state on which holidaymakers and tourists descend from around the world.
What world the minister in question inhabits is not hard to guess. Denizens of this zone will frequently blame the victim in the case of a criminal assault on a woman as though men had the right to unleash their sexual fury on a woman not dressing the way they’d like. Such perversion is definitely not Hindu or Indian culture, which is seen as a fairly open system of living codes by its more enlightened adherents.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has done well to indirectly rebut his colleague by saying he would only prevent alcohol from being sold at very late hours. Goa is among the world’s prized tourist spots. Denuding it of its pleasure quotient will hurt the Indian economy. But the troubling question is the narrow social mindset of those in public office.
