Mangalore: The so-called St.Valentine had written a love letter against his vows as a bachelor priest, to a woman on Feb.14, which certain western shopkeepers have subsequently used for their own gains, by sale of ‘Love’ cards, greeting female companies by boys. Since Bajarang Dal in India has banned such love meetings and organised marriages if the lovers were unmarried on Valentine’s Day as a punishment for free love sans responsibility attached to it, in 2011 the local Bajarang Dal activists burnt some greeting cards on Love, to express their anger and displeasure against sexual misdeeds in the name of ‘love’ on the Coastal belt.
The Valentine’s Day is related to the West, and can not be observed in cultured countries like India, in the name of love to cheapen such heartfelt emotions, is the argument put forth by Bajarangis who tackle inter-religious ‘Love-Jehad’ and Card dealings, as if it were a birthday that is observed. Shops wanted to sell their wares in greetings, but did not realize the sacred feeling involved in ‘love-making’. So greetings were burnt on Valentine Day of sins.
Valentine’s Day relates directly to original sin, banned by church to which Valentine and his followers belonged in the west. Bajarang Dal activists were not amu7sed by what St.Valentine did. There are thousands of love messages flying across the world in writing and on website or mobile cells. But Bajarang Dal could not reach out, and condemn them. So the Dal guys burnt the cards which were available like paper missiles in India.
The Bajarang dal volunteers reached the Empire Mall on MG.Road in Mangalore yesterday and burnt some ‘Love greetings’ cards in protest. The police allowed love birds to enter Kadri Park, but asked them to leave the beaches before sunset elsewhere.
Sri Rama Sena, DYFI, Jama’ate Islami Hind, Komu Souharda Vedike, and other such outfits that care for local culture, condemned the sale of cards as ‘capitalist’ play to earn money out of Love, thus misusing a pure emotion for money and distributed handbills in public places, to create genuine social awareness against temptations.