I am posting here a blog written by Ruchika Muchhala, the online manager of Video Volunteers’ website “Channel 19”, ch19.org, where we post the videos made by the community producers. This is a blog she wrote for Rising Voices, where she has also recently started blogging — courtesy of connections made in the Knight News Challenge community. I’m including it on Mediashift Idealab because the campaign she talks about — the ‘pink chaddi (underwear) campaign’ — is one of the cleverest and funniest uses of social networking and the internet I’ve seen in India. The campaign was started by a journalist, and it has gotten a lot of attention in the press. It reminds us that humor is perhaps the best tool for motivating a community — in this case, young modern Indian women — to come together:
Ruchika writes:
On any ordinary afternoon, in most cosmopolitan spaces, it is OK for men and women to go out for a drink and ‘chill out’. Most of us do not live life with the concept of ‘morale policing’ breathing down our back. However, in India, as liberal and free a woman is, there’s never a guarantee that she will be safe. Recently, some 3 weeks ago on India’ Republic Day, January 26, in Mangalore, South of Mumbai, a bunch of Hindu fundamentalists of the Ram Sena party attacked a group of young college girls who were just chilling out having some drinks at a local pub.
As a reaction to this event, on February 5th, the Pink Chaddi campaign was kicked off by a few people who posted up a Facebook group online called ““Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women”“:http://www.thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com. They decided on a sassy, bold move to send pink colored women’s panties to the Ram Sena party as a ‘Valentine’s gift’. More than the actual physical action of couriering underwear to a political party office, it is the concept alone which is buzzing on the minds of everyone in India.
Check out this video of a pile of underwear’s and the ‘love letters’ to the Ram Sena party:
This is just a sample of what the campaign is planning, so we will have to wait for Valentines day to find out what really happens in terms of action. They are planning to meet at Pubs on Valentine’s day and have a toast (any liquid will do) on behalf of all Indian Women, and these meetings will be recorded and later a video will be made including all of this.
Videos and photographs of the Pink Underpants are also being collected to be sent to the Ram Sena, as can be seen both on the Facebook group picture page.
On the Pink Chaddi Campaign official blog, it is said that:
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We have heard that Mr. Muthalik has decided to send pink saris “with love” in response. We greatly appreciate this and hope he continues to choose similar, non-violent methods to get his point across, just as we have chosen to be non-violent and loving in response to the brutality of the attacks on lovers and women in Mangalore and other parts of Karnataka._
Nevertheless, women from all over India, especially in Bangalore, where the campaign began, are preparing to send their personalized ‘chaddis’, which are underpants, to the Ram Sena party leader, Mr. Muthalik, who has been the man in charge.
The irony is that in a ‘land of Kamasutra’, women all over India have to fight for their rights, for their security, for their freedom and sexuality. One woman, Ree Diwan, posts in the Facebook group an image of pink underpants with “India, the Land of the KamaSutra” overlaid on it, and Patricia Chandrashekar, comments:
can’t believe this is happening in the land of KamaSutra. Send these guys on a trip to Khajuraho. Let them see for themselves. The erotic statues are not even wearing chuddies!
We’ll have to wait and see how the avalanche of Valentine’s Day panties is received by the Ram Sena.
Video Volunteers will be teaching our Community Video Producers about the Pink Chaddhi Campaign and how to use humor to get across your message. The community producers, rural people from a very different socio-economic background, can feel a solidarity with the their sisters in the big cities, who are also fighting for women’s empowerment. Here’s a video by a Community Video Unit, the all-Dalit CVU “Apna Malak Maa,” that shows how the poorest women in India are standing up for their rights:
The video profiles a local Women’s Village Council in a village in Gujarat, which has solved many of the issues of their village, such as sewage draining into their pond and the problem with sand collecting in the river, which meant that water supply lines and wells ran dry.
I love that idea!! It’s a terrible shame that it had to take an attack on woman at a pub for people to start standing up for themselves like this, but it’s also a great thing at the same time. The pink “undies” idea is funny and modern and packs a stiff punch to the Ram Sena. It is crazy that in the land of the Kama sutra, that woman really have to fight for the right to own their own body and sexuality. I wish things could be very different, and it looks to me like times are changing and we, as women, are breaking down walls everyday. (108 words)