Lingerie falls foul of hardline Indian Hindus
A right-wing Hindu group in a central Indian city has given
shopkeepers an ultimatum to remove raunchy lingerie advertisements and
mannequins that display underwear in public.
Activists of the Sanskriti Bachao Manch (Save the Culture Forum), a
hardline Hindu organisation in Madhya Pradesh’s capital city, Bhopal,
have threatened to seize and burn any visible knickers or bras on
Monday.
“Three days from now if undergarments are still hanging outside, we
will light a bonfire of the lingerie,” the forum’s leader Chandra
Shekhar Tiwar told AFP on Friday.
“No hanging of underwear in public,” he added.
The group said in its first warning to shopkeepers on Wednesday that
they should keep lingerie in boxes and only show this to customers when
they asked.
On Thursday, members of the group tore down posters advertising
coffee-flavoured condoms and sexual-dysfunction therapy centres as part
of their campaign to protect “traditional Indian values.”
They also asked cinema owners not to put up posters of film stars in
“offensive” clothes and postures.
On Monday, the state’s chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan from the
Hindu BJP party, also ordered municipal authorities across the state to
remove the advertising hoardings of a spa massage centre.
A police case was registered against the spa owner for displaying
what the chief minister called “obscene” advertising displaying a
woman’s bare back.
BHOPAL, India, AFP |