The Pink Chaddi Campaign (or Pink Underwear Campaign) is a nonviolent protest movement launched in India in February 2009 in response to notable incidences of violent conservative and right-wing activism against perceived violations of Indian culture, when a group of women were attacked in a pub in Mangalore. The campaign was conceived particularly in protest against a threat by Pramod Muthalik of the Sri Ram Sena (also spelled as Sri Ram Sene and Sriram Sena), an orthodox Hindu group based in Mangalore. Mr.Muthalik threatened to marry off and take other action on any young couples found together on Valentine's Day.
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On 6 February 2009 in an incident of moral policing a group of men who claimed to belong to Sri Ram Sena attacked a group of women in Mangalore, India. Later that month, Muthalik announced an action plan to target couples found dating on 14 February, Valentine’s Day. He said "Our activists will go around with a priest, a turmeric stub and a mangalsutra on 14 February. If we come across couples being together in public and expressing their love, we will take them to the nearest temple and conduct their marriage.[1]
After widespread outrage over his speech, the Bangalore and Mangalore police stepped up protection in public places and local hangouts, despite which there was an attack by the Sri Ram Sena on five women in a pub in Mangalore. Two women patrons were hospitalised in a critical condition.[2] Of 40 perpetrators, only three have been arrested so far.
On 9th feb 2009, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said that "Sri Ram Sene is a threat to the country. The Centre is watching its activities with great concern" [3]
In the midst of the tension, a protest was started by a group of young women, called the "Pink Chaddi" campaign, where they urged a peaceful protest (described as Gandhian in the press[4][5]) to all of India, by sending pink underwear ("Chaddi" in Hindi) to Muthalik’s office on Valentine’s day.[6] The novel form of protest was initiated by Nisha Susan and a large group of friends from across India. [7] As the protest grew, underwear started pouring in from locations all over India in solidarity for the "Love Sena". Over 500 pink chaddis were couriered on Friday. Other cities collected hundreds of such chaddis and decided to courier them directly.[8] There has been a tentative truce established as Pramod Muthalik has expressed an inclination for a dialogue to resolve this issue.. Ostensibly , the chaddi (underwear) had been chosen as a symbol ,since right wing groups like the RSS of India are derogatively called "chaddies" (short pants), which is part of the uniform that RSS members wear during their meetings.
The Pink Chaddi Campaign received widespread media coverage[9], and the Facebook [10] group saw numbers of members growing exponentially in the following days. A few reports were also critical of the campaign accusing it of trivialising an important issue like attack on women.[11]
There was also political reaction to the campaign as supporters of RSS objected to use of pictures of RSS members on the campaign blog. RSS had criticised the Mangalore attack and favoured ban on the Sri Ram Sena. The blog owner removed the pictures of RSS members following this objection.[12]
A counter-campaign calling itself "The Pink Condom Campaign" was started by some unknown activists a few days before Valentine's Day.[13]
As an additional precaution, Muthalik and 140 others of the Sri Ram Sena were held in preventive custody on Valentine’s Eve.[14]
Shortly after the campaign took off, the campaign's Facebook group began to be attacked by trolls and was eventually broken into. Attackers renamed the group and included racist slurs and death threats in its description. The attacks continued despite appeals to Facebook's support department for help, and eventually Facebook disabled the account of the group's administrator and access to the group. The group has decided to avoid Facebook in future.[15][16]