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Amrit Dhillon

Drinking, dancing, dating, holding hands, kissing - such liberal activities by the young in India have ignited a backlash against galloping westernisation.

At times, reading the newspapers, India seems to be splitting in two. The new India has embraced modernity and globalisation. Young Indians  dress, work and socialise  much like their counterparts  anywhere in the world.

In the old India, tradition is sacred. Members of the opposite sex do not mingle until they're married. The idea of unmarried couples dancing together or engaging in physical intimacy is repugnant,  a vile import from the west.

When these two Indias collide, the results are ugly.

The  clashes have   intensified in recent months as some sections of society  resort to 'moral policing' to stamp out what they see as debauchery. In September, police  threatened to close the Park Hotel  in Madras after photographs were published showing couples  kissing on a dance floor  during a private party. Police said this 'vulgar' behaviour had to be stopped.

In November,  Indian actress Khushboo  was pelted with sandals, tomatoes and eggs after she said during a television discussion on Aids that educated men could not expect their wives to be virgins.

Indeed, what her attackers ignored were facts. Recent surveys, including one last month, show that about 42 per cent of Indians aged between 18 and 24 have had pre-marital sex.

And Indian nationals are not the only ones being targeted. In September, an Israeli couple who opted for a Hindu wedding in Rajasthan were fined for making the mistake of kissing after the ceremony. They apologised for their actions, saying they were unaware public kissing was banned.

The priest who reported them  called it 'cultural pollution'.

Weeks later, anger boiled over in another part of Rajasthan - the holy city of Pushkar  - when a Finnish woman bathed naked in a public lake.  Despite reports  that the woman was mentally ill, authorities promptly issued a pamphlet outlining 'dos and don'ts' for foreign tourists. It advises them not to shake hands with an Indian woman or touch her (unless she is infirm), urges female tourists to keep their arms covered at all times and says  public displays of affection - including holding hands - are  unacceptable to Indians, even between  husband and wife.

Authorities say the guidelines are aimed at educating foreign tourists about local culture and sensibilities.

Liberals are alarmed. In the past,  Hindu nationalists have  been known to attack shops and couples who celebrate  Valentine's Day  on the grounds that it is 'against Indian culture'.

Now, however, the anger is spreading to ordinary people - and not just the middle class.

Last week, villagers took to the streets in the booming township of Gurgaon,  outside New Delhi, where call centres, shopping centres, bars and cafes are thriving.

'We want the police to close the bars because they are corrupting our children,' Mahesh Yadav told the Indian Express.

Reading the guidelines issued in Rajasthan provides a glimpse into a mentality that  reigns supreme in large sections of society, extending far beyond the  extreme fringes of Hindu nationalism.

In this mentality, any woman dressed skimpily or out late at night is 'loose'.

This applies even to women working in call centres, where night shifts are the norm. The company cars which take them to work are sometimes stalked by young men.

'These men think any woman who is out at that time can't be respectable. She must be promiscuous and available,' says Gita Tandon, a call centre worker in New Delhi.

In this mentality, the same rules apply to daylight hours.

Any young girl seen in a public park with a man is up to no good. But parks are often the only place couples can seek privacy, because dating is frowned upon by many Indian parents.

It was this logic that lay behind a Taleban-style operation in a park in Meerut,  just 80km from the capital last month.

Women  police slapped, punched and pulled the hair of women found with their boyfriends. Television cameras had been  invited to film the spectacle,  hoping to shame the dating couples over their 'indecent' behaviour (holding hands).

The Meerut police action was excessive and extraordinarily crude, but the indignation behind it resonates powerfully with Indians who feel threatened by the dizzying speed of social change. Overwhelmed by change, they seek refuge in tradition.

'Society has changed faster in the past 10 years than in the past 50,' says Radhika Chopra,  sociology lecturer at the Delhi School of Economics. 'These protests are not the last gasp of a dying culture. They reflect a deep anxiety about modernisation. Young people are leaving home for work in different cities, living alone, and tasting independence. There is much more social movement and social experimentation than ever before.'

Professor Chopra says  one only has to take one aspect of modernisation -  romance - to see how differently sections of society perceive it. For the young, it means choice,  independence and crafting their  own destiny. For cultural conservatives, it means the loss of parental control, breakdown of family, divorce and instability.

Orthodox Indians tend to regard the west as the source of all evil.

They fear westernisation because they believe it will usher in promiscuity, destroy families, encourage divorce and promote  individualism.

However, Madhu Kishwar, a commentator and women's activist,  says it is  inaccurate to portray it as an 'east versus west' struggle.

She says it  is a legitimate fear of what the west represents and believes the west  should be more introspective.

'Young girls in small towns and villages all over India are watching television and films and absorbing the messages of the west about what freedom means,' she says.

'They think it means wearing sexy clothes and becoming a model, seeking glamour and money. They're getting trapped in sex rackets and being blackmailed.'

Ms Kishwar says pornography is flourishing. Villages that have no library or school have sex video parlours. 'I know that western culture is about more than just sexual freedom, but the west chooses to project itself in these terms so it's no surprise that young Indians take only this aspect of the culture.

'And people have seen that the model of liberation in the west has failed - it has led to family breakdown, single parent families and emotional instability for children.'

The prevailing moral confusion over social behaviour is likely to continue.

'We can't make up our minds. If a film star like Aishwarya Rai  does a sexy dance in a film, it's fine. If a small-town girl does the same thing on stage, she's a whore,' says college student Neha Banerji. 'I really think we need to sort out our attitudes.'



Rapid social change has India confronting a culture clash