Clash of cultures

Few would have thought that a quiet drink with friends could turn into a national debate about alcohol, gender and morality. But that's what happened after an incident on a breezy, Sunday afternoon last month in the city of Mangalore in the southwestern state of Karnataka.

A group of young men and women were drinking beer in a pub on the eve of India's Republic Day when all hell broke loose. Forty men claiming to be members of the Hindu extremist group Shri Ram Sene (Army of Lord Ram) barged into the pub, pushed the men aside and pounced on the women. They dragged them off their stools by the hair, slapping and kicking them, before pushing them to the ground and trying to strip and grope them.

Ram Sene leader Pramod Muthalik later said that the group's goal was to safeguard Indian culture. 'We consider women as godly and our culture does not allow drinking, smoking and dancing in skimpy clothes. Indian culture is not pub culture,' he said.

The attack - captured on camera by a television crew invited by Ram Sene itself, and replayed over and over again by TV channels - sent shockwaves through the country, causing outrage at what was seen as an attempt to 'Talebanise' India.

Karnataka's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) quickly distanced itself from the incident, though Mr Muthalik has been a member of Hindu radical groups for decades. But even as he disowned Ram Sene, the state's chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa deftly played down the attack, harping instead on the evils of 'pub culture' and why it must be stopped.

This attempt to play to a deeply conservative society's unease at rapidly changing social mores worked like magic as leaders around the nation and across party lines rushed to denounce 'pub culture'.