We often associate violently-enforced limitations on the rights of individuals to frequent certain cultural spaces such as bars, clubs, or movie theatres (or other seemingly less offensive venues) as the malevolent acts of the Taliban or other regressive militant outfits enforcing a restrictive version of Islam. However, this kind of fanaticism isn't relegated to events in Afghanistan or Iraq, but also takes place in democracies such as India.
In the south Indian coastal city of Mangalore, located in the south west part of Karnataka, activists of a militant Hindu right wing youth organization, the Sri Ram Sene (The Army of Rama) attacked individuals, including women at a pub, as well as engaging in acts of vandalism. From the perspective of the activists, women drinking in a public venue was an immoral act that required an act of violent retribution. The informal series of norms that these individuals sought to enforce were those that effectively limited the right of women and others to frequent cultural spaces that are certainly legal and engage in activities that were similarly legal.
Unchallenged, such mob attacks help to foster compliance for these restrictive norms that they are trying to impose through coercive force. Amongst the various reports in the English news media in India, one chronicled the efforts of an individual who defied the mob's attack on the women while others stood by and watched. This individual, Pawan Kumar Shetty, witnessed the attacks and decided to intervene by directly attacking the mob. The act served the purpose of diverting the mob's attention away from the latter's female targets. 24 year-old Shetty observed that: “I see no difference between the Taliban and these people. They say they are doing all this in the name of God. Which God has asked them to molest women?”
There is something particularly interesting about Shetty's resistance toward the mob and its organized attack. His act of defiance, illustrated by directly engaging the mob, was to be sure an act of resistance - against the normative beliefs they held and the actions that manifested such attitudes. However, his resistance was also interesting for he was previously a member of another militant Hindu right wing outfit called the Bajrang Dal, who has carried out vicious attacks on other targets. Although he quit the organization a few weeks prior to the attacks at the pub in Mangalore, Shetty's actions here also demonstrated a resistance against a hateful and militant ideology that he was once affiliated with. This act illustrates that it is sometimes members or in this case former members, of a particular offending group/entity that serve as important sources of resistance against that group.
Sources:
http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/28/stories/2009012859801400.htmhttp://www.hindu.com/2009/01/28/stories/2009012854301000.htm
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090128/jsp/opinion/story_10445957.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090128/jsp/nation/story_10449514.jsp
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