Hindutva groups take a brief non-violent detour on Valentine’s Day

Saturday was February 14, but Singh was insistent his organisation’s camp had nothing to do with Valentine’s Day. “Bhagat Singh and comrades were sentenced to death on this day by a Lahore court; we don’t care for Valentine’s Day,” said Singh. Contrary to what Hindutva groups have been claiming on social media, Bhagat Singh was sentenced to death by a three-man-tribunal on October 7, 1930.

As it turns out, Singh marked the difference in previous years. “We used to go around with lathi-danda,” he chuckled. The HYV’s Jharkhand chapter was formed only three months back. When asked under what name they operated last year, Monu Shukla, the HPV in-charge who has a BTech from a Chennai College, hesitated. “I forgot,” he admits, sheepishly. “Hindu Sena, we called ourselves last year,” his deputy Singh said.

Shukla said the HYV has managed only about 200 members in urban Ranchi. Still, they managed to convince the management of an RSS-affiliated school to send its students along for a foot march they had in the morning despite it being a Saturday.

By one in the afternoon, only five people had donated blood. “More will come, hopefully. Most of our supporters are travelling with the Bajrang Dal now, protesting,” said Shukla. The Dal, which did not help organise the camp, protested outside various parks in the city on Saturday. They were clearly expecting to encounter couples there, but the district administration had ensured all public parks in the city remained shut on the day.

Shukla said his organisation’s intentions was the peaceful transformation of society. “Of course there is violence in Gorakhpur, but that is because the Yogi (Adityanath, founder of HYV) is untouchable there,” he said.

So what happens if the society fails to listen to his peaceful message and stays at home next year? “Of course next year we will have more members. We will be on the street, teaching them a lesson,” said Shukla. He refuses to divulge the names of Bajrang Dal activists. “Last year, the police registered 3-4 FIRs against us after our names were mentioned in some newspapers,” he said.

The National Service Scheme of the city’s Marwari College also held a blood donation camp. “Everything is mechanised these days – one gift for Mondays, another for Tuesdays and so on. At the end of it all, it is all reduced to couples’ love. I don’t want to stop our youngsters from that, but I want to tell them there’s a larger objective to love,” said Vinay Bharat, who heads the college’s English Department and is also the NSS’s Programme Officer. His event, being held on February 14 each year since 2009, had collected 45 units of blood by two in the afternoon.