 |
| Rahul Pshupalan and Reshmi Nair emerged as key figures of the campaign when they kissed on Live TV, |
November 18, 2015, NewsCrunch
The Kiss of Love (KOL) campaign is back in focus exactly one year after it was organised thanks to the detention of two of its organisers by Kerala police.
Rahul Pashupalan and wife Reshmi Nair have been reportedly detained for questioning in connection with the busting of a sex racket.
Police say in a month-long Operation called Big Daddy they could identify a sex racket that procured women from places such as
As The Hindu points out, the details of the case are sketchy and the role of Rahul and Reshmi is not clear. However, the crime that is being alleged here is serious, more so, as minors are said to have been trafficked.
After the reports of detention of Rahul and Reshmi came out, many turned their ire on KOL saying its duplicity had been thoroughly exposed.
KOL started as a protest against an incident of moral policing in Calicut . Rahul and Reshmi emerged as key figures of the campaign when they kissed on Live TV, an act that led to the activists of a right wing organisation to try to assault them.
Despite their prominent role it would be a mistake to tie KOL entirely to them. The campaign started in Kerala but spread to other states Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, New Delhi and West Bengal, among others.
Students tried to organise KOL protest against local moral policing pressures and in many places got into confrontation with right wing organisations. The campaign did get politicised in a few places when communist party student organisations tried to mobilise youth against Hindutva bodies.
But the KOL campaign was about the right to do what you thought was fit in public without anyone bringing down their lathis on your head.
The campaign asked for photos of people kissing and the response was overwhelming. Not every kiss it captured was a sexual contact. There were friends, parents, siblings in the photos.
It was the forerunner of the protest against intolerance debate that is currently in focus.
The fate of Rahul and Reshmi is actually immaterial to it.
Despite their prominent role it would be a mistake to tie KOL entirely to them. The campaign started in Kerala but spread to other states Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, New Delhi and West Bengal, among others.
Students tried to organise KOL protest against local moral policing pressures and in many places got into confrontation with right wing organisations. The campaign did get politicised in a few places when communist party student organisations tried to mobilise youth against Hindutva bodies.
But the KOL campaign was about the right to do what you thought was fit in public without anyone bringing down their lathis on your head.
The campaign asked for photos of people kissing and the response was overwhelming. Not every kiss it captured was a sexual contact. There were friends, parents, siblings in the photos.
It was the forerunner of the protest against intolerance debate that is currently in focus.
The fate of Rahul and Reshmi is actually immaterial to it.