NEW YORK — Women throughout the world — 13,000 at latest count — will be sending Pramod Mutalik a pair of pink panties for Valentine's Day. But these undies won't make his heart go pitty-pat.
Mutalik is the leader of Sri Ram Sena (Lord Ram’s Army) — an extreme right-wing organization in India that purports to be the “custodians of Indian Culture.”
Members of Mutalik's group are suspected of being behind a widely publicized incident last month in which a group of men brutally attacked women in a bar in the southern city of Mangalore — beating them, and kicking them when they fell to the ground. Mutalik was arrested in the attack, but he was released on bail.
Just last week he was quoted as saying, “Valentine’s Day is definitely not Indian Culture and we will not allow celebration of that day in any form.”
India's Minister for Women, Renuka Chowdhury, has called the Mangalore attack and other actions by the Sri Ram Sena a symptom of the "Talibanization" of India. The Sri Ram Sena, like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, often takes justice into its own hands and prosecutes people according to its own cultural and religious beliefs.
“It is regressive and patriarchal like nothing else we’ve seen in a long time,” says Isha Manchanda, one of four young Indian women who have banded together to fight back — with pink panties.
They've founded a Facebook group called the ‘Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women,’ and a blog called The Pink Chaddi Campaign, and they are asking women all over the world to send pink chaddi’s — panties — to Mutalik. The group has over 13,000 supporters so far.
The Consortium sarcastically says it wants Saturday — Valentine's Day — to be “the day in which Indian women’s virginity and honour will self-destruct unless they marry or tie on a rakhi, a bracelet that signifies two people of the opposite gender are brother and sister. Walk to the nearest pub and buy a drink. Raise a toast to the Sri Ram Sena.”
“The response has been amazing," Karishma Upadhyay, another founding member, said in an e-mail to FOXNews.com. "The media has been very supportive and people from across the world have joined the group. There are collection points in three or four cities across India.”
Manchanda echoed Upadhyay’s sentiments. “The response to the Pink Chaddi Campaign has been phenomenal! We’re constantly getting calls from all around the country from people who want to help collect the underwear.”
Upadhyay said she feels secure when she goes out because “It is very safe for women to go to pubs in the larger cities. It is not uncommon to see groups of women in pubs in Mumbai or Delhi.
"But in smaller towns and cities, parties like the Sri Ram Sena, Shiv Sena, or Bajrang Dal clamp down on activities that they think are against the ‘Indian Culture.’ Which is pure B.S.”
The government has condemned the attacks that fueled the chaddi campaign, and has called the Sri Ram Sena a threat, but Upadhyay doesn’t feel that their efforts are enough.
“The government says that they are ‘investigating,’ but no action has been taken against the perpetrators,” she said. “It is important to nip such actions by political parties in the bud.”
A third founding member, Ratna Appnender, sees the Sri Ram Sena as only part of the problem. “I feel Mutalik’s group represents the growth of right-wing conservative politics and its impact on society," she said.
"It is a minor aspect of the larger issue of growing religious and cultural fundamentalism in India and in the world.”
Visit the Pink Chaddi Campaign's blog here, or click the link on my Blogroll:http://www.thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok, now for the WAR stuff.
So lately I've seen a few posts on WHA by people letting the server know they're quitting. Now, I understand the frustration of the bugs and the aggravation of how long it's been taking Mythic to fix things... but really, how is quitting the game helping?
First off, the game is *still* only about 4.5 months old. There are going to be bugs. There are going to be glitches and problems. The game will not ever be perfect. These things take TIME. Think about the amount of problems the game has at present. Now consider the number of people Mythic actually can afford to employ to fix them, and do the math. Then factor in how long it took WoW to stabilize when it first came out. Even within the whole first year things were iffy... crashes, server queues, bugs, glitches, world geometry problems, class imbalances... all plagued WoW just like they plague WAR.
Second, think in terms of what else there is to play right now. WoW? Sure, if you like mindlessly grinding PvE bosses and lackluster PvP. EVE? Steep learning curve, and though it's a great game it's not a true MMO. CoV/H? Don't even get me started. Or maybe AoC? Don't even get me started. XBox? Too limited on player interaction. Really, if you want a PvP based MMO, WAR is the best out there, bugs or no bugs.
Third, why not just have FAITH? I hate to repeat myself, but the game has only been out for a scant 4.5 months. In terms of MMOs it's still in it's infancy. Have a little faith that the dev's and people working on the game ARE working on the game. It's their job. They're not "neglecting" your class because they want to spite you... they're prioritizing. I play a zealot. We're bugged for sure. Some of our abilities don't work as they should.. and others don't work at all or are pointless to bother wasting a GCD on. Does that mean that after T4 endgame is fixed and the rest of the content cut from beta is released that they plan on leaving my class how it is? Highly doubtful. They know what the problems are. They WANT their game to succeed, if only from a financial standpoint. If you don't want to believe that they really do genuinely care about their game (which I DO believe they do...) then at least take some solace in the fact that they will focus on fixes to avoid having their cash cow turn into hamburger.
Fourth, what good do these posts really do? Are you looking for attention? Are you trying to demoralize the people who are staying? Do you want other people to see your post and say to themselves "Hey... that guy's quitting. This game sucks. I'm quitting too."? This is how servers eventually die. People hear the negative attitudes of others and adopt them as their own, or use them to bolster their overly high expectations for a game so young. So in short, stop with the posts. Noone needs to read your gripes on the forums for a server that so recently had such population issues Destro side. We don't need more lemmings following the Quit Train. Keep that shit to yourself.
I guess I just want to say, stay positive FFS. These things take TIME. Even WoW, the so-called "greatest MMO of all time" went through the same thing... and the only reason WAR is having so many issues with retaining people is that they have a four year old, (at least semi-) polished MMO to fall back on.
I dunno. I'll be proud to still be here a year from now when all this crap is fixed, if for no other reason than to say to the people who quit and come back when the grass is greener that at least I stayed through the hard part while they wussed out. ;)
Miz V out.
I think a lot of it comes down to people want instant gratification. They think that their problem is so big that it must be taken care of asap. Now if it effects everyone as a whole then yes they should.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally you have the people who only play over powered classes and when they are finally brought to the level of all of the classes they /emoragequit....