Dressed as brides and grooms, protesters all set to celebrate V-day outside Hindu Mahasabha bhawan

Someone should have reminded the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha party that they should be careful of what they ask for, because it might just come true. While their proposal of marrying off couples who indulged in public displays of affection or even on social media on Valentine’s Day was bizarre enough, little did they know that many couples would actually take them up on this suggestion. [caption id=“attachment_2097491” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] Over 18,000 people have decided to meet outside Hindu Mahasabha Bhawan in Delhi, on Valentine’s Day to celebrate the occasion and help the Hindu Mahasabha volunteers with their plan, according to a Facebook event page called Shuddh Desi Romance. The invite on the page says: All struggling lovers of the world and otherwise! Lets gather in heartfelt gratitude outside the Hindu Mahasabha’s head office on Mandir Marg (how apt!) (Closest Metro: Ramakrishna Ashram Marg) this Valentine’s Day for the most EPIC mass marriage ceremony Delhi will ever see! Come along in your most colourful red wedding sarees, white dresses, suits, sherwanis and such things! Bring wacky wedding vows, bright flowers, loud dholaks, dark mehendi, band bajaas, poems, songs, dance routines….. Let’s make this SERIOUS! And it does seem that people are really excited about Hindu Mahasabha’s plan. This event is the brainchild of Lakshmi Bai who has also posted on her Facebook timeline that the dhol walas have been finalised for tomorrow. To add to the festivities, everyone will be carrying heart shaped balloons and ghar wapsi tickets will be sold for Rs 11. Also, to show their support to RSS, girls have been asked to wear khaki shorts. On a more serious note, Lakshmi Bai added that this gathering will be a symbol of “loud protest against this intensified attack on democratic rights by right wing forces.” “This is not about defending the right to celebrate Valentine’s Day, but about creatively fighting against forces that seek to undermine our rights to love, to choose, to move and to occupy public spaces,” she said. “We register our protest against this politics of hate, oppression and violence – that constructs notions of ’love-jihad’, conducts forced conversions and shudikarans, threatens to force people into the patriarchal institution of marriage, launches aggressive attempts to control women and queer lives and bodies.”