Those Touchy Radical Hindus

Michael C. Moynihan | September 27, 2007

Shilpa Shetty, winner of this year's edition of British reality show Big Brother, was detained (the always accurate Sun newspaper says she was "arrested") on anti-obscenity charges when trying to leave her native India yesterday. Cell phone porn film, perhaps? Bollywood snuff production? Try being kissed on the cheek by Sommersby star Richard Gere. Hindu fundamentalists were not amused:

The actress broke down in tears when stopped at Mumbai Airport, as she headed off to the Miss Bollywood musical in Berlin.

Shilpa, 32, said: "I can understand something like this if I'd committed a criminal offence. "But what was my offence, when I'm just an actor, going to perform a musical on foreign land."

Pretty Woman actor Richard, 58, caused uproar in India when he grabbed the Bollywood sweetheart and kissed her several times on the cheek at an Aids-awareness event earlier this year.

Crowds burned posters of the pair and hard-line Hindus claimed that they had violated the country's anti-obscenity laws.

Shetty was held at Mumbai Airport by immigration officials who had no record of a Supreme Court ruling which overturned a ban on her leaving the country.They said she was still wanted for obscenity charges over the kiss.

Video of the "obscene" kiss here.

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|9.27.07 @ 1:33PM|#

You'd think having Gere dribbling all over her would be punishment enough.

The interesting thing here (at least from my standpoint as an American male) is what is allowed - Bollywood films can be very racy, as long as they don't show a couple actually kissing.

Anyone see Kama Sutra a few years back?

Good stuff.

Episiarch|9.27.07 @ 1:34PM|#

Wait...I thought Richard Gere was TEH GEY? I mean, what about the gerbil?

|9.27.07 @ 1:36PM|#

Funny reaction for a place so pull of people.

Do they reproduce without kissing?

That's the thing about obscenity/indecency laws - different cultures define them differently. We're back to the "they should do it our way" problem.

Guy Montag|9.27.07 @ 1:37PM|#

Um, let me get this straight. Richard Gere made an unwelcome "sexual" advance on this woman. I remember the tape and she did not looke like she was into it, looked like she tried to brush him off repeatedly.

So, the "advanced society"* in India makes HER the criminal? UGH!

*Per so many of the "enlightened" folk from college.

|9.27.07 @ 1:38PM|#

Dan T. -

You see Kama Sutra?
If they allow that stuff on the street, they have my ok to go ahead and ban kissing.

|9.27.07 @ 1:44PM|#

Dan T. -

You see Kama Sutra?
If they allow that stuff on the street, they have my ok to go ahead and ban kissing.

Never saw it. But my point is that due to the subjective nature of obscenity, I'd rather not force the American version on India in exchange for the Indians not forcing their version onto us.

Urkobold™|9.27.07 @ 1:51PM|#

DAN T., HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GROWN MAN NAKED?

Fluffy|9.27.07 @ 1:52PM|#

Another society with a strong anti-public-kissing bias was ancient Rome. Of course, the Romans did not find the slaughter of prisoners in the arena obscene - just the sight of a citizen kissing his wife in public.

Given the nature of a lot of India's public art this sounds similar. I realize that different cultures have different standards of obscenityl, but even with that it seems a little strange that a temple covered with tits is OK and a kiss on the cheek is not.

|9.27.07 @ 1:52PM|#

But my point is that due to the subjective nature of obscenity, I'd rather not force the American version on India in exchange for the Indians not forcing their version onto us.

Dan T, nobody is advocating invading India because of their prudish, moronic obscenity laws. I, however, reserve the right to call idiocy as I see it. Got it? They're stupid, superstitious dumbasses. Get back under the bridge.

|9.27.07 @ 1:53PM|#

DAN T., HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GROWN MAN NAKED?

Do you like gladiator movies?

|9.27.07 @ 1:57PM|#

I know a lot of Indian residents at my workplace and they tell me that the religious obscenity people are a small minority. Most Indians don't care about this. I guess it's kind of like in America, where a very small but very vocal group has a lot of influence in this area.

|9.27.07 @ 1:58PM|#

Dan T, nobody is advocating invading India because of their prudish, moronic obscenity laws. I, however, reserve the right to call idiocy as I see it. Got it? They're stupid, superstitious dumbasses. Get back under the bridge.

Well, nobody said anybody was advocating invadig India. But to call people idiotic because their subjective standards on obscenity are different from ours reeks of the same sort of cultural superiority that causes us to invade other countries, convinced that they need our particular form of government and economics.

Urkobold™|9.27.07 @ 1:58PM|#

DAN T., HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A TURKISH PRISON?

|9.27.07 @ 2:03PM|#

DAN T., ARE YOU TEH GAY?

So, the "advanced society"* in India makes HER the criminal? UGH!

*Per so many of the "enlightened" folk from college.

Who thinks that India has such an advanced society? Don't they have a caste system that Reasonoids can only dream of?

But to call people idiotic because their subjective standards on obscenity are different from ours reeks of the same sort of cultural superiority that causes us to invade other countries, convinced that they need our particular form of government and economics.

Except that sometimes, some people's beliefs and actions are in fact idiotic.

|9.27.07 @ 2:10PM|#

Don't they have a caste system that Reasonoids can only dream of?

Damn. I used to aspire to being a troll, but...damn. I tip my hat.

|9.27.07 @ 2:12PM|#

a caste system that Reasonoids can only dream of

Dan T., you seem mistaken as to the nature of Reason and its fans.

*be* a troll. Fuck you, English.

|9.27.07 @ 2:13PM|#

Don't they have a caste system that Reasonoids can only dream of?

Now I am no expert, and what I am about to say has been told to me by multiple Indian co-workers who were here via occupational visas:

In general, the caste system in India is largely a relic except for some of the most rural places where they haven't modernized at all. In major metropolitan areas and modern cities of India the caste system is pretty much history.

Like with many things, of course there are exceptions. For instance some of the top caste peoplestill consider themselves superior and will not mate with people of lower caste, but that is not at all common.

Also, officially the government has constitutionally outlawed caste based discrimination

|9.27.07 @ 2:17PM|#

My vision of libertopia includes a thoroughly hierarchical system, with thousands of slaves serving my every whim. Wait, that's not my vision of libertopia.

Shannon Love|9.27.07 @ 2:19PM|#

I think the outrage has more to do with the perception that Gere is rude and disrespectful to regions general culture than it has to do with a kiss per se.

From my reading, public kissing was considered a minor taboo until it became strongly associated with Western moral values and perceived arrogance. Gere was exactly the wrong person to commit such a cultural breech.

|9.27.07 @ 2:19PM|#

a caste system that Reasonoids can only dream of

Oops, did I say that outloud?

Warty,
Just relax. Find your center.
Picture the sshot. Picture it.
Turn off all the sound.
Just let it happen. Be the troll.

|9.27.07 @ 2:26PM|#

My vision of libertopia includes a thoroughly hierarchical system, with thousands of slaves serving my every whim. Wait, that's not my vision of libertopia.

Not slaves, "employees". Ones not subject to minimum wage or any fair labor law.

Other culture's social taboos are weird and crazy. My culture's social taboos are normal and sane.

dAN t.|9.27.07 @ 2:36PM|#

If they don't like the anti-obscenity laws in India, they are free to leave.

stephen the goldberger|9.27.07 @ 2:39PM|#

Dan you're grasping for straws. The main difference with India's caste system v. free market capitalism's natural hierarchy is that India's caste system is based on rigid laws and traditions where people are born into their caste. In the free market people's relative places in the division of labor is determined by each individual's own ability and competence.

At least that's the idea.

....damnit don't feed the troll. don't feed the troll. don't feed the troll...

|9.27.07 @ 2:46PM|#

In the free market people's relative places in the division of labor is determined by each individual's own ability and competence.

Right. Then explain George W. Bush.

|9.27.07 @ 2:52PM|#

....damnit don't feed the troll. don't feed the troll. don't feed the troll...

Oh lighten up. There was nothing of substance to discuss on this post so I felt like messing with you a little. That's all.

Sal Paradise|9.27.07 @ 2:53PM|#

Dan, that first 2:19 post is the most thoughtful thing I've ever seen you write.

Sal Paradise|9.27.07 @ 2:56PM|#

"Oh lighten up. There was nothing of substance to discuss on this post so I felt like messing with you a little. That's all."

Funny, when you post, there's never any substance there, either.

stephen the goldberger|9.27.07 @ 3:03PM|#

lighten up? that last comment was meant to be humorous. and as to bush's success, theoretically that's how it was supposed to work. nepotism and inheritance are obvious flaws with the theory.

|9.27.07 @ 3:10PM|#

stephen the goldberger - and the fact that politics is nothing like a free market...

|9.27.07 @ 3:19PM|#

India may have outlawed untouchability, but any culture where whitening cream is a big-selling cosmetic still has more than a little of the racist/classist/whatever-ist system remaining.

Whitening cream can be found in stores in other countries where there are many Indian ex-pats - a subculture that is statistically less likely to abide by a caste-like structure.

|9.27.07 @ 3:21PM|#

Wait...I thought Richard Gere was TEH GEY? I mean, what about the gerbil?

Episiarch: Nope. Not TEH GAY -- female gerbil.

Urkobold™|9.27.07 @ 3:23PM|#

DAN T.,

THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LOW-WAGE EMPLOYEES AND SLAVES. YOU CANNOT COMPEL EMPLOYEES, HOWEVER LOW THEIR PAY, INTO FIGHTING TO THE DEATH BEFORE YOU FOR ENTERTAINMENT. NOR MAY YOU THRASH THEM THOROUGHLY FOR THEIR IMPERTINENCE. AND USING THEM FOR SEXUAL RELIEF? WHY, IT'S ILLEGAL IN MANY PLACES TO DO THAT WITH EMPLOYEES.

WHICH IS WHY THE URKOBOLD PREFERS SLAVERY. VIKING MINION! KILL NO LIBERTATE OR LOWNUMBER!

|9.27.07 @ 3:28PM|#

For instance some of the top caste people still consider themselves superior and will not mate with people of lower caste, but that is not at all common.

We have that here, but disguised by sending your kids off to elite schools where only a few lower caste kids slip in.

Granted, it's not like India's religion-based caste system, where the caste you're born in is considered the fair and natural result of karmic consequences of how you lived past lives.

Hungry Hungry|9.27.07 @ 3:35PM|#

Kama Sutra was not Bollywood. It was in English, and like "The Namesake", another Mira Nair film, it was intended for a Western audience and censored almost completely in India.

Most Hindus see temple statues and the Kama Sutra as aspects of history, not really part of Hindu culture of the last few centuries. Similar to how Western standards of propriety are very different from events depicted in Greek and Roman times.

These fundamentalists are a small minority, but Indian society is quite prudish by Western standards, even amongst Indian Christians and Muslims. Often these disparate religious groups will unite under some public condemnation of Valentine's Day or public displays of affection.

This is not really a caste issue as most of these Hindu fundamentalists are also against caste and want to produce a united Hindu front against Islam, Christianity, secular culture etc.

Finally, there will always be some Indians who will protest, burn effigies, and file court cases over anything, so what the Western press picks up is quite arbitrary. Some people died recently in protests in Madurai over an election poll. Not the election, but the poll.

|9.27.07 @ 3:36PM|#

Let's all get back on topic here-making of fun The Last Supper, Christians, and Leonardo DaVinci's chosen lifestyle!
More examples of blasphemy here:

http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/09/other_last_suppers_wheres_the_outrage

Serve hot. Enjoy!

|9.27.07 @ 3:48PM|#

AND USING THEM FOR SEXUAL RELIEF? WHY, IT'S ILLEGAL IN MANY PLACES TO DO THAT WITH EMPLOYEES.

There are certain counties in Nevada where you may legally use employees for sexual relief. They have to be employees of particular businesses, however, and they must be licensed and medically certified. For $2500 you can even get an all nighter in the Taj Mahal room. Of course, kissing still costs extra.

|9.27.07 @ 3:51PM|#

Don't they have a caste system that Reasonoids can only dream of?

Dan T is untouchable!

Urkobold™|9.27.07 @ 3:51PM|#

BRANDYBUCK, YOU MYOPIC HOBBIT, THE URKOBOLD KNOWS THAT PLACE. DON'T ASK WHAT $10,000 WILL BUY. THE URKOBOLD SHOULD'VE PICKED THAT WEEK TO STOP DRINKING MESCAL. OOOOOOOH, THE URKOBOLD'S HEAD.

|9.27.07 @ 4:04PM|#

What was the Sean Connery movie "The Untouchables" called in India?

Is Bugs Bunny censored in India? He sure seemed to like to kiss Elmer Fudd a lot.

Rhywun|9.27.07 @ 4:50PM|#

I must admit I had no idea India was so prudish. No wonder so many of them want to come here. And please, none of that cultural relativism crap. The right to show affection for one another seems like a pretty basic human right to me, regardless of culture.

VikingMoose (Minion of URKOBOL|9.27.07 @ 5:17PM|#

JA. JA.

SOFORT.

sv|9.27.07 @ 5:39PM|#

'hungry hungry' actually makes a sensible comment. also, apparently gere was re-enacting a scene from one of his movies or something, it was one of those drama geek things to do. indian society is very socially conservative, although as hh points out this has more to do with politics grandstanding etc. anyway, it's their country. hopefully ms. shetty will get off with a fine and everyone can begin recovering the memory space wasted on this nonsense.

|9.29.07 @ 6:05AM|#

prolefeed said: Nope. Not TEH GAY -- female gerbil

I cracked a huge grin when I read this one.

Maybe Gere saw too many of his own movies and thought no woman could resist his sweaty groping.
But, really, like sv sez,

|9.29.07 @ 12:35PM|#

The Hindu nationalists are bastards! Fortunately the magistrate who had issued her arrest warrant had been transferred and the proceedings suspended by the Supreme Court... somehow the immigration authorities were unaware.

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