What kind of ‘culture’ needs such violence?

After the savage attack by a gang of youngsters on a Swiss couple vacationing in Fatehpur Sikri, some damage-control measures are being put in place. Touts are being rounded up, stern words are being uttered and according to one report, the Uttar Pradesh police is asking people to send “get well soon” wishes for the Swiss couple from Lausanne now undergoing treatment at New Delhi’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospital.

All this is good. But should one see the barbaric attack on the couple merely as a law and order problem?

“No reason” — those were the two words that leapt out as I read the account of the brutal assault on Quentin Jeremy Clerc and Marie Droz. A 13-year-old boy, the youngest of the five accused of the savagery, told a national daily that the two were asking questions about Fatehpur Sikri which the group did not understand properly. “A little later we saw them getting intimate. For no reason, Pankaj (who is 19, and one of the two adults arrested along with the three kids) started assaulting them. We joined in.”

The chain of events which led to the couple being mercilessly beaten with sticks and stones and left bleeding on the road in the middle of the day is as bizarre as it is barbaric. The boys were stalking the young Swiss couple and badgering them, specially Droz, for a selfie.

When the couple protested, they were furious. No one quite knows what the tipping point was. But what is truly shocking was the discussion in the social media on whether the couple were kissing. As if that matters!

According to the teenager who narrated a blow-by-blow account of the episode, what angered the group was the couple sharing “intimate moments”.

Clerc has denied it but one of the accused, a minor, said: “We thought the couple was doing something which they shouldn’t.” That led to one of the group becoming maniacally violent, and others following his example. Clerc’s condition remains critical.

What are parents and schools teaching these children? Even if a couple was being demonstrably affectionate, what business is it of anybody else? How can anyone else decide what a couple “should” or “shouldn’t” do as long as they don’t break the law?

Yes, most Indians are not used to couples and public display of affection. But to use cultural sensitivity as a pretext for a violent attack should be unacceptable. Worse still, what message are we sending out to ourselves and the world when bystanders film the savagery instead of helping the victims?

The fact that such a thing could happen at all in broad daylight at a well-known tourist spot speaks volumes about the level of safety we provide to tourists.

Now the five have been nabbed, 50 more “touts” have been picked up and Union ministers are photographed visiting the couple in hospital. The three minors among the accused are in a juvenile home and the two adults in judicial custody. Right now, there is a commotion because the couple are Swiss, and India’s international image risks being tarnished further.

But this is not just a law and order issue, nor does it happen in a vacuum. Nor is this the first vacationing foreign couple beaten up on such a spurious pretext.

Local couples are routinely harassed, sometimes bullied, sometimes beaten. And all this is sought to be defended in the name of “culture”. Be it a question of sexual or culinary mores, what right does one set of people have to impose its personal choices on others, be they Indian or foreign?

In Uttar Pradesh, this harassment has been exacerbated since the current state government set up “anti-Romeo” squads, ostensibly to protect women from being molested on the streets. While that is a goal both laudable and necessary, these squads have quickly metamorphosed into vigilante groups that harass and even attack couples who are definitely not molester and molested.

Such moral policing has even spread to the men in uniform. One news report spoke of a 23-year-old accosted by a posse of policemen when he was sitting with his girlfriend in a park in state capital Lucknow. Without any warning, the cops pounced on them and let them go only after showering them with taunts and warnings.

Moral policing is not unique to Uttar Pradesh. The contagion of cultural policing, unchecked in one area, quickly spreads to another. People have been lynched on suspicion of storing or carrying beef. It is simply not enough for authorities to tut-tut about the need to enforce the rule of law. The mob must not feel bold enough to take the law into their own hands.

Killing someone, hitting someone in the name of defending “Indian culture” damages it the most.

The costs are borne by society and the economy. Tourists typically like to relax when on a holiday, and they have the choice of many countries. Most of them are sensitive to local culture wherever they go, but if they are harassed and assaulted, why should they come to India? Making a tourist feel welcome is not just a matter of saying so, it is about action that makes him or her comfortable and safe.

We must start asking fundamental questions — why is it that many of us feel much safer in other Asian cities like Bangkok? Personally, the answer is simple — as a woman, I can walk around alone or with a friend, male or female, at any time of the day without being intimidated. No one else cares what one eats.

It also brings home the point that a city cannot be safe and comfortable for tourists if it is threatening and unsafe for locals. Those who refuse to recognise that everyone has the right to their personal space and privacy, who stalk tourists and leer at foreign couples, often intimidate locals as well.

What is fuelling the social acceptance of such behaviour? The contagion of cultural policing and associated violence will continue till we get down to the basics.