Moral Policing in India: You Could Be Next

Last night, a few of my friends were caught up in a moral policing debacle by the media. The following statement is from Shruthi (tagged), who was one of them, relating what happened:

"Our juniors had thrown a private farewell party for us at a club in Hyderabad. They checked our IDs at the entrance, and stopped serving alcohol at 10.30. The crowd was out by 11, and it was when we were ushering some of this crowd (which was female) into a cab, one of the girls noticed that a man was taking a video of them. Since my friends and I were in a position to do something about this (ie. we were not drunk, and we were completely aware of what we were doing), we confronted the man with the phone camera. He refused to delete the video, so one of my friends snatched a phone from him. (He was so attached to his sleazy antics that he didn't even give us the phone he had been recording on.)

After we took the phone, we were shoved into a cab by our juniors, who were looking to avoid a full-blown fight, and they said that they would handle the situation. Our cab started moving, but we drove ahead only a little while before we convinced the driver to go back to the club- we wanted to make sure that the girl who pushed us into our cab was ok, and to return the phone and contact the cops.

When we got back to the scene, our juniors were gone, but the sleazy guy and his two friends were still there, and they had been joined by some cops. We told the cops what happened, and they said their superiors would come around so we should talk to them.

In the meantime, a sizeable crowd had gathered, and this included one man with a TV camera, supposedly from ABN Andhra Jyoti.

While we were shouting at the guys who took the video, and were trying to describe what had happened to some people from the SHRC, the camera was constantly shooting us looking agitated. The camera guy constantly pestered us, did not even seem to want to know what the original fight was about, and was instead trying to get a rise out of us by harassing us. He followed me to our cab, where I sat covering my face and obviously did not seem at all interested in giving them their precious soundbyte. He still insisted on sticking the camera all the way into the cab, and continued to harass me.

This morning, this splendid performance on the part of the media went up on TV9. Obviously, since it's a TV9 story, there wasn't even a claim to responsible reporting on their part. In fact, the reporter covering this story herself said 'We don't know what the fight was about, but look at what they're wearing!' (What were we wearing? We were at a club- we were in dresses. Nothing looked obscene until TV9 randomly started blurring things out.) Even though the only person who looks drunk in the video is our male friend, the reporter constantly refers to how 'girls are drinking'. No attention is paid to the things that we actually are saying."

TV9 put up the videos on Youtube but they were finally taken down after we got people to flag and report them but TV9 still refuses to take any responsibility for their brazen reporting, maintaining their perverse moral stand that girls should not drink, wear dresses, be on streets at night, and IF they do, they should not be objecting to harassment or even rape! This was said in as many words in their groundbreaking TV report.

Meanwhile, we found a bunch of other videos on Youtube and elsewhere put up by various local TV channels pursuing their aggressive stance of moral policing. These include TV9, Saakshi TV and ARN Andhra Jyoti.
Here is a list of these videos. A list that we intend to keep updating.

1. Drunken girls hulchal midnight in hyderabad roads - Sakshi TV - YouTube
2. Exclusive Story On Rain Pub - YouTube
3. Rain Pub Girls Misbehaving On Road In Jubilee Hills - YouTube
4. Case filed against pub management - Sakshi TV - YouTube
5. Drunken Girls on road : Case filed against Rain Pub at Banjara Hills - YouTube
6. Drunk Girls Hulchal:12/04/13 - Studio N - YouTube
7. Drunk woman creates nuisance on road
8. Rain Pub Jubilee Hills Special Story - TV5 at TeluguPeople.com Videos
9. Drunk girls & drama on streets of Hyderabad | TV9 AP | iStream
10. Girls Fully Drunk in Rain Pub Misbehaves on Road In Jubilee Hills | citymirchi.com
11. Rain Pub Girls Misbehaving On Road In Jubilee Hills Abntelugutv » | Telugu Video News - DegaView.com
12. Dirty Culture in Hyderabad, Dirty Pub culture in Hyderabad
13. Discussion on Pub Culture in Hyderabad

Please dislike and flag/report these videos so that they are taken down. If you know of similar videos, post the link in the comments here. They will be added to this list.

UPDATE:
Also: Studio N is sharing a video of the incident right at the top of their newsfeed:
https://www.facebook.com/StudioNonline
Message them to take it down. Join us, mail them, report the video on fb (click the 'x' at the top right corner and let them know it's harassing a friend).

My friends are drafting a petition and filing criminal charges against the TV channel tomorrow. We need your help! Please drop a message if you can help with your resources or contacts in the media. And PLEASE SHARE THIS! Speak up now and fight this appallingly self-righteous brigade which thinks it can dictate what women wear, where they go or when they can walk the streets. Stop these patriarchs! Be enraged! Because you could be next.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/smar...-in-india-you-could-be-next/10151547085234429