Women fight off right-wing vigilantes bullying over Christmas celebration

A group of women in Karnataka fought off Hindutva vigilantes who barged into their home and tried to stop them from celebrating a Christmas event on Tuesday.

A video of the incident in Tumakuru has gone viral and shows the women, from an OBC family, refusing to be cowed down and rather questioning the men bullying them.

The men ask why the family was celebrating Christmas and why the women were not wearing sindoor as Hindu women do. “Why are you celebrating Christmas?” one of the men asks in the video and further demands why some members of the family “had converted to Christianity”.

The women respond that who they pray to is their prerogative and refute the charges of conversion. “Who are you to question us? I can remove the mangalsutra (a necklace worn by married Hindu women) and keep it aside,” one of the women says, and tells the men to “get out”.

Tumakuru. Women fight off Hindutva vigilantes who disrupted Christmas celebrations in Kunigal. The mob is asking the women why they are not wearing sindhoor like Hindus and why they are celebrating Christmas. Women respond saying they are Christian believers and wish to celebrate pic.twitter.com/Q9dR9muMaA

— Prajwal (@prajwalmanipal) December 30, 2021

“Where has this (conversion) happened? What is the proof you have (of conversion)? It is our wish if we want to celebrate Christmas!” a woman is heard saying.

An intense argument ensues in the video that ends when the police are called. According to a police officer, quoted in media reports, some members of the OBC family had been celebrating Christmas for years.

According to one media report, a gram panchayat member of the village had noticed that the OBC family had been holding Christian prayers for the last one month at their home. He informed men from the Bajrang Dal, a Hindutva group, who mobilised a group and barged into the family’s home.

No formal complaint has been filed in the case and there was no violence.