TNN

New Delhi, Jan 31: Suddenly, India seems divided — some are anti "pub culture", while some others don't think it's a bad thing after all. But what is "pub culture?" Decoded, the term really stands for women drinking and socialising with men in public places.

Bars, or pubs, have been there for decades. And men have been their steady clientele. So long pubs were a male bastion, there wasn't a hint of protest about this being anti "Indian culture". But as women have started visiting pubs, mostly in male company, conservative India has been feeling uncomfortable, betraying their strong gender bias.

The girls in Mangalore were attacked as they sat in a pub. But the Sri Ram Sene hooligans expanded on what the girls were doing. They alleged the girls were dancing and taking drugs. And the goons claimed to be like their elder brothers. When Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot slammed pub culture, he didn't talk about pubs, but of boys and girls holding hands.

By stating what clothes women should wear, who their friends should be and which places they can visit, people are seeking are to draw a new laxman rekha, said Rajya Sabha member Brinda Karat. "Those bandying about the term should tell us what they exactly mean by pub culture," she added.

The collective mindset associates women who drink with either privilege or poverty, and the urban, young woman's asserting her individual right to drink becomes unacceptable.

"This issue has never been raised before. Go out to villages, and everyone knows our women are free to smoke beedi and hookah and drink," says activist Jyotsna Chatterji. "Mangalore is a middle-class dilemma, because the middle-class woman has been made the upholder of values, and is exploited in the name of values," says activist Ranjana Kumari of Centre for Social Research.