Hindu Moral Panic And The Policing Of Valentine’s Day In India
(ANALYSIS) Each year Hindu nationalist groups carry out violent crackdowns on couples in public spaces during Valentine’s Day in India. These incidents show how moral policing, group identity politics and anxiety about social change combine to justify control over private emotion and public behaviour.
On Feb. 14, activists linked to Hindu nationalist organisations entered NMIMS University in Indore and allegedly vandalised property after claiming that an obscene Valentine’s Day related program was being organized on campus, according to The Telegraph. The university stated that an unauthorised group damaged infrastructure and disrupted a student-led event designed to build professional skills, while police began an investigation using video footage and initiated conversations with both sides regarding legal action.
Stanley Cohen, a South African-born British sociologist, introduced the concept of “moral panic” in his 1972 book “Folk Devils and Moral Panics.” He showed how societies periodically treat certain groups or behaviours as threats to shared values, often amplified by media and political reaction.
Stuart Hall, a Jamaican British cultural theorist working in sociology and cultural studies, and his colleagues later analyzed similar processes in Britain — especially how crime or youth culture became symbols of deeper social anxiety during economic and political change. These scholars provide the theoretical foundation for understanding how ordinary behaviour can acquire exaggerated social meaning.
Jonathan Haidt, an American social psychologist, developed “Moral Foundations Theory” to show that people across cultures rely on different moral intuitions such as care, fairness, loyalty, authority and purity.
In his research, especially in “The Righteous Mind,” he argues that communities that place strong weight on the purity and authority foundations tend to judge behavior connected to sexuality, the body or gender interaction more strictly, because such behaviour is seen as linked to social order and sacred values rather than only to individual choice. He also shows that moral reactions often arise first as emotional intuitions and only later receive rational justification.
Public romantic affection can be interpreted, within a purity-centred moral framework, as behavior that threatens symbolic ideas of cultural or moral order. Strong emotional reactions then feel morally justified to members of that community, even before any detailed reasoning occurs.
Gustave Le Bon, a nineteenth century French social theorist who studied crowd psychology, fund that individuals in emotionally charged groups feel a shared sense of purpose that intensifies reaction. His work is older and more general, but it still informs modern thinking about collective behavior.
Political movements often build unity by drawing clear lines between insiders who protect culture and outsiders who appear to challenge it. Valentine’s Day, with its global imagery of romance and consumption, becomes a convenient marker for this boundary making. The conflict then moves away from individual couples and turns into a performance of loyalty to the group.
The concept of social control is also relevant here. Movements seeking influence over society frequently regulate everyday life, including clothing, relationships and leisure. Control over intimacy carries strong emotional power because it reaches into family honour, gender expectations and youth behaviour. Public enforcement of these norms signals authority in a visible and dramatic manner.
History across many societies shows similar patterns. Campaigns against dancing, cinema, mixed gender gatherings or new forms of music have appeared whenever rapid social change unsettles established hierarchies. Each episode presents cultural protection as a civic duty. Over time, practices once treated as dangerous often become routine parts of social life.
Fear also plays a central role. Rapid urbanization, digital communication and expanding education reshape how young people meet and form relationships. Older power structures may experience this transformation as loss of control. Anger directed at couples in parks or campuses provides a tangible outlet for larger uncertainty about the future.
There is also a political incentive. Visible cultural confrontation attracts media attention, mobilises supporters and reinforces narratives about guardianship of tradition. Emotional issues linked to honour and purity generate stronger mobilisation than technical policy debates. Street-level action therefore becomes a tool for sustaining relevance within competitive political spaces.
The deeper cost appears in the shrinking of personal freedom and trust in public institutions. Universities, parks and streets serve as shared civic spaces where diverse citizens interact. Repeated disruption of peaceful social interaction changes how young people imagine safety, belonging and citizenship itself. A result of organised groups policing affection is that ordinary human connection starts to look suspicious in public spaces.
Love in public, whether expressed through conversation, companionship or quiet presence, represents a simple form of social freedom. Visible affection between people also signals safety, trust and mutual recognition, encouraging others to feel that shared spaces allow dignity and emotional openness. Social psychologists link such signals to the spread of empathy and cooperative behaviour, since people often mirror the emotional tone they witness around them.
One the other hand, displays of anger, intimidation or moral policing communicate threat and exclusion, leading observers to withdraw, remain silent or avoid public interaction. Gradually, love in public widens the sense of belonging within a community, while hate in public narrows it and turns common spaces into arenas of fear rather than connection.
This piece as been published in partnership with Newsreel Asia.
Vishal Arora is an independent journalist based in New Delhi, India, who covers Asia and beyond. He serves as editor of @Newsreel_Asia and is a board member of The Media Project. He’s written for many outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Diplomat and The Caravan.