Apoorva S.
“For this was on seynt Valentynes day,
Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make,
Of every kynde that men thynke may,
And that so huge a noyse gan they make
That erthe, and eyr, and tre, and every lake
So ful was, that unethe was there space
For me to stoned, so ful was all the place.”
The aforementioned verse written in Middle English documents the first recorded association of Valentine’s Day with romantic love. In his Parlement of Foules written in 1380-90 (Parliament of Fowlsin Modern English), Geoffrey Chaucer, an English poet, depicts a dream vision wherein birds attend a parliament to choose their mates.
The “lovebirds” of early spring, in fact, helped to establish the connection between February 14 and romantic love in the 14th century when the notions of courtly love were also burgeoning. Saint Valentine was a third century Roman priest who ministered to the Christians when the latter were being persecuted in the Roman Empire. As a result, he was decapitated in 269 AD. He was buried in a Christian cemetery on February 14 and in 496 AD, Pope Gelasius I declared the day to be celebrated as The Feast of Saint Valentine in honour of the saint’s memory. Some scholars disagree with such an interpretation of Valentine’s Day and instead argue that the celebration was purposely linked with St. Valentine so as to ‘Christianise’ the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia observed annually between February 13-15. The rites of Lupercalia were associated with purification, health, and fertility and was characterized by arbitrary matchmaking and mating in order to fight the evil spirits. Pope Gelasius in the fifth century supplanted the Lupercalia celebrations by the commemoration of a Christian saint/martyr which continued till the High Middle Ages, that is,around 1000 to 1250 AD. However, it was Chaucer’s poem that popularized the incorporation of this day in the tradition of romantic love.
February, in today’s era, is known as the month of love, romance, courtship, and also rejections and abandonments which is connoted by its week-long rituals relating to both Valentine’s and Anti-Valentine’s weeks. The Valentine’s week begins on February 7 with Rose Day and maintains the symbolism till February 14 with Propose Day, Chocolate Day, Teddy Day, Promise Day, Hug Day, Kiss Day culminating in Valentine’s Day. This is followed by the Anti-Valentine’s week that unfolds with the rude awakening of Slap Day accompanied by Kick Day, Perfume Day, Flirting Day, Confession Day, Missing Day, and finally Breakup Day on February 21. But should the ceremonial nature of such weeks be seen as overhyped? Or are they reflective of the general milieu? The pandemic has undoubtedly added to the forlornness and exasperation that young adults face in urban areas. This is illustrated by the fact that Indians said “Alexa, I love you” 19000 times a day and “Alexa, marry me” 6000 times a day in 2020, Alexa being a virtual assistant technology capable of voice interaction and providing real time information among its other ‘performative’ functions.
The LPG reforms of 1991 led to the creation of a robust middle class. In fact, the reforms were premised on the potential of the largely untapped “middle-class consumer market.” Following this, the middle classes got access to many foreign television shows which indulged in an overt celebration of love and freer romantic relationships as well as to the likes of Archies and other gift shops which have been branded as capitalism-wrapped displays of affection. As the younger generation got the license to engage in uninhibited romance, it was bound to irk the Macbethian “three witches” that seem to have a hand in the Indian marriage market – caste, class, and religion. This inevitably resulted in the mushrooming of the ‘Anti-Romeo squads’ who denounced the celebration of Valentine’s Day as a corrupting Western influence and replaced it with ‘Parents’ Worship Day.’
The dagger of Section 294 of the IPC which punishes “any obscene act in any public place” is constantly evoked in the month of February in India. Although, legally,obscenity laws are not etched in stone as the word ‘obscene’ has several different meanings, the young couples have been at the receiving end of the wrath of vigilante groups in many states. The number of people protesting for their right to celebrate Valentine’s Day and the active followers of such groups on social media demonstrate the unfazed way in which Indians have now claimed the day as one of their own to celebrate love and defy the cultural homogenization that the prohibition of free love brings about. I once read an article which decried the Valentine celebrations as it alleged that this festival leads to “suicides, rapes, murders, and accidents.” What we as a rapidly evolving and expanding society must understand is that the aforementioned tragic instances are caused by shutting our eyes to mental health, sex education, and the toxicity engendered by patriarchy coupled with misogyny. Acknowledging an innocuous day, in fact, reveals our position in the ladder of cultural evolution and social change. Have we started accepting the will of two consenting individuals or do we still find it distasteful when people disobey the clan laws?
‘The personal is political’ which was the rallying slogan of the second-wave feminism in the 1960s can be broadened today to include all the marginalized groups of society. The links between personal experiences and larger socio-political structures are brought to the fore through this phrase first used by Carol Hanisch in 1969. For instance, our celebration of days like Valentine’s and Halloween highlights the politics that preoccupy the youth of today. Campaigns like Pink Chaddi and Kiss of Love have been women’s responses to them being labelled as “loose” for reclaiming the public space. Such celebrations of personal happenings to make a political point are, however, accessible only to the heteronormative sections of our society. Despite the legal decriminalization of homosexuality, the social sanction for non-binary couples is still a distant dream. For such non-heteronormative couples, celebrating Valentine’s Day then becomes yet another means of resisting heteropatriarchy, gender binaries, and social inequalities.
Human culture is never linear; it takes different routes and evolves at varying paces. The study of cultural evolution, thus, is no longer limited to the esoteric debates nurtured in sociological and literary circles. It is to be seen, in flesh and blood, on the streets, in courtrooms, public parks, and saloons. Anything deemed as a threat to the indigenous culture has to be studied in detail before reaching a preconceived conclusion. Indian culture is diverse, rich, and great; it can surely incorporate a harmless tradition in its prolific cultural heritage, especially at a time when individualism, power, and prestige constantly overshadow the significance of love, peace, and sentimentality.
(The author is a literature and cultural studies enthusiast.)
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