PDA gets packed off

How problematic are Public Displays of Affection (PDA) in Mumbai? A lot, if this recent instance is anything to go by. Yesterday, a young couple was forced to leave the city after a video of the boy hugging the girl did the rounds on the Internet. The man was also forced to upload an apology online, after local community leaders took offence and threatened to publicly shame the duo. This, however, isn’t the first incident where couples have faced the wrath of the moral police in Mumbai. Is a discreet peck on the cheek or a goodbye hug still all right in a metropolitan city?

Content writer Runcil Rebello made news in 2014 when he and his then-girlfriend-now wife, Cheryl Godinho were pulled up by cops in plainclothes, dragged to the police station and made to shell out a fine of '1,200 for ‘indecent behaviour’. The duo was out to watch a film over the weekend and their ‘crime’ was that the young girl had her arm around her boyfriend’s waist, as they sat on a bench outside a Goregaon mall. “Suddenly, two men and two women in plainclothes came up to us and said ‘Come with us’,” recalls Runcil. “They told us that we were behaving obscenely. We were kept at the police station for two hours and got no written receipt for the fine we paid. On that day, a lady cop even told us ‘paisa deke khatam karo.’ It is confusing to understand what they actually wanted,” he rues.

Surprisingly, there is no definition of what construes PDA, reveals Quaiser Khalid, Inspector General (IG) Protection of Civil Rights (PCR). He explains, “There is no legal definition of what PDA is, but if the act provokes public disorder, it is a punishable offence. Embracing someone is no public offence — it is a normal social behaviour. I agree that the definition is very subjective, and may vary from person to person, but under the law, it is no offence unless you cross the limits of behaving in a public space,” he shares.

Multiple instances in the past have brought to fore that there are few issues that give rise to as much controversy and debate as the issue of PDA in the city.  For Wadala resident Nivedita, a conversation with a male friend at Shivaji Park Chowpatty, post midnight, proved to be an embarrassing experience. Women cops patrolling the area not only questioned her conduct but also didn’t have an answer as to why sitting at the sea front post midnight was indecent or offensive, she shares. “The cop said to me ‘I don’t know what work you do sitting here whole night.’ This statement is shocking and embarrassing for any woman to hear. Since it came from a woman, I was outraged,” recalls Nivedita.

Any act that is explicitly “indecent” in public will only account for arrests, reveals senior advocate Rizwan Merchant. “There is always a grey area when it comes to what defines PDA. It varies from case to case. Holding hands, putting hands on the shoulder is permissible, obscenity isn’t — you cannot make out in open or indulge in kissing, anything that is overtly physical and goes beyond what the society expects in public won’t be permissible under law. One should know where to draw the line,” he adds.

Quaiser agrees, “One needs to understand that making love in the open or walking nude is obscenity and they can be arrested for it. Having said that, in Bhiwandi, the local community leaders had no right to interfere in someone’s personal life,” he shares. Runcil, who has been a victim of moral policing, is hoping that the police force is sensitised about the laws. He says, “It’s got a lot to do with how orthodox the cops are. Each cop has a different understanding of obscenity. Sensitising the team and defining clearly what is indecent would benefit a lot of people,” he shares.