Opposition to Valentine’s Day by religious extremists in India and Pakistan has now become an annual feature.

Every year, Hindu and Islamic extremists in both these neighbouring countries target lovers and burn Valentine’s Day greeting cards, accusing the promoters of the day as being advocates of obscenity.

This weekend too the streets of the major cities on both sides of the Indo-Pak border will witness a frenzy against Valentine’s Day and heavy police deployments to avert violence. Ironically, such reactions make the day more daring and interesting and rather popularizes the occasion in these countries, where ultra-nationalists claim the event is a symbol of the growing Western influence over indigenous values.

While Hindu extremist groups like Shiv Sena, Ram Sena and Bajrang Dal continue to terrorize Valentine’s lovers even in cosmopolitan cities of India like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi, Islamic preachers have called for the ostracizing of those celebrating Valentine’s Day in Pakistan.

One can always debate the impact of the growing foreign influence in South Asian society as a result of the free market economy and the expansion of multi national companies, but who has given these religious robots an authority to undertake moral policing?

Both grounds of their criticism of the event lack reasoning. Their accusation against Valentine’s Day being obscene or immoral is hypocritical. The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian text about sexual behaviour and a source of knowledge for those seeking to enhance their love-making prowess. Similarly, the ancient Khujraho Temple in central India has erotic sculptures of men and women making love in all manner of different positions.

Likewise, the romantic stories of Heer-Ranjha, Mirza-Sahiba and Sohni-Mahiwal are all part of Punjabi literature. Some of these characters have their roots in the area that is now in Pakistan.

Love and sex have always been a part of the Indian and Pakistani cultures. This so-called obscenity was not exported from the West.

Similarly, the leaders of the ultra-right-wing forces use every modern technology that has been exported from the West, but they preach that their followers must to stick to their roots. These same self-proclaimed traditionalists hardly question the way multi-national companies are expanding their businesses in India and Pakistan by hiring cheap labour and hitting hard the small domestic industries while all the time creating more unemployment.

Valentine’s Day, for all of its crash commercialism, is a holiday of love. What then do we really expect from those indulging in politics of hate?