Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, says a poster quoting Benjamin Franklin adorning the walls of Froth on Top Pub and Café, a traditional wood and tile house that’s largely a student hangout in downtown Mangalore. There are only two girls among the 20-odd people at the pub. They rest uneasy, imploring their male colleague to leave soon. Talk around the pub, especially around the chairs with college bags hanging on them, is about what happened last Saturday.

On January 24, a part of the moral police in Mangalore, the Right-wing Hindu outfit known as the Sri Rama Sene, with a sympathetic BJP Government in power, put fear in the hearts of pub-going students with a violent attack on girls at a relatively new lounge bar, Amnesia. Television images of the attack are still fresh in everybody’s mind.

Girls, aged between 19 and 20, were grabbed by their hair, thrown on the ground, molested, slapped and beaten by a group of young men, claiming allegiance to Hindu culture and accusing the girls of dancing with boys at the bar.

On a typical Saturday afternoon, Froth on Top would be teeming with college students — boys and girls. This week it’s almost empty — like other pubs in the area.

“On Saturdays, we are usually full. Since the attack last week, most pubs have emptied out. Our clientele is mostly students, but they have all stopped coming,” says an 18-year-old Hindu boy from rural Mangalore who is employed as a waiter at one of the pubs.

... contd.