As the reports of crime against women continue to emerge from Uttar Pradesh, the UP police have decided to taken an innovative approach to spread awareness on the issue. The Twitter handle of UP Police has been very active in recent times, using popular themes to spread awareness on various issues.
Today they decided to spread awareness about respecting the opinion of women, and used the reference from 90s hit movie Darr. Using a clip of the song ‘tu ha kar ya na kar tu hai meri Kiran’, the Twitter handle asked, ‘Kiran ki na ka matlab?’ (the meaning of Kiran’s no?). The answer was also given in the video clip, in a form of a dialogue by Amitabh Bachchan from the movie Pink, where he says, ‘No means no’.
The message here the UP is trying to spread that, when a woman says no to advances made by a man, that man should taking it as a final answer, and stop chasing her. It is not correct to keep stalking a woman even after she has said ‘no’ to a proposal.
The 1993 movie Darr featuring Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla and Sunny Deol revolved around the same theme, where Rahul (played by Shahrukh) an obsessive lover of Kiran (played by Juhi), continued to follow and stalk her even after marriage with Sunil (Sunny).
While other movies in that time had glorified such stalking as pure love, where the ‘love’ was shown to win at the end, Darr was different as Rahul was portrayed as villain in the movie. In the climax, Rahul tried to forcefully marry Kiran after stabbing her husband, but he was eventually killed by Sunil.
Therefore, the choice of the movie is perfect to conveying the message of ‘no mean no’ in the awareness campaign on violence against women. Yesterday, the UP police had used a clip from the movie Sholay to spread a message on road safety. Just a week ago, they had similarly used another clip from Sholay to spread awareness against spiting in public places.
It is notable here that police forces in different states have been finding unique ways to promote awareness among the public on issues ranging from traffic rules, masks, social distancing and covid restrictions. Last year, police officials in Chennai were seen wearing ‘coronavirus helmets’ to educate people about social distancing and lockdown rules.
