New Delhi - As India celebrated its Republic Day with parades blending modern technology with traditional culture, a less successful mix of old and new was being played out on the nation's television screens.
Activists of a right-wing Hindu nationalist organisation, outraged by what they considered to be "obscene" behaviour, stormed into a fashionable bar in the city of Mangalore on Saturday and assaulted its female patrons.
Video footage showed the attackers chasing and punching the women as they fled screaming from the "Amnesia" venue.
According to one victim, their crime was simply "having a good time" by enjoying some dancing and drinking.
But the activists from the extremist Sri Ram Sena (Lord Ram's Army), which has claimed responsibility for the attack, hurled abuse at the women and dragged them out by the hair.
The group's founder, Pramod Mutalik, was unapologetic, telling the Times of India that his members were "the custodians of Indian culture" who had to protect women from "going astray".
Police have arrested more than 25 people, including Mutalik, over the incident that sparked a national outcry as the scenes were endlessly replayed on television on Monday - as India celebrated Republic Day.
They reignited the debate over what is culturally acceptable behaviour in modern India, a traditionally conservative society where women face constant pressure to remain "modest" at all times.
The Sri Rama Sena is one of several Hindu radical groups who target female conduct, inter-faith relationships, religious conversions, Valentine's Day and other perceived "Western" deviations from Indian culture.
Such moral positions are found not only on the fringes of life in India.
In 2005, two policewomen in the state of Uttar Pradesh were suspended for assaulting couples who dared to go on dates in a public park.
In the same state, the Sangh Parivar, an umbrella organisation representing Hindu nationalists, has campaigned against women wearing jeans and skirts or being seen with male friends during school hours.
The then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh banned beauty pageants in 2000, deeming them immoral, while far-right student activists have threatened to publicly humiliate pageant contestants.
Sri Rama Sen "is closer to the misogynistic, liberty-hating Taliban than it thinks" said an editorial in the Hindustan Times newspaper in reference to the hardline Islamists.
"If the women in the pub had broken no law, it's nobody's business what they may have been up to."
Ranjana Kumari, a director with the Centre for Social Research told reporters that the attack was "exactly what the Taliban does. Curtailing women's freedom is the goal of such goons".
The growing row has spread into party politics just months ahead of general elections.
The opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules the state of Karnataka where Mangalore is located, condemned the assault.
But India's ruling Congress Party was quick to point out its ties with some radical Hindu groups.
As one victim told the Hindu newspaper, "we have been molested and humiliated in the name of God and country by people who obviously have no regard for either of the two". - AFP