In the 1950s all Western 'pundits' thought that India was a crazy idea! You heard me right. They used to think that India is an 'artificially created country' which would easily disintegrate into many smaller nations within a decade. How could a country exist with such a mindboggling diversity??
Despite obvious pressures from some small ethnic groups for independence, this prophesy was never fulfilled. The Indian Constitution - which was a result of 3 years of hard work - encapsulates some of the contradictions of India. It establishes a multi tier governance system, and allows high degree of autonomy to various ethnic groups, especially in matters of social customs, language and culture. [1]
It is because of this diversity, that actress Shabana Azmi refers to India as a country which lives in "several different centuries at the same time". It is because of this diversity, that India, despite having a very forward looking Constitution, has refrained from implementing the words of its founding fathers, in the most socially backward regions of India.
However, things change with time. India is not what it was 60 years ago. Economic liberalization and globalization has allowed a gigantic increase in personal disposable incomes. Very high rates of population growth in the 1980s means that 50% of the population now is below 25. An explosive growth in media, including print, TV and internet has made the young ones most aware of the world around them. This cocktail of factors has substantially changed the Indian society as we know it today - making it considerably more open than it was 20, or even 10 years ago!
But what about areas that still live in backward times? 16th century? 10th century?
Well naturally, society in those areas is facing pressures from all sides. The young and the rebellious want personal freedoms. Uneducated and ill-educated elders want to deny them that privilege. As a result, the conditions there have turned deadly.
Take Haryana for instance. Haryana's 2000 year old traditions do not allow marriage between almost any 2 people. Marrying outside your caste is out of the question. Even within your own caste, you can't marry someone of the same gotra (sub-caste) or from the same village. Dare break these laws, and you can be sentenced to death, by these illegal khap panchayats (caste councils).
Quite obviously, these ridiculous rules mean little to the Generation X and Y, which have grown up on MTV, FTV and Channel V.
But the terror of the Khaps is so dominant, that no politician in Haryana dares to speak against them. Such councils also command support in parts of western Uttar Pradesh and parts of northern Rajasthan. Deeds similar to those of the Khaps are also practiced by certain Sikh castes in Punjab.
Speaking personally, one of my (Haryanvi) uncles does believe in honour killings. He is not a blood relative though.
In such a situation, an official court in Haryana sentenced 5 men to death and 1 to life in connection with a 2007 honour killing. All the condemned are relatives of the girl, who married a boy from the same sub-caste. Both were killed. The boy's mother still lives in the fear of the Khaps, and faces social boycott, for having spoken out against the Khap menace. Over a dozen police have been deployed by the state to protect her and her family.
While I obviously disagree with the death penalty, but that aside the message from the Karnal sessions judge seems to have been - you executed 2 people who brought 'dishonour' to your community, but in doing so you have brought dishonour to our Constitution, and thus I am sentencing you to the same punishment - execution.
Unfortunately, rather than change their view of thinking, the Khaps have risen up in revolt. Revolt not against the Indian state, but against the Indian Constitution itself!
They are demanding a legal ban on marriages between people of the same gotra and different castes. Due to compulsions of electoral politics, not a single political leader in Haryana is speaking out against them!
If Haryana were a separate country, they might have had their wishes fulfilled within the bat of an eyelid. But unfortunately for them, Haryana is still a part of the Republic of India.
The fact of the matter is, that their wishes will never become true. Here is why:
1) Haryana makes up only 2.5% of India's population. Even adding up Punjab, parts of Rajasthan and parts of west UP would make it 10-12%. Rest of India would never agree to such a backward law.
2) The official state policy in all those states (and in fact the entire country), is to encourage inter-caste marriages. UP's Dalit Chief Minister encourages inter-caste and inter-religion marriages with cash prizes. So does Haryana. And many other Indian states.
3) Even assuming that the state authorities in Haryana decide to radically shift their policy - from encouraging to banning such marriages - they need to keep in mind, that the Hindu Marriage Act is a central law, and that laws passed by the Parliament have supremacy over laws passed by the states on concurrent matters.
4) The only way Haryana can ban such marriages, is if Parliament approves such an exception for that state. Considering that most of the rest of India does not share their barbaric beliefs, and considering that low-castes form a very strong voting bloc, it is very unlikely that such an exception would be allowed.
5) For a moment assuming that the Parliament allows Haryana to amend the Hindu Marriage Act (within its state jurisdiction), the courts can still find it unconstitutional.
6) Supposing if the courts do find these amendments constitutionally valid, any inter-caste or intra-gotra couple can still marry under the Special Marriage Act. [2]
7) In the rare circumstance that Haryana is allowed (by the Parliament and the courts) to repeal the Special Marriage Act as well, any couple in love can go outside of Haryana, get their marriage solemnized, and then return and have their marriage recognized back.
8) And finally, it would be impossible for Haryana to impose actual criminal penalties against such 'forbidden marriages'. While non-secular personal laws are allowed, criminal laws have to be secular (as per the Constitution). One mustn't forget that the Constitution does not allow violation of personal liberties or discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, religion or sex, as was made clear by the Delhi High Court judgment that decriminalized homosexuality.
According to me, the Khaps are fighting a losing battle. Unless they want Haryana to secede (which the Indian Constitution again does not allow), their dreams will remain just that - dreams.
As for those Indians who do not believe in the Khap terror and/or in their ridiculous customs, you need not worry too much. India has seen far worse things. Proving all skeptics wrong, India has not only survived, but thrived over the past 60 years. We will overcome this menace as well, although it could take some time. Thousand year old customs don't die off so soon.
Despite obvious pressures from some small ethnic groups for independence, this prophesy was never fulfilled. The Indian Constitution - which was a result of 3 years of hard work - encapsulates some of the contradictions of India. It establishes a multi tier governance system, and allows high degree of autonomy to various ethnic groups, especially in matters of social customs, language and culture. [1]
It is because of this diversity, that actress Shabana Azmi refers to India as a country which lives in "several different centuries at the same time". It is because of this diversity, that India, despite having a very forward looking Constitution, has refrained from implementing the words of its founding fathers, in the most socially backward regions of India.
However, things change with time. India is not what it was 60 years ago. Economic liberalization and globalization has allowed a gigantic increase in personal disposable incomes. Very high rates of population growth in the 1980s means that 50% of the population now is below 25. An explosive growth in media, including print, TV and internet has made the young ones most aware of the world around them. This cocktail of factors has substantially changed the Indian society as we know it today - making it considerably more open than it was 20, or even 10 years ago!
But what about areas that still live in backward times? 16th century? 10th century?
Well naturally, society in those areas is facing pressures from all sides. The young and the rebellious want personal freedoms. Uneducated and ill-educated elders want to deny them that privilege. As a result, the conditions there have turned deadly.
Take Haryana for instance. Haryana's 2000 year old traditions do not allow marriage between almost any 2 people. Marrying outside your caste is out of the question. Even within your own caste, you can't marry someone of the same gotra (sub-caste) or from the same village. Dare break these laws, and you can be sentenced to death, by these illegal khap panchayats (caste councils).
Quite obviously, these ridiculous rules mean little to the Generation X and Y, which have grown up on MTV, FTV and Channel V.
But the terror of the Khaps is so dominant, that no politician in Haryana dares to speak against them. Such councils also command support in parts of western Uttar Pradesh and parts of northern Rajasthan. Deeds similar to those of the Khaps are also practiced by certain Sikh castes in Punjab.
Speaking personally, one of my (Haryanvi) uncles does believe in honour killings. He is not a blood relative though.
In such a situation, an official court in Haryana sentenced 5 men to death and 1 to life in connection with a 2007 honour killing. All the condemned are relatives of the girl, who married a boy from the same sub-caste. Both were killed. The boy's mother still lives in the fear of the Khaps, and faces social boycott, for having spoken out against the Khap menace. Over a dozen police have been deployed by the state to protect her and her family.
While I obviously disagree with the death penalty, but that aside the message from the Karnal sessions judge seems to have been - you executed 2 people who brought 'dishonour' to your community, but in doing so you have brought dishonour to our Constitution, and thus I am sentencing you to the same punishment - execution.
Unfortunately, rather than change their view of thinking, the Khaps have risen up in revolt. Revolt not against the Indian state, but against the Indian Constitution itself!
They are demanding a legal ban on marriages between people of the same gotra and different castes. Due to compulsions of electoral politics, not a single political leader in Haryana is speaking out against them!
If Haryana were a separate country, they might have had their wishes fulfilled within the bat of an eyelid. But unfortunately for them, Haryana is still a part of the Republic of India.
The fact of the matter is, that their wishes will never become true. Here is why:
1) Haryana makes up only 2.5% of India's population. Even adding up Punjab, parts of Rajasthan and parts of west UP would make it 10-12%. Rest of India would never agree to such a backward law.
2) The official state policy in all those states (and in fact the entire country), is to encourage inter-caste marriages. UP's Dalit Chief Minister encourages inter-caste and inter-religion marriages with cash prizes. So does Haryana. And many other Indian states.
3) Even assuming that the state authorities in Haryana decide to radically shift their policy - from encouraging to banning such marriages - they need to keep in mind, that the Hindu Marriage Act is a central law, and that laws passed by the Parliament have supremacy over laws passed by the states on concurrent matters.
4) The only way Haryana can ban such marriages, is if Parliament approves such an exception for that state. Considering that most of the rest of India does not share their barbaric beliefs, and considering that low-castes form a very strong voting bloc, it is very unlikely that such an exception would be allowed.
5) For a moment assuming that the Parliament allows Haryana to amend the Hindu Marriage Act (within its state jurisdiction), the courts can still find it unconstitutional.
6) Supposing if the courts do find these amendments constitutionally valid, any inter-caste or intra-gotra couple can still marry under the Special Marriage Act. [2]
7) In the rare circumstance that Haryana is allowed (by the Parliament and the courts) to repeal the Special Marriage Act as well, any couple in love can go outside of Haryana, get their marriage solemnized, and then return and have their marriage recognized back.
8) And finally, it would be impossible for Haryana to impose actual criminal penalties against such 'forbidden marriages'. While non-secular personal laws are allowed, criminal laws have to be secular (as per the Constitution). One mustn't forget that the Constitution does not allow violation of personal liberties or discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, religion or sex, as was made clear by the Delhi High Court judgment that decriminalized homosexuality.
According to me, the Khaps are fighting a losing battle. Unless they want Haryana to secede (which the Indian Constitution again does not allow), their dreams will remain just that - dreams.
As for those Indians who do not believe in the Khap terror and/or in their ridiculous customs, you need not worry too much. India has seen far worse things. Proving all skeptics wrong, India has not only survived, but thrived over the past 60 years. We will overcome this menace as well, although it could take some time. Thousand year old customs don't die off so soon.
I think their demand is just a non-sense thing and the best way is to ignore those kind of backward mentality...But of course the young people living in those villages are having a hard life.
ReplyDeleteBut I also think their is a bigger picture of this whole story, which is the contradiction of two generations on any issue. Almost every house have these kind of issues. Our old generation want us to live in their way.Each parent want to set a certain morality criteria for their son which create problems. I think the old generation also has to understand that world changes continuously, you can't set path for someone as we can never decide which path is right or wrong.
As someone who was raised in the western hemisphere in a christian environment, I had not usually associated the words 'honor' and 'killing'. To this day, in fact, I would not instinctively attempt to qualify a killing, especially an obvious murder - as an honorable thing to do.
ReplyDeleteStill, in October 2007, when the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimated that the annual world wide total of primarily female honor-killing victims was as high as 5,000, for some reason I thought that these horrendous, and to my mind senseless, killings of beautiful and vibrant young people characterized the patriarchal world of Muslim society of the Eastern world.
Then, in July, 2009, when Canada's 'National Post' ran a story entitled "Rise in Canadian Honor Killings Should Not Be Ignored" (http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1821919), again the Muslim-sounding names did not hint at the fact the the phenomena of honor killings often occurred in Hindu society as well.
Briefly then, it is only within the recent months that I have become more familiar with Hindu culture and that I have discovered, as Abhay exposes in such meticulous detail, that honor killings have been very much a part of the northern Punjabi States since time immemorial, and continue to snag and punish star-crossed lovers to this day.
Finally, in today's (May 15) Hindustan Times, K.S Money, secretary general of the National Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) confirmed Abhay's conclusion that these 'honor killings' are in reality 'dishonorable killings' and he added that:
"These honor killings are not legal. And the fact of the matter is that the (Indian) States have failed to protect human rights."
Finally, while the rhetoric of honor killings seeks to justify these barbaric practices by referring to traditional teachings which are not necessarily religious in nature, I believe that the compassionate approach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will prevail, that the petitions of the Khap panchayat will fall on deaf ears and soon be a thing of the past, and that the comforting and enlightening aspects of religious faith will once again accompany the spiritually- inclined on their common quest for peace, truth, wisdom, liberation and joy.
Hi Jean-Paul,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. One minor correction. UNHRC is United Nations Human Rights Council, while K S Money is the secretary general of the NHRC (National Human Rights Commission). NHRC is an autonomous statutory body established under 'The Protection of Human Rights Act' (1993). Though NHRC has few powers of its own, its reports are often used by courts in India, in arriving at decisions related to human rights abuses by the state or non-state authorities.
Another important point to ponder about - while most Indian states have set up state level Human Rights Commissions, Haryana has not done so even 17 years later (thus violating the Paris Principles).
oh yea...the Paris Principles.
ReplyDeleteThe out-dated Haryana patriarchies surely have the means (and the responsibility) to educate themselves, don't they??
These outrageous "honor killings" have to stop NOW.
Hi Abhay,
ReplyDeleteWell, as I belong to North Rajasthan, I have seen such cases of backward mentality. Though, there has been no killings in my hometown, for inter-caste/intra-gotra marriages but the scene is still bad. I have seen 3-4 cases in my own acquintance and sadly each case was of a well educated family. An uncle of mine left the town, after his daughter(Doctor) got married with her love(Doctor) from a lower caste,(with his permission, btw). Besides inter-caste and intra-gotra marriages, love marriages (inter-gotra + intra-caste) are also discouraged there. In another case, a girl ran away with the boy from not-so-close-neighbourhood and got married. When she came back, her parents closed their doors for her forever, saying that she is dead for them. Though, running away was very wrong, but still I don't see her parent's reaction justified. Worst part is that, the boys father is a lawyer (man of law).
Many such and worse cases are seen everyday, and it's too frustrating that we can't do anything about it.
The question that comes to mind then, is that I wonder if there exists young couples who do get married because they are in love, or are all marriages arranged by the families, whose own marriages were it turn arranged.
ReplyDeleteIt boggles my mind that educated persons, medical doctors, lawyers, would even give a second thought to this seemingly meaningless tradition. Who or what is honored, exactly??
Also, it surprises me that there do not exist NGO's who are specifically attempting to come to terms with this primitive and barbaric mentality.
What I do expect to see, however, is that women themselves will tackle this absurd patriarchal tradition and have it overturned once and for all in a court of law, and officially enforce the strictest penalties to these idiots who pass for the wise elders of Khap panchayat.
Makes me livid.
Rajat, Its a relief to hear that honor killings dont occur in your hometown. North Rajasthan has a society similar to the neighboring Haryana, and caste based loyalties are very strong, as was made clear by the protests and the counter protests lead by the Meena and the Gujjar castes, on the issue of who gets the better chunk of affirmative action policies (aka reservation).
ReplyDeleteWhat Rajat pointed out is prevalent all over India, albeit to varying extents. Parents stop talking to their children when they marry outside their wishes. I personally saw such a case in Delhi, when the daughter of one of my neighbors married another neighbor (all of us were within 50 metres), and they stopped all contact with them. They even put out a gun and threatened that if the daughter and the son-in-law trespass into their property, they would be shot at, thus ending any scope of reconciliation.
On the other hand I still believe that core Indian values forbid any parent from loving themselves (or their honor) more than their child. Even in my extended family there was opposition to some marriages (not inter-caste, but inter-class) although ultimately the parents had to give up their unreasonable demands. I believe if the parents cant bring to loving their children more than themselves, then their children also need not return the favor.
JP, since you mentioned court of law, you might find the following link interesting. Even before independence, an official court had held intra gotra marriages to be legal.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Same-gotra-marriage-legal-court-had-ruled-65-years-ago/articleshow/5932546.cms
As far as NGOs are concerned, India does have a pretty active civil society - on almost every single issue - from advocating Kashmiri independence to those supporting gay rights. I am sure there must be many on this issue as well.
@Abhay
ReplyDelete"I believe if the parents cant bring to loving their children more than themselves, then their children also need not return the favor."
Abhay, I know this is right to a some extent. But from a certain point of view, it looks like "Either you accept our marriage, or we won't ask for your permission." I remember, the exact argument was given by one of the parents in a case I mentioned earlier. What do you say about that?
Why should you need to ask your parents a permit to marry? I thought that marriage was a union of 2 souls! What do your parents have to do with it?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me the very notion of "honor" is somehow flawed.
ReplyDeleteCan't quite put my finger on it. Can you?
A case in point: honor killing are criminal in Canada; even the possession of a deadly weapon is questioned:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/06/14/dorval-stabbing.html?ref=rss