As I sit down to pen my feelings about the 'honour' killings in parts of India, news just came in that another couple has been massacred in some part of rural Haryana for the so called honour of their caste, family and village. So after their killings, has the family restored its dignity or have they lost it completely.
Wasn't dividing the humans into castes a reason enough for us to hate each other that we have advocates of sub-castes, gotras and what not coming in to divide us even more? I wonder why even forward-looking politicians (like Naveen Jindal, though he has hardly done anything to justify his forwardness) fall in line with khap panchayats and bow their heads before them. What is it that must have made them support the Khaps in full public view when they knew that the media is going to make a mockrey of their image. May be they feel that they can win over the hearts of people (read votebank) by supporting the khaps. The argument of their sympathiser politicians and khap leaders is simple: khaps don't order honour killings. It's true in many of the cases that they don't openly order honour killings. But the problem is that they create such an atmosphere that the brother kills his sister and the father is forced to kill the daughter just to save the "honour" of the family.
As far as i remember, some of the Jat community's highest ranking leaders have had no control over their children getting married to a person of the same gotra/caste/village. There is more bad news for the 'love birds' in Haryana. Arya Samaj under whom they were taking refuge for quite sometime when they were in the 'hitlist' of their own family members has issued a statement stating that it will no longer facilitate love marriages without the consent of the couple's parents, relatives and the entire village. Now getting the consent of them all will be a herculean task for them. Aab yeh bichare kaha jaayenge. :(
The solution lies in making them understand why their opinion is outdated. People who wield respect and influence need to address this issue logically rather than emotionally. If the Khaps understand why the Gotra's wont matter now, then they would relent.
Let us all join hands and say 'No to Barbarism in the name of traditions'.
Totally agreed on this line my bro
ReplyDelete"Wasn't dividing the humans into castes a reason enough for us to hate each other that we have advocates of sub-castes, gotras and what not coming in to divide us even more?"
It is quite unfortunate that two persons wants to live together for the rest of their life but society is anti towards them. We are in a Global village , educated but still problem lies somewhere. As far as i think the thinking of people needs to be changed. Parents should try and understand their kids and Generation Gap needs to be reduced to minimal.
ReplyDelete"People who wield respect and influence need to address this issue logically rather than emotionally."Well said. But the biggest hurdle is the mental block these so called custodians of honor have. We talk about rural and adult education, but do we just intend to make these sections literate? I think the focus of rural education needs to be to help people reason, question and think and make them more flexible so as to accept changes and be with the times. The more educated and aware a society is, the lesser would be the place for such unreasonable and extremely detrimental practices.
ReplyDeleteHonour killing in any community or religion is basically a weapon with which women and their freedom to chose is further curtailed . Honour killing also represents the hurt ego which cannot accept that there few youngsters who will not follow their dictats . Having said that one has also heard weird statements coming from Khap panchayats which sometimes imply fast food makes ppl love each enough to marry . It is all very fine to call these acts of chauvinistic bloated ego and also narrow minded but its also important to recognise literacy , money , so called progress is not preventing or capable of taking on or transforming the attitude of the Khaps . The dogged determination of human spirit which years for freedom , fights and struggles for freedom to chose one's own partner and fighting against all odds to achieve that alone will bring about a slow transformation akin to trickle down effect .
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