Reader's Quotient:Transforming the DNA of Society

Authored By:Akansha Agrawal:

Somebody recently pointed out to me that India had grown massively in terms of economic development and was poised to take on the supposed super power of the United States of America. I read Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani and the belief grew stronger. And then I read the news report that sent a chill down my spine- the murder of a Delhi based journalist Nirupama Pathak. Crime?

Being a Brahmin and falling in love with a Kayastha, a caste considered lower in stature. In short, Honour Killing. And Nirupama was supposed to have ‘dishonoured’ the family; of course, the case is still under investigation. Human Rights Watch defines Honour Killing as acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members, who are held to have brought dishonour upon the family. Broadly, it could refer to killing of both the males and females. The case is not one of its kind in India.

 

A few days back, MP Naveen Jindal visited khaps (Panchayat) which have demanded that the same gotra marriages among the Hindus be banned by law. We have seen cases where Hindu-Muslim couples have had to seek protection under the law, because they fear for their lives from either the Hindu or the Muslim community or both! India, a country they claim is at the peak of its development, cannot give rights to its citizens to choose their life partner, to live their life with whom  they want to and when they want to. Nirupama Pathak was 22, legally an adult and above marriageable age, the law gave her every right to live, and the society, and her family took it away, brutally. What is even more disquieting is that, the women of the families do not oppose it. In Nirupama’s case, her mother is the one who has been accused of killing her. Is the honour of the family so weighty that the life of a woman falls short of meeting its importance? Apparently and most alarmingly, the answer is yes. The complacency of the members of the same clan, same community, same family, going to the extent of perpetrating it; is plain disturbing. In a recent case, a village Panchayat ordered a husband and wife to live as siblings, simply because they turned out to be belonging to the same gotra.

There is no law at the moment to deal specifically with these cold blooded murders and the perpetrators roam scot-free. The TV serials are not helping any! Serials like Geet Hui Sabse Parayi have shown these crimes being committed and to whatever extent producers claim that they’re fighting these evils, the effect is exactly the opposite, and it is not only the older generation which follows them, the younger generation too indulges in a lot of television, especially if the elders in the family watch. Of course, honour killing is a problem not just confined to India, but the mindset so deeply ingrained in the people and the society as a whole negates every kind of development this country might have ever seen. Nirupama Pathak, a journalist, a media person; the same media which champions the Right to Expression, was murdered, and so was every woman, who dared to live on her own terms. Recently, a 16-year-old girl, Imrana, from Bhojpur was set on fire inside her house in a case of what the police called ‘moral vigilantism’. Her crime was that she was in love! In another case in May 2008, Jayvirsingh Bhadodiya shot his daughter Vandana Bhadodiya and struck her in the head with an axe. Her crime? getting married to a man, who belonged to a lower caste! Although Human Rights activists have come forth for the cause, demanding laws which deal strictly with this menace, their attempts have evidently borne few results. And a few others don’t help; wasting the time and attention of the courts by pointing to frivolous issues, and issuing unnecessary PILs!

The politicians have remained tight lipped simply because these villages form a majority of their vote banks. The courts have to take a tougher stance on the issue, and give punishments that discourage people from committing these crimes. The government can be pressurised to rally for the cause, by bringing to their attention the fact that the state of Haryana alone registers about 100 deaths per year! The villagers should be educated to change their mindsets and those khaps giving death verdicts should be declared unconstitutional and infringing of basic rights. Solitary cases keep surfacing every few months; most just remain buried in the sands of time. If the society cannot guarantee its citizens the freedom the constitution professes it does, I wonder who the constitution stands for!