Honour Killings in Haryana by Kavita Krishnan (Countercurrents)
"'Only whores choose their own partners.... Recently an educated couple married against the samaj’s (community’s) wishes in Jhajjar. We hail the panchayat’s decision to execute them...The government cannot protect this atyachar (immoral behaviour).... (The law of the land) is the root of all problems... That’s your Constitution, ours is different.' – Mahendra Singh Tikait, farmers’ leader of Western UP
"'Yahan izzatdar woh hain jo ladki ko marte hain (Those who kill their girls are respected here).' – a teacher in rural Haryana
"'Khap leaders are keepers of Jat tradition.' - Justice (ret'd) Devi Singh Teotia, a former judge of the Punjab & Haryana HC, active member of the Sarv Khap Panchayat, demanding legalising of the khap panchayats
"Mahendra Singh Tikait’s outrageous and offensive remarks once again raise the question: why do the khaap panchayats of Haryana and Western UP which issue open ‘death sentences’ for couples who defy their caste-diktats on love and marriage, enjoy impunity?
"In the context of such executions, Congress MP from Rohtak Deepender Hooda (whom the Congress proudly counts among its contingent of ‘young MPs’) had expressed sympathy for the 'sentiments and local customs of khap panchayats.' Will the Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh tell us why leaders of their party endorse such “sentiments” that mock the constitution and openly call for lynching?
"Tikait says women who choose their own partners are ‘whores’. The ‘dishonour’ of ‘whoring’, in his eyes, does not lie, it seems, in the act of buying sexual services. After all, men in the same region openly buy their wives (as reproductive machines) from other states, because women are in short supply due to female foeticide. The ‘dishonour’ according to him lies primarily in women choosing their own partners. This choice threatens the structures of property and land, and with it, the very edifice of the feudal order."
See also:
Honour killings: A blot on Indian culture, society (Merinews, September 19, 2009):
"Honour killings are not always committed by the family, often the announcement of the brutal punishment is done by a Khap Panchayat (prominent in western UP and Haryana) or a Caste Panchayat, a court which protects traditional norms of caste in a village. Even if a household agrees to the will of their children, this panchayat does not go with the decision of the family; instead such families are asked to leave the village.
"Ravinder Singh Gehlout’s family is the recent target of Khap Panchayat in Dharana village in Haryana’s Jhajjar district. Gehlout's family has been asked to leave the village as Ravinder has married a girl named Shilpa, who is of the same gotra.
"Being from same gotra means sibling like relationship, so according to the Khap, the marriage in the same category is equivalent to incest."
And see anti-caste: WOMAN-KILLING CASTE COUNCILS IN HARYANA WANT LEGAL COVER (September 8, 2009)
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