The decision of two major khap panchayats in Haryana to impose a dress code on women and have men from the community watch and report activities of college girls who violate the code shows the modern Indian state in poor light. After all, the Constitution promises equality of opportunities, freedom of expression and the right to life for both men and women. But nestled around Delhi where this Constitution was drafted, we have entrenched rural hierarchies like khaps taking advantage of the deference that the political class and the modern state has adopted towards traditions and customs of the people. Now, the relentless onslaught of modernity has been caught in the crosshairs of the khaps. Their targets are young women who embrace the comfort of wearing jeans and the convenience of mobile phones and the unlimited possibilities of the Internet.
The khap panchayats also make the outrageous claim that these steps will ensure that honour killings will not occur by preventing youngsters from mingling. But many of them also justify the families’ roles in the crimes. After the brutal “honour” killing of Nidhi and Dharmender Barak by her family in Haryana’s Rohtak district, a khap leader said he would have “meted out the same punishment” had his daughters married similarly. Despite several killings, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda continues to give khap panchayats a clean chit. Recently, he termed honour killings a sin perpetrated by family members while noting that khaps had never ordered a killing. That may be correct but there is no denying the climate for murder, restriction of freedoms and fear of social boycott created by khap diktats forbidding same-gotra, same-village, and cluster-of-village marriages.
The Supreme Court prescribed the death penalty as a fitting punishment for those held guilty of honour killings. Such extreme punishments rarely deter these killers — who are unrepentant and gloat about salvaging family honour — safe in the knowledge that an influential hierarchy tacitly approves their actions. Hooda has been talking of creating awareness against honour killings but has given the impression that it is politically expedient to shield the khaps. In 2010, he categorically defended khaps before a Group of Ministers attempting to create tough legislation against honour killings. Attempts to amend the Indian Penal Code to define honour killing and the Evidence Act to shift the burden of proof in such cases on the accused failed. Haryana also opposed a suggestion to waive the residency requirement of 30-days prior notice of intended marriage in the Special Marriage Act. This could have saved consenting runaway adult couples from being easily identified and caught.
Perhaps, it is the political clout wielded by khaps that forces powerful state leaders like Hooda to look away. A fortnight ago, a meeting of powerful khaps in the Haryana region warned that without OBC reservations for Jats not a single vote will land in the Congress basket. Assertion of political power and identity politics can be beneficial for the community. Khaps have also been known to advocate widow remarriage and take up environmental issues. But Haryana needs to send out a clear message to these khap panchayats that their misogynistic stances will not be tolerated. To achieve this end, Haryana’s politics must honestly interrogate oppressive patriarchal structures and their relation to honour killings and skewed sex ratio.
