COURT VERSUS KHAP
The law of the land is up against a medieval mindset that accepts no change — even if it’s ordered by the Supreme Court
“There is nothing honourable in such killings...they are nothing but barbaric and shameful acts of murder committed by brutal, feudal-minded persons who deserve punishment.” — Supreme Court ruling on April 19
The Supreme Court’s condemnation has rattled khap panchayats, but they are rounding on it furiously and cannily accusing it of culpability for the very crime of which they’re accused — honour killings. Sunil Dahiya, the rich, 40-something secretary of one of Haryana’s oldest and largest khaps, Dahiya, tells TOI that there has been a spurt in honour killings in Haryana in the last couple of years and the “courts are getting it done”. The businessman, whose khap counts one-crore members and is spread over 92 villages in the state, insists that India’s antiquated system of justice “validates marriages between same-gotra ‘brother’ and ‘sister’.” This is why “the victimized families have to resort to (honour) killings,” he concludes triumphantly.
Sunil is not alone in his defiance and ready defence of the typical mindset of the khap panchayat. The battle cry sounds loud and clear at Sisana’s cowshed, where community representatives — a bunch of retired men with wrinkled faces — converge around a hookah every morning and evening to discuss “policy matters”. When this correspondent visits, the “policy matter” up for debate is the recent court ruling. Dr Jaikishan, who is on the khap panel as a ‘social worker’, says the khaps feel aggrieved because “we are all of the view that if there are no khaps, crime rate will be 20 times what it is now. Young boys and girls will start marrying in the same gotra, they will play loud music, girls will wear skimpy clothes — everything will go haywire”. Court or not, says Jaikishan, “ban or declare us illegal, we will continue to function the way we do in the greater interest of our community”.
But shouldn’t khaps live by the law of the land, just like everybody else? Retired policeman Rajinder Singh, who is also on the community panel as a ‘social worker’ says the law of the land has to chime with community systems that have served well for centuries. “Jatland has a set of rules and laws, based on our centuriesold scientific tradition. People living here have to follow that. If they can’t, they might as well leave.”
Sunil explains community policing cleaves to a “modern outlook”, even as he emphasizes his own attributes “as a relatively young and educated member of the khap”. “It’s the Supreme Court which is orthodox and regressive as they are stuck to a century-old law book that was made by the Britishers,” he says.
Meanwhile, Dahiya khap has been experimenting with acquiring a modern look, permitting commercial spin-offs such as its own letterhead, special T-shirts, trophies and books. Recently, it became the first khap in 1500 years to have inducted women on to the panel.
But the change is admittedly cosmetic with Sunil
saying the women panelists are not meant to take decisions but convey messages. “They must tell their children how disastrous it is to marry in the same gotra. It becomes the responsibility of women members to keep children away from social evils.”
Here, in the heart of Haryana, defence of the khap system appears to have made its members fearless. Jaikishan says they will bring the law and science into their fight to rule with an iron hand. Any ban would mean a legal appeal, he says. “We will reason with them that our practice of not allowing same-gotra marriages has scientific basis. If they can consider the religious laws of Muslims, why can’t they allow our traditions? And if, God forbid, that is also rejected, we will go to Jantar Mantar and protest, or do whatever it takes.”
Interestingly, khap members express incomprehension about extending the right to appeal to their own community. Pratap Singh Pahalwan, 70, who heads Dahiya khap, declares that “khaps are for the people, by the people. They can never take a wrong or unfair decision. So there is no question of someone not obeying us. If someone does, he will have to face a complete social boycott — he will be left without business, property and family.”
Is Times of India supporting Khap panchayat ?. Please read the following article!
CASTE & EFFECT
Clan to Klu Klux Klan? Why a ban won’t work
Afew years ago, Maharashtra’s Chitpavan Brahmins organized a community meeting in Pune. Standing under a huge cut-out of Parshuram, the chief guest told the 100,000-strong gathering about the glory of the mythical sage. The chief guest was Air Marshal Bhushan Gokhale, then vice-chief of the Indian Air Force. He attended in full uniform, all the better to remind his community that one IAF unit had Parshu, or the axe, as its symbol. The air marshal’s presence and remarks went largely unnoticed, except for mild protest from some Dalit groups about a senior air force officer attending a “blatantly casteist conference”.
It is a salutary story about the vice-like grip of caste on India. This is a country where people can change their religion but not their caste. Here, the surname is a social marker that reflects a mindset and lays down an unwritten code of conduct to follow. Manoj and Babli, a young couple in Haryana, dared to defy the code by falling in love and marrying. In the land of khaps, where same-gotra marriages are considered a sin, the couple joined the long list of young people who have been punished for their crime of passion. For years, the khaps have been wreaking havoc in the Jat belt — Haryana, Rajasthan and western UP — but it is only now that the Supreme Court has said these kangaroo courts are “barbaric and illegal”.
They are not about to go away so easily. Soon after the court’s order to “dismantle” them, 84 representatives of various khaps decided to file a review petition. They have also decided to stage an indefinite fast in Delhi during the monsoon session of Parliament. It is clearly meant to be a show of strength. Should the tussle result in banning them and effectively pushing them underground?
No, say some experts, because the law cannot change mindsets. Nonica Datta, author of “A Social History of the Jats”, says it is a “joke” for the state to ban the khap panchayat because “the khap panchayat in its recent avatar is strengthened by the very forces that claim to ban it”.
Datta, who currently teaches history at the University of Toronto, asks a significant rhetorical question: “What can the law do?” Then she answers it herself by offering the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act and the Sati Prohibition Act as good examples of legal instruments that were “misused to oppress the weak and strengthen the powerful”.
Datta may have a point. In India, caste and politics have a symbiotic relationship with both needing each other to reinforce their strength. Last year’s hue and cry over a spate of killings ordered by various khaps had the political class rushing to their rescue. Veteran Haryana politician Om Prakash Chautala justified the khap in the name of tradition and custom and the much-younger Congress MP Navin Jindal opposed action against them.
Political observers say this merely underlines a very real truth — that legal weapons cannot change the mindset that allows caste-based politics.
Dalit activist Chandrabhan Prasad doesn’t agree. He says a ban may help but it must be across the board. “All caste organizations play a negative role as they perpetuate the caste value system. Khap panchayats must be banned because they are not only deadly instruments of protecting ‘blood purity’ and form the backbone of the caste order, they are also terribly feudal and anti-democratic. Often, the constitutionally valid panchayati raj institutions also act as khap panchayats. They should also be banned.”
But Datta insists a ban may be reductive. “It may establish the rule of law, but it does not offer justice to the victims.”
She adds that a ban would also “criminalize the entire community” even as it proved unable to “address the permeation of violence in the civil society in any radical way.”
Sociologist Shiv Visvanathan agrees. “Modern democracy is not some purist concept that has to sanitize organizations. Khaps can still decide about rites of passage but must seek to operate within the constitutional framework,” he says, adding that a ban might simply drive “these organizations underground. Why convert a khap into a Klu Klux Klan.”
In defiant spirit, they seem a long way from that.
Source: The Times of India Dt 01.05.2011
The law of the land is up against a medieval mindset that accepts no change — even if it’s ordered by the Supreme Court
“There is nothing honourable in such killings...they are nothing but barbaric and shameful acts of murder committed by brutal, feudal-minded persons who deserve punishment.” — Supreme Court ruling on April 19
The Supreme Court’s condemnation has rattled khap panchayats, but they are rounding on it furiously and cannily accusing it of culpability for the very crime of which they’re accused — honour killings. Sunil Dahiya, the rich, 40-something secretary of one of Haryana’s oldest and largest khaps, Dahiya, tells TOI that there has been a spurt in honour killings in Haryana in the last couple of years and the “courts are getting it done”. The businessman, whose khap counts one-crore members and is spread over 92 villages in the state, insists that India’s antiquated system of justice “validates marriages between same-gotra ‘brother’ and ‘sister’.” This is why “the victimized families have to resort to (honour) killings,” he concludes triumphantly.
Sunil is not alone in his defiance and ready defence of the typical mindset of the khap panchayat. The battle cry sounds loud and clear at Sisana’s cowshed, where community representatives — a bunch of retired men with wrinkled faces — converge around a hookah every morning and evening to discuss “policy matters”. When this correspondent visits, the “policy matter” up for debate is the recent court ruling. Dr Jaikishan, who is on the khap panel as a ‘social worker’, says the khaps feel aggrieved because “we are all of the view that if there are no khaps, crime rate will be 20 times what it is now. Young boys and girls will start marrying in the same gotra, they will play loud music, girls will wear skimpy clothes — everything will go haywire”. Court or not, says Jaikishan, “ban or declare us illegal, we will continue to function the way we do in the greater interest of our community”.
But shouldn’t khaps live by the law of the land, just like everybody else? Retired policeman Rajinder Singh, who is also on the community panel as a ‘social worker’ says the law of the land has to chime with community systems that have served well for centuries. “Jatland has a set of rules and laws, based on our centuriesold scientific tradition. People living here have to follow that. If they can’t, they might as well leave.”
Sunil explains community policing cleaves to a “modern outlook”, even as he emphasizes his own attributes “as a relatively young and educated member of the khap”. “It’s the Supreme Court which is orthodox and regressive as they are stuck to a century-old law book that was made by the Britishers,” he says.
Meanwhile, Dahiya khap has been experimenting with acquiring a modern look, permitting commercial spin-offs such as its own letterhead, special T-shirts, trophies and books. Recently, it became the first khap in 1500 years to have inducted women on to the panel.
But the change is admittedly cosmetic with Sunil
saying the women panelists are not meant to take decisions but convey messages. “They must tell their children how disastrous it is to marry in the same gotra. It becomes the responsibility of women members to keep children away from social evils.”
Here, in the heart of Haryana, defence of the khap system appears to have made its members fearless. Jaikishan says they will bring the law and science into their fight to rule with an iron hand. Any ban would mean a legal appeal, he says. “We will reason with them that our practice of not allowing same-gotra marriages has scientific basis. If they can consider the religious laws of Muslims, why can’t they allow our traditions? And if, God forbid, that is also rejected, we will go to Jantar Mantar and protest, or do whatever it takes.”
Interestingly, khap members express incomprehension about extending the right to appeal to their own community. Pratap Singh Pahalwan, 70, who heads Dahiya khap, declares that “khaps are for the people, by the people. They can never take a wrong or unfair decision. So there is no question of someone not obeying us. If someone does, he will have to face a complete social boycott — he will be left without business, property and family.”
Is Times of India supporting Khap panchayat ?. Please read the following article!
CASTE & EFFECT
Clan to Klu Klux Klan? Why a ban won’t work
Afew years ago, Maharashtra’s Chitpavan Brahmins organized a community meeting in Pune. Standing under a huge cut-out of Parshuram, the chief guest told the 100,000-strong gathering about the glory of the mythical sage. The chief guest was Air Marshal Bhushan Gokhale, then vice-chief of the Indian Air Force. He attended in full uniform, all the better to remind his community that one IAF unit had Parshu, or the axe, as its symbol. The air marshal’s presence and remarks went largely unnoticed, except for mild protest from some Dalit groups about a senior air force officer attending a “blatantly casteist conference”.
It is a salutary story about the vice-like grip of caste on India. This is a country where people can change their religion but not their caste. Here, the surname is a social marker that reflects a mindset and lays down an unwritten code of conduct to follow. Manoj and Babli, a young couple in Haryana, dared to defy the code by falling in love and marrying. In the land of khaps, where same-gotra marriages are considered a sin, the couple joined the long list of young people who have been punished for their crime of passion. For years, the khaps have been wreaking havoc in the Jat belt — Haryana, Rajasthan and western UP — but it is only now that the Supreme Court has said these kangaroo courts are “barbaric and illegal”.
They are not about to go away so easily. Soon after the court’s order to “dismantle” them, 84 representatives of various khaps decided to file a review petition. They have also decided to stage an indefinite fast in Delhi during the monsoon session of Parliament. It is clearly meant to be a show of strength. Should the tussle result in banning them and effectively pushing them underground?
No, say some experts, because the law cannot change mindsets. Nonica Datta, author of “A Social History of the Jats”, says it is a “joke” for the state to ban the khap panchayat because “the khap panchayat in its recent avatar is strengthened by the very forces that claim to ban it”.
Datta, who currently teaches history at the University of Toronto, asks a significant rhetorical question: “What can the law do?” Then she answers it herself by offering the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act and the Sati Prohibition Act as good examples of legal instruments that were “misused to oppress the weak and strengthen the powerful”.
Datta may have a point. In India, caste and politics have a symbiotic relationship with both needing each other to reinforce their strength. Last year’s hue and cry over a spate of killings ordered by various khaps had the political class rushing to their rescue. Veteran Haryana politician Om Prakash Chautala justified the khap in the name of tradition and custom and the much-younger Congress MP Navin Jindal opposed action against them.
Political observers say this merely underlines a very real truth — that legal weapons cannot change the mindset that allows caste-based politics.
Dalit activist Chandrabhan Prasad doesn’t agree. He says a ban may help but it must be across the board. “All caste organizations play a negative role as they perpetuate the caste value system. Khap panchayats must be banned because they are not only deadly instruments of protecting ‘blood purity’ and form the backbone of the caste order, they are also terribly feudal and anti-democratic. Often, the constitutionally valid panchayati raj institutions also act as khap panchayats. They should also be banned.”
But Datta insists a ban may be reductive. “It may establish the rule of law, but it does not offer justice to the victims.”
She adds that a ban would also “criminalize the entire community” even as it proved unable to “address the permeation of violence in the civil society in any radical way.”
Sociologist Shiv Visvanathan agrees. “Modern democracy is not some purist concept that has to sanitize organizations. Khaps can still decide about rites of passage but must seek to operate within the constitutional framework,” he says, adding that a ban might simply drive “these organizations underground. Why convert a khap into a Klu Klux Klan.”
In defiant spirit, they seem a long way from that.
Source: The Times of India Dt 01.05.2011
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