Postive Indicators frm the Khap-Panchayat Scenario
RAJBIR DESWAL
In the normal course, these panchayats are nothing more than kangaroo courts. Yet the diktats find acceptance
Adverse publicity seems to be making the Khaps more cautious, more saneReining in the Khap Panchayats
I was attending a seminar recently when I had cause to squirm. A representative from South India made a case for changing the name by which the grass-roots people’s organisations are called. He argued that Panchayats had got a bad name, especially since in some North Indian states, there were Khap Panchayats that had awarded death sentences to perfectly innocent young people, whose only fault was falling in love! I come from the land of Khap Panchayats, and I felt deeply embarrassed. The death sentence is pronounced by the Khap Panchayats, which adjudicate matters relating to a gotra across different villages, since there are perceived insults to clans or gotras, based on the transgression of conventional sexual mores. The speaker at the seminar, aghast that the bodies proclaiming such brutal punishment were called Panchayats, wanted the rather more benign bodies in South India to be renamed. But in the recent past, we have had two instances of good news that are worth taking note of. A court in Mathura, after a Haryana court in Karnal, which had passed sentence in the famous Manoj-Babli case, has dealt with an iron hand in another case of honour killing. The Mathura court on November 16 sentenced eight persons to death and 27 others to life imprisonment for killing a Jat-Jatav couple 1991. The ‘adjudicating’ Panchayat members allegedly did not appreciate the couple’s ‘audacious’ plea that they were in love; they wished to live together as man and wife. The Panchayat ordered them to be hanged to death; they were hung on a tree, then their dead bodies were dragged to the cremation ground. The court ruled that this case was among the ‘rare of rare’ ones. In another instance, a Sarvjatiya Sarvkhap Panchayat in village Bhainswal, Sonipat district, Haryana, has so far successfully averted a bloody feud between two rival groups. A Sarpanch has lost his life in this rivalry. The Panchayat, it is hoped, will be instrumental in having the accused person, now evading arrest, surrender. That is the agreement that has been reached. Of late, there is reason to think that the saner elements among the Khaps and Panchayats, feeling the heat of adverse publicity, have been rather more careful in deciding matters. In the normal course, these panchayats are nothing more than kangaroo courts; yet, its diktats are followed and the punishments it pronounces meted out; even when human blood is so often spilled in that process. It is a good development that at least in some instances, we see a less blood-thirsty form of justice dispensation from the caste courts. When, as a collective entity, these Panchayats are held guilty of bloodlust, the stain is perhaps hard to bear. And the role of the country’s judiciary in stepping in and righting some of these wrongs cannot be underplayed. To put these killings in perspective, it might be worthwhile to recall that there is one universal cultural taboo, across all societies - that is the taboo against incest. Each society might define the degrees of kinship between which sexual relations are forbidden differently, but the fact of treating some blood relations as out-of-bounds for a sexual relationship obtains, across all human societies. There is also great revulsion at the thought of breaking this taboo, which too is a deep-seated cultural trait. Those who break the law in matters sexual are treated to the most reprehensible reprimand and admonition. Honour killings are usually carried out against men and women found to break these traditional barriers; they are seen as despicably pernicious, unfit even to live after the act is committed.Expressing concern over the manner in which gory punishments were meted out to young couples for transgressing these traditional boundaries, the Punjab and Haryana High Court recently issued directions to the authorities, particularly about the life, safety and security of those who perform what have come to be called ‘run-away’ marriages. The court has directed that the arrest of the boy in such cases be deferred, until a statement is obtained from the girl whom parents often allege, was ‘abducted’. Any social group that hives off and becomes a ‘ghetto’ willtend to be extra-sensitive about upholding its ‘honour’. The proper assimilation of groups into a larger sense of nationhood would aid in eroding such brutality, as the crime itself will become less reprehensible as it will not strike at the root of the collective identity as sorely.A greater understanding and sympathy for practises in other communities, other societies, would leave people with far greater reserves of tolerance, in my opinion. It is when caste groups operate with a notion of threat that they end up taking on each other.There are also other considerations of a purely pragmatic nature that would help end such brutality that is held as acceptable by caste groups. When the runaway couple leave their traditional homes and set up home elsewhere, they are quite often left alone to do as they please. If the ‘law-breakers’ continue to live in close proximity with those who hold that they have transgressed laws and deserve punishment, they are more often than not going to face the wrath of the angry people. The gravity of the misdemeanour is usually also inversely proportional to the distance between the locations of the two caste groups. When the offending people are not constantly in the presence of the elders whom they have offended, they have a far greater chance of leading normal lives, less scarred by hate and punishment. A girl found running away from home to enter into a relationship with a man may have a tough time finding acceptance again. She could be left to fend for herself, or married off to someone against her wishes, forcefully. The risk to the girl is also cited as a reason for why the boy deserves to be killed. There is, however, nothing that cannot provoke murderous ire in such circumstances. Even a bad word about the offending caste group could invite violence. Given this scenario, it is just as well that we have some sanity from Karnal Mathura and Bhaiswal.
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