An open letter to Khap leaders
The article questions the right of Khap leaders to be self-styled in deciding relationship of young people.
THE KHAP panchayats came vigorously into news once again when on 25 March. 2010, a Haryana court convicted Khap leader Ganga Raj and six others for killing a young couple Manoj and Babli on 15 June, 2007 in Karnal Distt because the hapless couple dared to marry despite belonging to the same gotra(clan). Equally painful are some more stories like that of Ved Pal Mor of vill. Singhwal in Jind, who was killed by a mob of villagers while he was proceeding to take back his wife Sonia on orders from High Court (HC). A few years ago, the TV channels had shown the sad story of the annulment of Sonia’s marriage to Ved by a Khap Panchayat because this couple too belonged to the same gotra. The Khap Panchayat even overlooked the fact that the couple had a two year old son and declared that from then onwards the two were brother-sister. Sonia was made homeless overnight and some social organisation took her case to the HC which in 2009 ordered Ved to proceed to Sonia’s village and bring her back so that the two could live as a married couple with their son. A police security officer was provided to Ved but alas, the mob lynched Ved while the helpless lone security officer fled the scene. I wonder what this gotra is. There are several theories regarding the origin of gotra. Taking one of them at random, say that of Baba Saheb Ambedkar who said that the in charges of various go-shalas (cow crèches) were the originators of gotra which means that each head of a go-shala began a new gotra. Now at the time of origin, the head had a few relatives who were mutually cousins, uncles, aunts and brothers-sisters as in any family of today and all these relatives treated one another as brothers and sisters. Even today, young boys and girls normally move with their first cousins as brothers and sisters. But those original cousins of the birth of gotra days must have now descended into thousands of generations and how frivolous it is of you all to label all these young boys and girls as brothers and sisters? The question is who authorizes you to name various boys’ or girls’ relationships with their friends, with whom they study or serve in an office or play or perform any activity? Are you all out to oppress these boys/girls who want just space enough to live their lives their own way and curb their very existence? In fact, things do not seem to be so simple for you all. Some learned ones among you gathered at the Centre for Study of Developing Sciences (CSDS), 29, Rajpura Road Delhi on 26 May 2010 to explain your stand in a conference called by Madhu Kishwar, India’s most famous feminist who too ironically wants that a law must be made in favour of the Khaps and they be allowed their own way of banning intra-gotra marriages! It was a painful experience of my life to be present at such a gathering where you were brazenly defending your bizarre ways. First, on the screen, a discourse differentiating the central govts. from these Khaps. Ironically the Khaps in this discourse were being described as democratic and anyone present there could think that one was being hypnotized sort of! Is it democratic that a few self-styled self-righteous old men of a community decide the relationships between people whose own views they never take into account? In the same discourse, the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 was being cursed as dictatorial since only a few learned people passed it in the parliament! The ‘Hindu Code Bill’ when initially presented by Baba Saheb Ambedkar, the then Law Minister was first rejected by many a parliamentarian as also criticized by the president of India. Baba Saheb felt hurt at the immutability of the Hindu theocrats who were against a divorce system for quarreling couples or a separated wife’s demand for maintenance allowance from her husband, who were against ending bigamy or who were also against giving any concessions to the Hindu woman. Hurt badly, Baba Saheb gave up his cabinet post as Law Minister but subsequently with the wise mobilization by Pandit Nehru and some other equally wise persons, the bill saw the light of the day as what we know as the ‘Hindu Marriage Act, 1955’. The original ‘Hindu Code Bill’ had to be split into parts and each part separately passed as Act. One Khap leader claimed that the Khaps never ordered the killing of any violator of the ‘no intra-gotra marriage’ rule. But the conference attended by many learned writers and journalists of Delhi and surroundings, saw many of them grilling these self-styled dons of justice and question them that if they don’t order killings, do they even condemn killings or support the punishments given to these killers by Indian courts? Instead, the whole community stands united in defence of the killers and declares that those convicted and punished would be defended! I put a question there that if in the case of Sonia and Ved, you can dare give the verdict that they are brother-sister from the day of judgment onwards, then do we have the right to declare a Muslim Panchayat wrong which ordered a Muslim woman raped by her father-in-law to live then onwards as her father-in-law’s wife and husband’s mother?
(To be continued)…
(To be continued)…
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