“Upper caste jats who fear losing their centuries-old hegemony in Haryana are trying to project the scourge of honour killings as an emotional caste issue to force their will on everyone else,” says All-India Democratic Women’s Association chief Jagmati Sanghwan who has been spearheading an alternate battle to free Haryanvis from brutal medieval mindsets.
Ms Sanghwan and many other women living amidst Haryana’s patriarchy are contesting the Central claim made during the recent khap mahapanchayats that honour killings are the inevitable consequence of “endogamous” marital liaisons between “caste siblings” belonging to the same gotra (kinship group) or village. “This is a blatant and deliberate distortion of facts. Most instances where khaps have issued diktats to excommunicate, punish and even kill young couples, there was actually no violation of the so-called caste codes.
The khaps’ actions were invariably driven by their hegemonistic assertions to favour people aligned with them,” Ms Sanghwan told this newspaper. AIDWA and its associates have independently investigated almost every honour crime and have rarely found same gotra brides and grooms as was alleged by the khap.
“The self-appointed khap elders and their political patrons can see their earlier unquestioned supremacy is now-a-days constantly being talked about and routinely challenged in courts by ordinary folk. This has made them panic in desperation,” she said explaining the suddenly vociferous demands for amendments to the Hindu Marriage Act.