Caste in our own image

Come now, you aren’t really surprised by the wealthy young member of Parliament (MP) Navin Jindal’s smarmy genuflection to the khap panchayats, are you? He’s not exactly the poor, illiterate, helpless villager who is forced to kneel before the feudal masters.  He’s super-rich and pretty powerful, a successful industrialist, an MP, a member of the ruling party, a member of the country’s swish set. Which goes to show that he knows the rules of the game and plays the game well. Of course he would suck up to the khap panchayats. That’s how the system works.
Khaps are feudal organisations based on clan, community and the local area (a group of villages) that control the lives of the less privileged in states like Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Ages ago, in a less fair world, they delivered justice as best as they could. They set down rules to control people’s lives in a fiercely patriarchal and casteist way, where land holdings were of prime importance and human emotions quite immaterial. Their idea of justice has no relation to justice in a democracy that believes in equality of citizens irrespective of their gender, religion, caste or class.
So they order murders of lovers who defy tradition and marry. Or order the gang rape and murder of the mother of the boy if the lovers cannot be found. Or deny land rights to families that have less than two sons. Or ostracise families that make even the slightest departure from fossilised custom. They have been known to snatch away and sell off the baby of inter-gotra couples, forcing the wife to tie a rakhi on her husband to declare him her brother. They go against the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. They defy the laws of the land and continue a savage parallel system of “justice” delivery.
In a changed world, where our Constitution guarantees democratic rights and freedoms to all, khap panchayats should have become irrelevant and withered away like other vestigial organs of the body politic. They haven’t because we have kept them alive.
First, because we have lavishly sacrificed democratic values at the altar of populism. We don’t have the moral muscle or the commitment that the founding fathers of our nation had to oppose popular beliefs and age-old tradition in the interest of justice and fairness. We take short cuts. We don’t rock the boat. We use the khaps and other feudal systems to happily harvest votes that spring from seeds of injustice, inequality and bondage. It’s easier to get khap panchayats to ensure that several villages vote en bloc for a candidate of their choice, than to actually get the individual votes of all those thousands in a test of free will. Besides, free will is far too risky.
Our politicians — corrupt, inept and largely mercenary — need khap panchayats and feudal systems more than they need our politicians. No wonder Mr Jindal’s knees went wobbly when facing them. No wonder every chief minister of Haryana has turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed by the khap panchayats, including horrific honour killings. No wonder ex-chief minister Om Prakash Chautala and other politicians have come out in support of the khaps’ demand that the laws of the land be changed to ban same gotra marriages. Apparently, the khaps have now issued an ultimatum to all MPs from Haryana and members of the Haryana Assembly, demanding to know where they stand on the matter by May 25. Or else.
Second, we like identity politics. We will prop up caste, religion, sub-caste, gender, regional identities — anything at all to get votes. We are even going in for a caste-based Census this year — after 80 years, and the first time in independent India — which will no doubt help us further hone our skills in caste-based politics. We keep giving sops to Muslims, to backward castes and classes, even when it harms the interests of our secular democracy. Identity politics has this terrible habit of undermining justice and ethics.
Third, the failure of our secular justice delivery mechanism has encouraged khap panchayats. There is a need for resolving disputes, and the civil courts are far too slow, too cumbersome and confusing for the disempowered, usually illiterate villager. The police is corrupt and at the service of the rich and powerful. So for everyday matters villagers fall back on good old samaj — social sanction stands in for real justice. If our justice system was better, khaps would lose their importance on their own.
Fourth, the failure of governance gives disproportionate importance to feudal diktats, where convention and sheer muscle power enforce social traditions that have no legal standing. Administrators, politicians, even judges are reluctant to go against popular sentiment — and not just in deep, dark villages. The state fails to support dissent when popular frenzy is involved.
In short, our greed for power, corruption, fear of alienating votebanks, our failure of governance and justice systems encourage prejudices and curtail freedoms in everyday life — from the village widow burnt as a witch for transgressing to the urban artist hounded for his Muslim identity. It’s not just khaps. It’s in our cities — from Uttar Pradesh to Andhra Pradesh. It’s in our homes. Honour killings exists not because of khaps. They exist for the same reason that khaps exist — because we let them. Because we mollycoddle traditional prejudice.
We hear of youngsters murdered by their families everyday. In Allahabad, Rajni, 18, was found dead on May 13 in what seems to be an honour killing. The police believe she was beaten to death by her father and brother for refusing to marry a boy of their choice and getting pregnant by her lover. It was staged as a suicide, like most honour killings are. On May 12, Gurleen, 19, and her mother-in-law were found savagely chopped up and slashed to death with swords and sickles as her husband Amarpreet, 22, was rushed to hospital in a critical state. Gurleen’s family was against their marriage, and this dreadful savagery was conducted in person by her father, brothers and uncles.
If we want to end khaps and the like, we need to counter prejudice and popular sentiment with moral reasoning at every level. As the landmark Delhi high court verdict regarding Section 377 said, “…popular morality or public disapproval of certain acts is not a valid justification for restriction of the fundamental rights”. Our politicians need to learn that. Till then, our elected representatives will kneel to feudal lords and murderers, including brave new politicians like Mr Jindal.

Antara Dev Sen is editor of The Little Magazine.
She can be contacted at: sen@littlemag.com [2]