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The evils of caste prejudice and the treatment of women as mere keepers of the family honour surface once again in rural Rajasthan, where a young upper caste girl who dared marry a dalit man was killed by her own family
On September 22, members of the Gujjar community in Rajasthan's Dausa district called a 'maha panchayat' (special meeting of caste elders) to protest the arrest of the killers of a young Gujjar girl who had been murdered, allegedly, to protect her family's 'honour'.
Fifteen-year-old Neelam's father, uncle and grandfather are alleged to have murdered the teenager to avenge the slight to their honour by the girl's elopement with a dalit (lower caste) boy.
The Gujjars belong to the category 'other backward castes' (OBC), which is higher in the country's caste hierarchy than the Bairwa caste to which her dalit husband belonged.
Although members of Neelam's family reportedly confessed, during police interrogation, that it had been an 'honour killing', the community panchayat says they will launch an agitation against the arrests. Indeed, in the teenager's village of Shahadpur there is widespread condemnation of the arrests and anger against women's right groups that have protested against the girl's killing.
"This panchayat has been called because the FIR (first information report) was filed under pressure. Without concrete proof two innocent people have been arrested and women's organisations are behind it," says Gajendra Singh Khatana, convenor of the Gujjar panchayat.
Meanwhile, women's organisations in the state blame the government for allowing the crime to be politicised along caste lines. And, while no political party has taken an official stand on the issue, many prominent politicians, including members of the state legislature, are known to have attended the caste panchayat meeting.
"We have seen it earlier in Rajasthan. We have seen it on the sati matter, in the Roop Kanwar case, in the Bhanwari Devi case, and we have seen it even otherwise where caste panchayats are used against women to put pressure on the government," says Kavita Srivastava, a women's rights activist.
A week after the incident, women's groups met Rajasthan's chief minister Vasundhara Raje to urge government action against the killers. Representatives from the People's Union for Civil Liberties, the National Federation of Indian Women, Vishaka, Women's Education and Resource Group, Vividha, Women's Documentation and Resource Centre and the Rajasthan University Women's Association, among others, were taken aback to find that Raje had not even been properly briefed about the incident.
Meanwhile, the case has heightened caste tensions in Shahadpur, with dalits fearing reprisals from the Gujjars fleeing their homes despite the strong police presence in the village. "When those two ran away there was a great sense of fear among us. Now that the girl is dead we are even more afraid," says Gulab Bairwa.
Source: NDTV, October 3,
The Hindu, September 28, 2004
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