Twenty-three-year-old Sunita of Karnal, Haryana, who was killed by members of her own family and village, was the victim of an ‘honour killing’ that was sanctioned by her community

On May 9, 2008, a mob of 30 people murdered pregnant 23-year-old Sunita and her lover in Balla village in Haryana’s Karnal district. The murderers included members of the woman’s own family. The village sarpanch announced with pride that the entire village supported the family in its crime. “We’re happy. The couple got what they deserved.”

On May 13, 2008, in Gwalior, retired army jawan Dhairvirsinh Bhedoriya allegedly axed his 20-year-old daughter Vandana to death for marrying against his wishes. Her mother Kusumben said they did not approve of their daughter marrying a Marathi boy because their caste did not permit it.

On April 8, 2008, young Mamta from Garhia village, in the rural belt of western Uttar Pradesh, was beaten to death by her father, her body burnt and then buried, because he found a boy from her class in her room at night. Her grandmother said Mamta was dear to her, but what she did was “unacceptable” and that she “deserved” the punishment.

These are only a few of the many murders, termed “honour killings”, that are reported in the media from around the country. They are, quite literally, the killing of women by family members, generally male, who claim to be removing stains on their family’s honour.

A woman may bring about that stain on the family in several ways: by refusing an arranged marriage, eloping with a lover, being the victim of sexual assault, or wanting a divorce. At the core of such killings is a patriarchal society’s desire to control women’s sexuality: women’s chastity equals community, caste or family honour. Like other murders, these too are against the law, but in rural communities they have the sanction of village elders and the community and are not seen as crimes but as a necessity. 

Twenty-three-year-old Sunita’s mother, speaking before the television cameras, stoutly defended the murder of her daughter for bringing shame on the family. The bodies of the couple were displayed outside the family house in Balla village, apparently as a warning to others who might try to emulate the “immoral act”. Sunita was married to a man against her wishes, got a divorce from him, and began living with her lover Jasbir. Both belonged to the same Jat community and village, but marriage is prohibited between members of the village. Sunita’s father Om Prakash and two relatives Rajesh and Ram Mehar have been arrested.

According to a survey done by the Delhi-based Indian Population Statistics Survey (IPSS) in mid-2007, almost 655 homicidal cases have been registered as honour killings, in India. While in Punjab and Delhi, the figure stands at 32%, in Muzaffarnagar, the worst affected district in Uttar Pradesh, 25% of honour killings have been reported so far. Most are reported from the northern states of Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, but that could be because NGOs operating in these areas bring such cases to light. 

Jagmati Sagwan, assistant secretary of the All-India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), who has been working with the problem in 10 districts in Haryana, since 1985, says that six to seven such cases are reported every month. She also refers to a statement by the state’s director general of police that 10% of all murders of women are honour killings. The National Crime Records Bureau does not list honour killings as a separate crime and therefore has no statistics on them. Some figures may be deduced from the category ‘murders due to love intrigues’, which was 7.5% of the total in 2004. Another category within which they can be viewed is ‘murders due to casteism’, of which 35.9% occurred in Bihar. In 2004, 15,672 females were kidnapped, of which 9,622 (61.4%) were kidnapped for marriage-related reasons.

In January 2004, AIDWA organised a convention to focus on the ignored phenomenon of honour killings. Its general secretary, Brinda Karat, said the largest number of ‘edicts’ against women are issued by caste panchayats that pose a challenge both to the parliamentary process and judicial structures. These have no legal standing, yet they function with impunity, backed by narrow caste identity politics.

The convention heard many cases of brutality against those whose only crime was that they had dared flout existing social and caste norms.

In 2006, the Supreme Court strongly condemned honour killings as “barbaric and shameful acts of murder committed by brutal, feudal-minded persons who deserve harsh punishment”. While dismissing charges against a man alleged to have kidnapped his wife who belonged to another caste, the court said: “In our opinion, such acts of violence of threats or harassment are wholly illegal and those who commit them must be severely punished. This is a free and democratic country, and once a person becomes a major, he or she can marry whosoever he/she likes. If the parents of the boy or girl do not approve of such inter-caste or inter-religious marriage, the maximum they can do is that they can cut off social relations with the son or the daughter, but they cannot harass the person who undergoes such inter-caste or inter-religious marriage.”

Despite such strictures, the primitive practice of honour killing thrives because it has social sanction in many parts of the country. But it also thrives because of the reluctance of the law to intervene. And because of the reluctance of the government to acknowledge that it is a serious issue.

Source: PTI, May 13, 2008
             PTI, May 11, 2008
             www.cpim.org, May 2008 
             www.indiatogether.org, May 2008
             www.zeenews.com, May 2008
             www.merinews.com, May 2008