It’s an ‘honor’ to kill here

Am I such an indifferent person that I didn’t know it’s a reality? Thought of it as a joke at first, couldn’t believe in the second moment while hated it afterwards. Yes, I am talking about those series of honor killings that were highlighted by the media last month. I have an interesting 2nd hand story to share with you which brings up the unexplored dimension of the state of the things.

Recently I went to my uncle’s place and got to know that the servant ‘Chandu’ (name changed to avoid any embarrassing situation on either side) had got married. I was embarrassed, as for the first time a married person had touched my feet to offer his regards. Sometime later, I was just browsing through NDTV, feeling pity over such news when he came by. All other members of my family were in the next room. I started the conversation with him asking about the prevailing systems in the villages. I was taken aback when he told me that he was actually kidnapped and was forced into marriage by the girl’s parents. And the incident was just a fortnight old. With my usual blank & a 5-second open mouthed reaction I asked him, “so, are you happy with that girl?” He said blatantly, “Why not”. He further informed that these days more than 80 % of the marriages in villages happen this way only. People have actually adjusted to this zero-sense norm.

The story isn’t over. As I went back to my school of thought, he told me sheepishly that it was actually his father’s plan that the he would be abducted by the girls’ relatives. For a few moments, I thought that I was in a state of hangover and unable to correlate facts. I saw Chandu smiling and quite excited to enlighten me with the practicality of the 74% of Indian population. He said that since abducting and forcing guys into marriages had become a common thing, his family planned it to show to the whole village that THE tragedy happened to them too. The idea was to portray it as a sorry kind of event that cannot be celebrated which would in turn save a lot of money. Here I got the point. In any village, you have to invite the entire population to mark the celebration. You can’t be choosy in this regard. So this whole event was planned to avoid the nonsensical expenditure. It’s a 10 on 10, as far as planning is concerned.

My appetite grew larger. He further added that there are many restrictions to marriages in the villages and it’s not easy to get a partner. For example, one cannot marry (a) to someone belonging to the same or neighboring villages, (b) outside sub-caste, leave aside caste, (c) same gotra that should be checked 5-6 generations from both parents side etc etc. And mind you, this extra ‘etc’ is itself a ‘comprehensive’ list easily beyond my comprehension.

Never mind. What if you don’t follow them? The answer from him was quite polite and conspicuous. They would just be killed. And the whole village including the parents, members of panchayats, mukhiya etc etc make a combined and whole hearted effort to realize this. As an example he cited that recently a couple is absconding because they married violating one/some of the rules of that ‘comprehensive’ list. The Panchayat has announced a prize money of Rs. 10 lakhs to anyone in India who could successfully help to get them back. The intent is to kill them brutally and that too inside village so that it becomes an example for the repercussions one has to pay if the divine rules are betrayed. Just wondering how and why the hell they managed 10 lakhs for such a thing when many in the village hardly have enough for their bread and butter. How could they give these matters such a priority when they can’t, in reality, make their ends meet? I have heard those bollywood dialogues, ‘praan jaaye par vachan/izzat na jaye’ but doesn’t here a simple common sense apply that they should mind their own business and take care of their own family?

Not more than a month ago, I was quite thrilled by the news ripples in India related to 3G auctions and its potential. I was of the mind that it would bring revolutionary changes in India, including the rural areas over a period of 5 to 10 years. It was a full blown slap to my thoughts when Chandu revealed that rural people strongly believe these cell phones should be banned. Because they are the root cause behind the recent ‘illegal’ marriages, they being the handy source of communication between boys and girls prior to it. I never expected that my calculations would go wrong by such a huge margin. It’s true that India is shinning and the world has taken note of it. Our GDP is growing at above 8% per annum after only to China. But the statistics also say that the country has an HDI (Human Development Index) of 127 out of 175 nations, 32 crore people do not have access to safe drinking water, 25 crore people do not have access to basic medical care, 51% of our children are undernourished etc etc and I bet this ‘etc’ list is a much more alarming and definitely more logical to worry about than the one mentioned above.

But here in India, we still give those nonsensical things a thumps up. We call this tradition or religion. I don’t disrespect any religion but today I don’t see it helping our country either. No other society boasts so much about the past as we do, with little current achievements. It reminds me of a scene from Swades movie when a learned from panchayat tells SRK, “jo kabhi nahi jaati, usi ko jaati kehte hain”. I would like to ask them what special the Brahmins have done, so that they should be treated better than the dalits? Do they have any credentials to prove this in their own lifetime? Or they’ll again open up the history books to defend their positions? These things prove that India is secular only on papers. Otherwise no one should have any problems if a Punjabi marries a Christian. Why the hell should people bother in these personal decisions and that also to the extent of killing or hurting them? It sucks.

And to add to the fuel is the government’s decision to add ‘caste’ in the 2011 census. I don’t exactly know or predict whether this would go ahead in the right direction or pull India further backwards. Today’s leaders, in my personal view, are impotent enough to take strong and honest decisions. What needs to be done is to make people understand the practicality of the issues, these leaders or any responsible citizen need to change the mindset of those people still engulfed in the caste dominated cosmos. I just hope that we as a society get over it at least in my lifetime.