Honour killings continue to question India’s moral fabric

By Damini Singh

A country like India, with its long, historically sound lineage and a civilisation that has continued to thrive for millennia, is bound to have tradition and modernity at loggerheads. Indians are proud people, highly possessive of their commendable, albeit occasionally bizarre, customs.

Within the Indian society, just like any other in the world, are present distinctions, which were created by our ancestors, on the basis of certain factors. These divisions, known as castes, have, over the years, become one of the foremost and crucial parts of an individual’s identity–so much so, that their family name gives away the caste group they belong to.

Caste-based discrimination and its violent manifestation

Caste-based discrimination is a phrase that no Indian is a stranger to. Atrocities in the name of this unnatural distinction, have been carried out for generations–with both sides being guilty of supporting and believing in the notion of one caste being ‘greater’ than another–typically, the upper castes being considered ‘better’ than the lower ones. Such a system of castes has led to rigid social rules and regulations, the foremost being that an individual can only marry into their own caste.

This rule led to the birth of another man-made atrocity–honour killings. In contemporary times, when education has led to the younger generations trying to break free of these backward social moulds, some people, who consider marrying into a different caste a crime of the highest degree, end up killing their own family members, hence, protecting the ‘honour’ of their family.

Such a case of caste-based honour killing took place in Sonai, a small village in the district of Ahmednagar in western Maharashtra. Three young Dalit men were killed with immense brutality, by six upper caste men in January 2013. One of the victims, Sachin Gharu, was in love with the daughter of an upper-caste farmer, who was also one of the accused. The men were recently sentenced to death in a court ruling.

Dr B.R Ambedkar’s fights to end casteism

Originally conceived in the Vedic (1500-1000 BCE) period, the caste-based distinction was simply an organising principle in Indian society. However, it sowed the seeds of future discrimination. The prevalent social stratification is believed to have developed into its modern form in the post-Mughal period and seems to have been encouraged during the British Raj era (1857-1947), as a subpart of the divide-and-rule policy, which was an underlying scheme in most of their plans. Dr B R Ambedkar, known as the Father of the Indian Constitution, was an instrumental figure, during the later stages of the Independence Movement, in fighting for the rights of the lower castes and the Dalits, who were being openly humiliated, deprived of educational rights, and looked down upon by the socially entitled. Ambedkar’s struggles resulted in the establishment of many acts and laws that protected them from mistreatment and made provisions for the granting of equal rights.

Safety of Dalits remains a big “IF”

While the people from the oppressed castes were safeguarded legally, socially, however, their standing and lack of respect remained the same. This rigid discrimination exists even today, and continues to haunt the people “born into it”. Atrocities being committed often include social humiliation, torture, discrimination and sometimes, murder, committed by upper caste people.

The honour killings, as described in the case mentioned above, were truly horrific. According to an analysis of the case, the killings were pre-meditated. 22-year old Sachin Gharu, along with his friends Sandeep Tanwar, 26 and Rahul Kandare, 20, working at the Trimurti Pavan Foundation, was killed by six upper caste men from the same village. Gharu was romantically involved with a 19-year old upper caste girl studying in the same institution. Taking the protection of the ‘honour’ of the caste in their own hands, this six men-including the father of the girl–then attempted to cover up the crime, dumping Sandeep in a septic tank, and decapitating the other two, while also chopping Gharu’s body into pieces. Recently, the six accused were sentenced to death, on charges of murder, destruction of evidence, criminal conspiracy as well as under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

A caste divide, and then another

A horrendous crime such as this shows that the Indian population is still divided when it comes to its stance on caste and its relevance in our everyday lives. While the world seems to be moving ahead by educating itself and changing customs that don’t fit in today’s era, it seems that casteism still has its noose tightened around our countrymen’s necks. There have been innumerable cases of honour killing like this, some even more gruesome, that plunge the rest of the population into shame. Such blatant and obscene discrimination needs to be destroyed–before it ends up destroying the morality of us all.

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