Now, khaps blame western attire for honour killings
2013-10-24 , Issue 44 Volume 10
2013-10-24 , Issue 44 Volume 10
Deadly dresses Khaps have banned western wear for women. Photo: Sudeep Chaudhuri
The caste councils in Haryana, known as ‘khaps’, believe that women are to blame for honour killings. They have issuedTaliban-style diktats on what women should wear and even the kind of food they should eat.
Following the gruesome murders on 18 September of a couple in Garnavati village of Rohtak district, 130 km west of New Delhi, several khap meetings were organised in the region where the mood was overwhelmingly in favour of the killings. Narendar Barak alias Billu Pehalwan had killed his daughter Nidhi Barak and beheaded Dharmendra Barak for defying the Jat norm proscribing marriage within the same gotra (clan). As a chilling warning to other youngsters, the bodies of the murdered couple were put on a tractor and paraded across the village.
The Jats consider people from the same gotra to be siblings, so sexual relations between a man and a woman of the same gotra is seen as incestuous.
While Nidhi’s parents, brother and uncle are behind bars and investigations are underway, the khaps have refused to condemn the heinous murders. Instead, they have tried to pin the blame on “westernisation”. Khap leaders argue that if women wear western clothes, young men get attracted towards them, leading to either sexual assault or consensual sexual relations in disregard to social norms, which leads to killings that are “necessary to protect the community’s honour”. So, women should only wear loose-fitting salwar kameezes with dupattas.
It is shocking how a heinous honour killing has given the khaps another ruse to impose a dress code on women. Through word of mouth, their diktat has spread across villages in Rohtak district.
Besides the dress code, the khaps have also decided that women should have saada khana (a simple diet). And use cell phones only under the supervision of male elders from the family.
While khap leaders initially denied that any such diktat was issued, they don’t mince words in defending the warped logic behind it. Take the case of Hardeep Singh Ahrawat, the chief of the Rohtak Chaurasi Khap, an umbrella body of 84 khaps across the district. “Western wear, especially in colleges, leads to sexual attraction,” he says. “And this leads to rape in some cases. In other cases, it leads to incestuous relationships and marriages between boys and girls belonging to the same gotra or the same village, both of which are forbidden in our community.”
Ahrawat insists that while western wear might be okay for school-going girls, it should be banned for women in colleges. “Women must adhere to the Haryanvi way of dressing in salwar kameez to avoid any form of sexual attraction. Women should cover themselves properly. They should not wear jeans and tight clothes. Revealing and figure-hugging dresses incite sexual thoughts in men,” he says.
As for the diktat on cell phones, the khap leaders argue that youngsters use mobiles to carry on forbidden relationships surreptitiously. As these relationships sometimes end up in honour killings, the khaps justify the curbs on the use of cell phones as a preventive measure to ensure that such killings don’t become necessary to protect social norms!
Even more hilarious is the rationalisation of why women must have a “simple diet”. “The simple diet is best because it keeps your mind clear of any vices or evil thoughts,” says a politician from Haryana, who did not wish to be named. “This is our way of life. There is so much violence against women today because we have allowed westernisation to creep in and change our lifestyle.” Last year, too, a khap panchayathad blamed fast food for sexual crimes against women.
So, even as Ahrawat says that khaps should not support honour killings, the onus to prevent them has been put squarely on the shoulders of young women, who must conform to the khaps’ diktats, or else, be prepared to face the consequences. Welcome to the medieval world of khaps, still alive and kicking in the 21st century.
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