"Violence of women is always a violation of human rights; it
is a crime. Let us take this issue with a deadly seriousness that it
deserves."
-Ban ki-moon, United Nations Secretary General
September 2010- The decomposed bodies of Inder Pal (22), a farmhand, and Maya (18)
were recovered from the fields of Phoolkan village, Sirsa. The couple were
neighbours and wanted to marry. They were killed by the boy’s family. Inder was
forcibly married two months before the couple was killed.
August
15 2013- Murder
of a 15-year-old girl, whose body was found from Bhakra canal, patiala, turned
out to be a case of honour killing with police alleging that she had been
killed by her own parents.
18 September 2013- Dharmender Barak, 23, and Nidhi
Barak, 20, were allegedly killed by members of Nidhi's family in Garnauthi
village in the northern state of Haryana on that disgust Wednesday evening.
But honour killing is not only restricted to rural areas, it has also been
reported in urban areas like Tamilnadu and Hyderabad.
Newspaper
reported the story of an 18year old girl being tortured and beaten up for
falling in love in Delhi, august 2013.
-
Recently,
there has been a spate of honor killings in the country. But what is honour
killing?
"Honour
killings" are murders by families on family members who are believed to
have brought "shame" on the family name. The apparent "shame" could be caused by a victim refusing to
enter into an arranged marriage or for having a relationship that the family
considers to be inappropriate.
This
tradition was first viewed in its most horrible form during the Partition of
the country in between the years 1947 and 1950 when many women were forcefully
killed so that family honour could be preserved.
When
are we going to draw boundaries? Or are we just going to wait till our child is
a victim of it?
In May 2008, Jayvirsingh Bhadodiya shot his
daughter Vandana Bhadodiya and struck her on the head with an axe.
In June
2012, a man
chopped off his 20-year-old daughter's head with a sword in Rajasthan after
learning that she was dating men.
Are we
seriously living in 21st century? Where one part of India is adapting the
‘live in relationship’ dogma, the other part is suffering through this? What is
wrong in loving? Aren’t we taught to love and care since childhood? Castes
matter so much? Aren’t the lower castes- ‘humans’? Don’t they have feelings?
Why are
they even known as the ‘lower castes’? Why this bias? So many questions go
unanswered. We all are human beings with feelings, emotions, god didn’t
differentiate between us, aren’t these self-created boundaries?
We
cannot fall in love and marry the person we love but we are expected to do an
arranged marriage and loose our virginity the very same night with a
‘stranger’?
Is
that our values? There is nothing wrong with arranged marriage but neither is
love marriage wrong. With advancement in science and technology, film,
agriculture, service sector, the mentality of the people need not necessarily
be advanced.
Rich
or poor, educated or uneducated- surely doesn’t matter. There is no honour in
“killing”. Humans
do not have the right to write down death sentences of innocent fellow humans.
According to a post in a well known newspaper on 18 September 2013,
love-related disputes were the third most common motive for murder in 2012,
after personal vendettas, and property disputes and affairs of the heart which
resulted in 2,549 killings in 2011, up by 184 since 2010.
In some states, “love
affairs/sexual causes” accounted for the highest number of murders, according
to the 2012 data released by the National Crime Records Bureau.
The crime statistics
bureau does not differentiate between murders because of relationships gone
wrong and “honour” killings, despite repeated calls from activists for a
separate record of crimes committed against couples who may break caste or
religious barriers to marry.
Harsh Malhotra, who set
up the voluntary organisation Love Commandos in 2010 to help protect young
couples from their disapproving families, said that his organisation receives
600 to 700 phone calls every day from couples who face opposition from their
families for marrying outside their caste or religion, with the most coming
from Andhra Pradesh, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab.
Haryana reported 50
relationship-related murders last year, while neighbouring Punjab had 83.
Even after getting
married, some couples “have to run like they have committed a crime”, he said.
At least 1,000 young
people are killed in the name of honour every year, according to figures
compiled by the All India Democratic Women’s Association.
When love can be so
fatal, why are we even taught to love? 66 years of independence and we are
following these traditions? Why? Just because our parents followed them? Or
their parents followed it? Lose your virginity the very first night and if the
marriage fails-no issue but sleep with a man before marriage and if it
fails-regret it? I am not writing something “illicit” here but I am a girl with
principles and hence I am writing this. Times are changing and we need to
change along, stand for ourselves, build our boundaries, our own principles and
guidelines, walk on them and be tomorrow’s change.
