Fwd: Use of Terror by Khap Panchayats

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ashok T. Jaisinghani <ashokjai@sancharnet.in>
Date: Sun, May 15, 2011 at 4:27 PM
Subject: Use of Terror by Khap Panchayats
To: desiyatra@googlegroups.com, Palash Biswas <palashbiswaskl@gmail.com>
Cc: Agniveer <agniveer@gmail.com>, Arya Youth Group <aryayouth@gmail.com>, Bhailal Patel <bhailal@aol.com>, Dinesh Agrawal <dinesh1234@gmail.com>, Keshav Acharya <keshavacharya@yahoo.com>, Kulbhushan Singhal <awara32@gmail.com>, Naresh Khanna <nkk1113@gmail.com>, Prem Kumar Sabhlok <pksabhlok@gmail.com>

What are the reasons behind

Use of Terror by Khap Panchayats?

 

    We should welcome the recent decision of the Supreme Court of India in recommending severe punishment, including the death sentence, to the members of any Khap Panchayat who order the "honor killings" of any boy and girl who marry even though they belong to the same gotra or live in the same village. 

 

    The strong

opposition of the Khap Panchayats to marriages between boys and girls of the same gotra (sub-caste) and the same village is interlinked with many issues and practices of the Jats in Haryana and some other parts of northern India. 

 

    It is very well known that Haryana and Panjab have the lowest female to male ratio in India. There are less than 800 females for every 1000 males in these two states. What can be the reason for this wide difference between the population figures of females and males?

 

    The Jats practise female feticide and infanticide on a massive scale. Why do they mercilessly murder so many unborn and newly born females?  Such Jats are against gender equality, as they consider the girls to be inferior to the boys. Many of the Jats don't want to give their daughters any shares in the family properties. So they prefer to kill female fetuses and infants.

 

    Another way to deny any shares in the family properties to their girls is to force them to marry boys belonging to other villages and towns. After their marriages, the girls are naturally forced to leave their own villages and towns to live with their husbands. The girls thus get no shares in the properties, like lands and houses, belonging to their parents and grandparents.

 

    By decreasing the female to male ratio, a clever way has been found by some caste groups to avoid giving dowries to their daughters in lieu of their shares in the family properties. Actually, many cunning Jat families have discovered that the girls can even fetch heavy bride prices due to the shortage of females in Haryana. That is a reverse system of dowry in which the boys' parents have to pay huge amounts of money to get brides for their sons from other villages and towns, or even from other states. The members of many Khap Panchayats are indulging in such a highly profitable business that they can never think of giving it up willingly.

 

    A girl who elopes with her lover, and marries him, causes a great loss to the family, which is deprived of extracting the bride price from the boy that her family could have chosen for her from another village or town. The Khap Panchayat also loses its share of the commission from the bride price. So, some Khap Panchayats order the eloping girls to be ruthlessly killed. The death sentences are awarded to such girls as punishment for causing financial losses to their families as well as to the Khap Panchayats. Many greedy Khap Panchayats have only become highly lucrative business enterprises, which are making massive amounts of money.

 

    Many of the girls, sold as brides to the families of other villages and towns, are deprived of their rights and are forced to work as slaves. They can be regularly abused and beaten if they refuse to work hard. Whenever they are ill treated by their in-laws, they are not even able to complain to any persons, as they have no friends and relatives who can help them in the new villages and towns. So, a number of such girls are even likely to commit suicide to escape from the atrocities committed on them by their cruel in-laws.

   Panchayats of Khauf

 

Let Khaps see their real image in the mirror;

With fear, they make boys and girls shiver;

Many are Panchayats of Khauf or terror;

Is there any doubt about that, whatsoever?

 

Has the young Congress MP Naveen Jindal,

Not given Khap Panchayats a wrong signal?

Why are leaders like Om Prakash Chautala,

Involved in the Khap Panchayats' ghotala?

 

How can Khaps kill any dulhaa and dulhan,

Just because their gotra is the same one?

By marrying, what wrong have they done,

That they be hanged or shot with a gun?

 

Can there really be any Dharma sutra,

That asks a father to kill his own putra!

For marrying some girl from the same gotra?

Can such killers wash off sins with go-mutra!

 

How can a father become such a cruel one,

That he mercilessly kills even his own son!

Like an animal hunted and shot with a gun?

To stop such crimes, is there really no one?

 

For India, Khap Panchayats are big shraap;

Lots of money, they know how to dhhaap;

They can fill their purses of the largest maap,

To finance their cruel actions of worst paap.

       Khap Panchayats can bring Disaster

 

    The power-hungry fascist leaders of many Khap Panchayats want to retain their hereditary right to bully and terrorize the people, especially the youths and women who are living in the villages and small towns of northern India. The farce of opposing the same gotra marriages, to safeguard the so-called caste honor, is just a bogus excuse to terrorize the common people. Such political bullies are cranks of the highest order, who are still trying to dominate their caste groups by issuing various threats of social boycott and even by committing murders of those who challenge their diktats.

 

    Can the Khap Panchayats succeed in bullying the freedom-loving boys and girls who have received modern education in schools, colleges and universities?

The lives of all the people of India are also continuously being influenced by the modern films, satellite TV programs, mobile phones, computers and the Internet, which are spreading various ideas about liberty, human rights, romance and love affairs, as well as information about sexual relations, the use of condoms and contraceptive pills, pregnancy, abortions, etc.

 

    Can any bigoted fascists continue to terrorize young men and women with the threats of social boycott and death on issues like the same gotra marriages even in modern times? How can any leaders dictate especially to the young men and women who have their own independent incomes and can lead their own lives?

 

    When the Khap Panchayats have not been able to remove major social evils like child marriages, child labor, bonded labor, homosexuality, molestation, rapes, trafficking of women and children, prostitution, etc, why do the bigoted fellows of Khaps get so enraged and violent over minor issues like marriages between boys and girls who belong to the same gotra or the same village? What are they doing to stop the sex crimes against children in orphanages and schools? Why are the hypocritical Khap leaders blind to the indulgences of the rich and powerful people who can hire call girls, or keep mistresses and concubines, even in villages and small towns? Why do they keep silent in such cases in which even some of their leaders are involved?

 

    The youths and women can launch a massive campaign against the leaders like Naveen Jindal and Om Prakash Chautala by starting a retaliatory boycott of such bigoted fascists, who have proved themselves to be anti-youth, anti-women and anti-poor.

 

    Any unnecessary restrictions and threats by the Khap Panchayats may lead to the formation of gangs of youths who may retaliate against their parents, other relatives and caste leaders. Have there not been many reports about the murders of parents and grandparents committed by frustrated youths, whose love marriages had been opposed by their relatives? Even in schools and colleges, the undue restrictions in such matters have led to the murders of some teachers by their students.

 

    We should do everything possible to prevent the spread of mass conflicts between the old and young generations, between the higher and lower castes and sub-castes, between the rich and the poor, and between different regions and states. India is likely to break up in many parts if the differences continue to widen between various segments of society.

 

    Ashok  T. Jaisinghani.
        Editor & Publisher:
www.Top-Nut.com    Top Nutritionist
www.Wonder-Cures.com
www.Nutritionist-No-1.com
www.SindhiKalakar.com  

 

__________________________

 

Chautala follows Jindal to back khap demand

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Chautala-follows-Jindal-to-back-khap-demand/articleshow/5914708.cms

TNN, May 11, 2010, 12.09am IST

 

KAITHAL/NEW DELHI: The attempt of Haryana's self-proclaimed khap panchayats to declare themselves autonomous of the law of land has entered a decisive phase, with the Jat-dominated caste bodies appearing to be on the verge of bludgeoning the political class into acquiescence.

 

On a day when Congress MP Naveen Jindal bowed to the pressure of khaps to endorse at Kaithal their demand for a ban on intra-gotra marriage, former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala said that he would move a resolution in Haryana, seeking legislative sanction for the khap demands.

With the khaps successfully turning their defence of medieval practices into an issue of caste honour, Chautala's "either-you-are-with-or-against-the community" argument can create a serious predicament for the Jat political class.

 
Chautala defended his stand by saying that the same-gotra marriage taboo had a scientific basis in the form of findings about the harmful consequences of sub-caste endogamy.

But it was clear that the canny Chaudhary was going to play by the "biradari ki izzat'' sentiment to herd the Jat politicians into rallying behind the khaps. Jats account for 27 of the 90 MLAs in Haryana, and have an outsized political influence in the state, given their population share of 24-27%.

The stand of both Jindal and Chautala is a testament to the clout of the khaps in the state. Jindal is a member of the elite club of politicians whom many saw as breaking away from the old caste-community mould. Well-known industrialists, the Jindals are hardly new to politics.

Chautala is also not given to succumb to pressure easily. The political heir of Devi Lal, he has a considerable following among Jats, many of whom have stuck with him despite the maze of allegations surrounding the Chautala clan.

On Monday, Chautala met Union home minister P Chidambaram to demand that the Hindu Marriage Act be amended to legitimize the age-old taboo on gotra endogamy.

Jindal had rushed to Kaithal to assuage the khap members who had vowed to boycott him after the Congress MP from Kurushektra failed to keep his appointment with them last week. Early on, the khap representatives had threaten to lay siege to the Jindal residence in Kaithal if he did not back their cause to criminalize same-gotra and intra-village marriages by amending section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act.

 

The two-term MP recognized the cost of annoying his powerful constituents. After landing at Jindal House from his helicopter, MP Naveen Jindal rushed at 1.40pm to Sector 19 HUDA rally site where representatives of khaps under the banner of Sarvjatiya Sarv Khap were waiting for him from 10am.

 
Jindal expressed regret for not keeping his date with the Jat congregation at Pai on May 2, and assured that being their representative he would do what ever possible under the law of the land to meet their demands.

 
Appreciating the social obligations taken up by khaps, he said that Panchayats were playing important roles in society for ages. Jindal bowed his head before the elders and said that their orders are acceptable to him.

Seeking the influence and experience of elders for the removal of social evils like dowry and feoticide, he assured on behalf of the Congress Party that their justified demand would be raised at the suitable forum at an appropriate time.

 
The president of the Sarvjatiya Sarv Khap, Mewa Singh Chhater, welcomed Jindal for toeing their line and said that other MPs of the Lok Sabha and Rajya, including former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal, should clarify their position over the Hindu Marriage Act by May 25.

Jindal is the first MP of Haryana who favoured the self-imposed and self-styled khap panchayats which issue unconstitutional directives over the marriage by terming couple sister and brother. Representatives of khap panchayats also informed that they were in touch with other khaps of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh over a change in the Hindu Marriage Act.

 
Monday's meeting was mainly attended by people over the age of 60 years. Though khap had constituted separate units for women and youth at Pai meeting, the presence of youth and women was negligible. Except for a few speakers, there was no reference to the capital punishment awarded by a Karnal court in Manoj-Babli case in which the couple was hunted down and murdered for eloping and marrying.

Times View

 
Leaders are supposed to lead. But in Haryana we are watching a shocking spectacle of top leaders — one, an ex-chief minister, and the other, a poster boy of the Congress youth brigade — being led by medieval forces that are drumming up "popular sentiment" to justify a barbaric social system. These politicians appear to have lost sight of as basic a thing as what's right and what's wrong. Modern India can't be built just by economic progress; it must have social progress as well. The political class, therefore, has to resist this timid surrender by Haryana politicians to the murderous khaps.

 

 

--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/