‘If there were no khaps […] everything will go haywire […] young boys and girls will start marrying into the same gotra’: Understanding Khap-Directed ‘Honour Killings’ in Northern India

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, the rural landscape of Northern India has been dominated by a parallel system of governance — the khap² (caste) panchayats.³ These caste panchayats sanction acts of gendered violence and override any notion of equality or gender empowerment, which the Indian constitution endeavoured to provide to women at the grassroots level. Khap panchayat imposes its writ through social boycotts and fines, but also in murdering victims or forcing them to commit suicide (Sangwan, 2010; Gupta and Seth, 2007). The state of Haryana has seen the most extreme cases of these ‘honour’ killings, though other states such as Uttar Pradesh have witnessed similar incidents.⁴ Most of the caste panchayat diktats are against young girls or against young couples accused of having transgressed customary norms through disapproved marriage. In most cases these young couples have been brutally murdered in full view of the village communities. Though khap panchayats were believed to be multi-caste (sarv jatiya) bodies (Singh, 2010), in a few districts such as Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh they have come to be dominated by Jats,⁵ who have used constitutional protections and provisions to expand their political and economic influence (Gupta, 2000). This upwardly mobile ‘backward’ caste has come to exercise considerable influence (Bharadwaj, 2012; Thapar-Björkert, 2006) demographically (on the basis of its population), economically (through extensive farm holdings) and politically (through dominance in local administration and politics).

Divya A, Court versus Khap 1 May 2011, The Times of India.