Khap Panchayat and Honour Killing

Haryana, Uttar Pradesh

Khap Panchayat

What is Khap: Khap panchayat is a community organisation representing a clan or a group of related clans. Khaps are not affiliated with formally elected government bodies and are instead concerned with the affairs of the Khap they represent. Khap’s members are not elected government bodies; they have no official power, no backup forces, no official jury dicory system. Khap members are selected by the village people through mutual agreement. In simple words, khap’s members represent their own caste/gotra/village/community/their are, etc. Khap panchayat is a village jury dicory.

History and Structure: Khap have been dated back to the 14th or 15th century. And khap is part of the social structure of Hindu people. It’s measurable in Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.

The khap constitutes a unit of 84 villages. The individual villages have their own Panchayat. A unit of 7 villages is called Thamba, and 12 Thamba form the khap of 84 villages. There are also khap of 12 and 24 villages. The sarv khap represents all khap.

Khap Panchayat Metting

No female is part of Khap; females can be part, but they do not participate in panchayat because they feel uncomfortable attending. But in most areas, females are not allowed to attend the khap.

Decisions on social issues: The Khap Panchayats frequently make pronouncements on social issues, such as abortion, alcohol abuse, dowry, and promote education, especially among girls. These are good topics to discuss. But they also give their decision related to marriage, which is based on love. Because love has no issue with caste, gotra, religion, etc. But people have issues with caste, gotra, religion and all things. In rural areas, people are not happy if the lover has the same gotra, if lovers have different religions. If a girl and a boy get married, then it is a big problem for people because of how they got married in different castes or in different religions. In many cases, parents become happy later, but the problem is that other people don’t want to see both families. In these cases, some khap give the decision to the other body not to talk with that family, not to help. Even in some cases, these families can’t use public platforms which are in that area, like a common well for water, and milkmen don’t give milk to that family. Its situation is very dangerous for that family. After Khap’s decision, some families commit suicide. And some families are also not happy with their child’s decision, in these cases family will also support the khap’s decision. They told to child that you have not to come home. And sometimes they kill their own child with the help of other people who are not happy with this marriage.

Recently, one case happened in Colayat, Bikaner, Rajasthan. A Jat girl got married to a Muslim boy. Before marriage, both families had a good relationship. That Muslim boy considered that girl as his sister. They meet often at their house. Their friendship converted into love. And they wanted to live together for the rest of their lives. One day, they got married in marriage registered office and got a certificate. And live with that boy. In this case boy’s family had no issue, but the girl’s family had an issue. In a video, they plead to the Hindu society that if they did not get justice, they would commit suicide with their whole family. They gave a date and said that if they didn’t get justice before that date, they would commit suicide. After this video went viral, all Hindu organisations decided to protest on that date at different places in Bikaner. After that day police arrested the boy, and the girl came to his house. They have marriage certificates, and even the law gives clearance to this marriage, but protest dominates the role in this case. Even some politicians support this protest, and they say that they demand a new law in the assembly.

In the farmer protest after Tikait’s speech in Punjab their happened a MAHAPANCHAYAT was held for all farmers. And decided that one person from every family will be in protest, otherwise on that family imposed a penalty of 1500 rupees. So the panchayat plays a big role in rural areas.

Death Sentence in Honour killing: In State Of Haryana v. Ganga Raj- Delivered on 23rd March, 2010 in the Manoj Babli Honor Killing case, the sessions judge Vani Gopal Sharma of Karnal in Haryana has Awarded Capital Punishment under Section 302 IPC(Indian Penal Code)1860 to five family members of Babli including her brother Suresh, Uncles Rejender, Baru Ram and cousins Satish and Gurdev for killing the couple on June 15, 2007, considering it the “rarest of rare” case and life sentence to the Khap(caste panchayat) leader Ganga Raj under Section 302 IPC read with section 120B, IPC for hatching the conspiracy to kill the couple.

I think the solution for all these is to raise awareness among people about the law and teach to youth about the law, and create love for this situation. One of the solutions is not to use the surname to form their caste. Problems will decrease if people are known by only their names.

Learn more about this visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khap