WHERE THE KHAP RULES?-INDIAN EXPRESS

WHERE THE KHAP RULES- INDIAN EXPRESS- 4 APRIL, 2010
THE BIG PICTURE Last week, a sessions court in Karnal awarded death penalty to five men for the murder of a couple who had angered a khap panchayat by marrying within the same gotra.
MANDAKINI GAHLOT travels to villages in Haryana where the diktat of the khap panchayats still runs strong Photographs: PRAVEEN KHANNA
I N the early forties, when a farmer l in the village of Dhabodha in o Haryana decided to educate his h daughters, he drew the ire of the vilu lage panchayat. At a time when so e cial norms dictated that only boys went to school, Lakshman Singh Dalal's decision to send his daughters to a boarding school created a scandal. A hastily called khap a panchayat condemned his action and b passed an order that required Dalal to pay a small fortune as fine and face social C boycott for two years. His house was sto o ned, abuses hurled his way, and his dau f ghters were declared `unmarriageable'. h Nearly 60 years after my great grand g father Lakshman Singh Dalal was reviled l and ostracised merely because he de p sired a good education for his daughters, nobody so much as batted an eyelid t when I was sent to a boarding school, s across the country, in Pune. But going i back to Dhabodha now, it's clear that s while sending girls to schools may no H B a onger evoke such a bigoted response, in ther spheres, especially marriages, the old of khap panchayats, an informal mbrella grouping of people from sev ~ ral village panchayats, is still strong.
Karora village in Kaithal district is bout 300 km from the national capital ut in many ways, it could be millions of miles away. Narrow, winding lanes lead to handrapati Benewal's house. Unlike ther houses in the village which are lanked by open porches, Chandrapati's ouse has high walls, an imposing black ate, and the door is answered by a poice officer who is stationed here 24x7 to rotect her.
The 55-year-old recently shot to naional headlines when a court in Karnal entenced five people to death for their nvolvement in the double murder of her on Manoj and daughter-in-law Babli.
aving eloped and married, Manoj and abli had broken the most sacrosanct of ll Jat customs by marrying within the ame gotra. In June 2007, they were murdered by members of Babli's family.
Though the exact role of the khap anchayat in Manoj and Babli's death remains ambiguous, there is no ambiguity bout the fact that they disapproved of uch a marriage. "The khap did not say hat they should be killed. It was a deciion taken by Babli's parents who were isgraced by the couple's despicable act.
he married her own brother. What else ould her family do? Such parents should ust kill their children quietly," says r Om Prakash Dhankhar, the pradhan f the Dhankhar khap who later, by his wn admission, tried to get Chandrapati o withdraw her case from court. "She hould have withdrawn that case. Her on had done something wrong and was unished (for it)," he says.
Dhankhar, who is equally at ease peaking in English as he is in the local aryanavi dialect, believes such young ouples are out to destroy the ingly cultivated over centuries. "This is a sickness, to marry in the same gotra.
There is scientific proof to back this. Look at the English Royal family. Their lineage is awash with sick people, because of inbreeding. I would like to point out that khaps do not direct anyone to kill. It is the parents, who cannot tolerate the shame that will cling to their family for the next few generations, who insist on taking such steps," he says.
He then goes on to calmly explain that when couples marry within their gotra, the khap simply sends out the message that "they should go die somewhere else and save respectable villagers from ~ taking such steps that lead to murder".
A JAT social structure that dates back to 600 AD, khaps are community groups centred around various gotras (clans).
According to Khazaan Singh, Dean of Social Sciences at the Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak, khaps were socially cial apparatus was set up in India. "They had immense social legitimacy and were historically significant groups. Rulers relied on them and they were renowned for amicably settling disputes."
Dhankhar's views are not always easy to understand, much less reconcile. He strongly believes in the righteousness of the laws that govern Jat marriages while declaring at the same time that it was completely all right for Jats to marry non-Jats and how educating girls was important.
In rural Haryana, he is not an aberration. Most villagers back the khap when it takes decisions such as banning families that dare to break the sacred gotra tradition. "The tradition is intrinsic to Jat identity. People accept it as right, and no amount of action by the administration is going to change that any time soon," explains Khazaan Singh.
Singh, whose Ph.D thesis was an indepth study of the functioning of one of the largest khap panchayats, Meham Chaubisi, believes that over the last decade, khaps have emerged as oppressive groups who are struggling to come to terms with a society where they are no longer relevant. "If you look at the individuals who occupy positions of power in khap panchayats today, these are generally politically ambitious men who have failed to branch out into the acceptable democratic avenues of power. They shamelessly exploit what used to be an old and respected system," he says.
Khap panchayats now see themselves as keepers of Jat morality and central to their continued existence is the strict, and often brutal, enforcement of the long-held Jat tradition that frowns upon marriage within the same gotra.
"A Jat girl cannot marry a boy from the same gotra, no matter which village he lives in. Nor can she marry a boy from her mother's and her grandmother's gotra. She cannot marry into a village where her gotra forms the majority, even if the boy she is marrying is from a different gotra. Marrying within the same gotra is tantamount to incest and goes against the concept of bhaichaara--a centuries-old belief of brotherly ties amongst those from the same gotra," explains D.S. Tewatia, a retired Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, who often steps in as a legal consultant to the sarv khap--the umbrella panchayat under which nearly 300 khaps fall.
~ BUT the khap panchayat's decisions have not always gone unchallenged. As young Jat boys and girls leave their villages and move to cities, such rigidly held beliefs take a backseat. Take the case of Ved Pal Mor, a 26-year-old ayurvedic doctor, who had set up shop in Singhwala, a village that adjoined his own smaller village Matour. There, he met and fell in love with 22-year-old Sonia. They eloped in March 2009 and married. When the khap, under which Sonia's village Singhwala falls, found out about the marriage, they declared it void on the grounds that since the couple belonged to adjoining villages, they were technically brother and sister. Sonia was tracked and taken back to Singhwala.
Ved Pal sought, and was granted, police protection from the Punjab and Haryana High Court. On July 23, 2009, accompanied by a team of policemen, in cluding an SHO, Ved Pal showed up in Singhwala to reclaim his wife. "When he reached the house, there was a mob that included Sonia's family, relatives and members of the panchayat. They beat my son to death, even as the police stood watching," says Ved Pal's mother Misha.
A case was registered and the trial is underway, but with Misha and her husband completely unaware of the complex legalities that surround such cases, the accused are likely to be acquitted.
"We don't understand what we are supposed to do in court. We have never made an appearance," says Misha.
Instances of such medieval `justice' have persisted over the years. At Balla, a village in Karnal where we stop to ask for directions to Dariya Arfulka's house, the villagers are hostile. "Why don't you just leave us alone? What happened to them was right. They were a disgrace to the village," says an angry villager.
In May 2008, Dariya's son Jasbir and his daughter-in-law Sonia were run over by a tractor by Sonia's father Om Prakash. Their "sin" was that they belonged to the same gotra. Sonia was six months pregnant when she was killed. Om Prakash, who was arrested for the murder, has since been freed from jail.
Dariya's family says they were pressured by the Kaliraman khap to withdraw their case or face social boycott for several generations to come. A member of the Kaliraman khap, who did not want to be identified, explains with a chilling sense of righteousness, "What Om Prakash did was right. These parents need to quietly kill their children in order to salvage the family name. How can you call them murderers?" SEEKING LEGAL SANCTION IN July 2009, in a written response to a question about honour killings in Haryana brought on by a khap diktat, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said, "We should hang our heads in shame."
Members of the Dalal khap in Mandothi village question the minister's legitimacy to make such observations.
"What does he know? He is a South Indian; they marry their sisters' daughters.
Just because they believe it is right, because their custom dictates it, they cannot force us to do the same," says Ram Chander, a powerful Dalal khap leader.
Recently, the Dhankhar khap--with legal assistance from D.S. Tewatia-drew up a proposal and circulated it to various levels of the government in Haryana, including to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The proposal states that Section D, Clause 3 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 should be amended to reflect Jat sensibilities.
"Clause 3 lists out prohibitive degrees of marriage and it clearly states that such marriages are prohibited except in the cases where local customs state otherwise. We want an amendment in the Act that will declare marriages within the father's and the mother's gotras wrong," Dhankhar says.
POLITICS & PANCHAYATS IN March 2010, a panchayat held in Bhiwani annulled a marriage on the grounds that the boy and the girl belonged to the same gotra. Former Haryana CM Hukum Singh was present at that panchayat and defended the khap's decision. Each khap has under it anywhere between 12 and 360 villages.
The sarv khap has nearly 300 khaps, or roughly 19,000 villages, under it. That accounts for a large vote bank, making it difficult for any administration in Haryana to take stern action against khap panchayats. "We have always exerted influence over Haryana politics. In the past, khap leaders could make or break a politician. Even now, we do indicate which candidates we are backing," says Ram Chander of the Dalal khap, which has 84 villages under its banner.
"You cannot wish away the khap panchayats. Perhaps increased education and awareness may make them socially irrelevant over the years," says Khazaan Singh.