#dnaEdit: No honour in killing

The alleged “honour” killing of a 21-year-old woman, who married outside her caste, by her parents in Delhi points to the pervasiveness of such evils irrespective of social or educational progress. It did not matter to the murdered woman’s parents that their daughter was educated at a top college — Sri Venkateswara College — in the national capital, or that her husband had a government job. That she dared to step out of the boundaries erected by caste endogamy made it a crime for which she deserved no pardon. When parents murder their children for exercising their prerogative to choose their partners, it poses serious questions about our tryst with modernity and the ways in which gender violence plays out, even in conjunction with caste consciousness. From female foeticide to infanticide to denying adequate nutrition and education to the girl child, or arranging their marriages, to dowry harassment and marital rape, gender violence assumes many avatars within a woman’s life and the four walls of a family, which all but efface it from public view. The agencies of the State have attempted to respond but achieved little. The time has come for evolving better strategies to tackle gender issues.

In May 2011, the Supreme Court opined that “honour” killings fell within the category of “rarest of rare” deserving the death penalty. In Justice Markandey Katju’s words, this was “necessary as a deterrent for such outrageous, uncivilised behaviour. All persons who are planning to perpetrate ‘honour’ killings should know that the gallows await them.” Subsequently, many trial courts took note and awarded capital punishment to those accused of “honour” killings. However, empirical evidence does not bear out the judiciary’s faith in the death penalty acting as a deterrent against criminal activity. This is more so where a medieval mentality governs the murderer, who views the killing of those tarnishing family honour as a corrective action and a warning to others from treading the same path. Such persons are unlikely to be deterred by the gallows, which merely achieves retributive justice and does not resolve the larger social problem. There have also been proponents among the Left parties and women’s groups for a special legislation to outlaw honour killings. The then home minister P Chidambaram had promised to examine if “honour killing” could be defined separately in the Indian Penal Code but such cosmetic changes are mere lip-service. Most Indian politicians betray conservative mindsets on gender issues and are more likely to discourage love marriages rather than criticise honour killings. Even police personnel tasked with upholding the law are no different, and there closes the first door that any couple in danger could have knocked on.

Even when we know that honour killings represent an odious outcome of interplay between caste and gender there are no easy solutions despite identifying the problem. Despite honour killings targeting both male and female “transgressors”, the low status of women in our society makes them particularly vulnerable to such violence. After all, gender discrimination starts even before the birth of the girl child. A recent UNFPA study found nearly 50 per cent of men and women unaware of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 2003, prohibiting sex determination. The report also points out that in both rural and urban areas there is a strong preference for male children. In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi heaped sarcasm on such attitudes. But speeches cannot foster change, that too against ingrained, hardened attitudes with cultural and traditional sanction. Unless India develops an extensive learning programme for all age-groups on gender sensitivity and equality, little will change.