Even a decade ago, khap panchayats – the caste-based village councils with their kangaroo courts functioning mainly in Haryana – were virtually unknown, and sporadic ‘honour killings’ were reported only from northwest Pakistan. Now, these make headline news in India almost every day.
To understand this regressive phenomenon, it may be necessary to go back to 1990 when caste-based identity politics received a boost. Although caste was always a feature of Indian politics, except in areas like West Bengal, it was generally a muted affair before that fateful year.
Even if the parties selected their candidates on the basis of the caste composition of the constituencies, especially in the Hindi heartland, they pretended that they were motivated more by merit and organizational strength than by caste. It was the same where the religious communities were concerned.
A seminal change took place with the V.P. Singh government’s implementation of the Mandal Commission report on reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in government jobs in 1990. This was followed by L.K. Advani’s rath yatra to ‘remove’ a mosque at the supposed birthplace of Lord Ram in Ayodhya to prevent the Hindu vote bank of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) being split by the upsurge of casteist sentiments.
The BJP’s rise at the time was accompanied by the rise of parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Samajwadi Party, which championed the cause of the OBCs, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which was associated with the Dalits. The politics of identity, based on religion and caste, had suddenly acquired more importance than ever before.
A key feature of the segmented politics was the aggressive flaunting of one’s religious and caste identity. Since aggression requires a target, the minorities faced the BJP’s provocative campaign while the parties of the OBCs and Dalits targeted the upper castes. ‘Tilak, tarazu aur talwar, inko maro jootey char’ (beat the Brahmins, Banias and Rajputs with shoes) was the BSP’s belligerent advice to its followers.
Indian politics had never before seen such vituperation in public life. Inevitably, the strengthening of such divisive sentiments infected the social scene as well.
Hence the appearance of khap panchayats, which are not strictly legal entities like the three-tier panchayat system which operates in the rural areas. Instead, they are an informal gathering of village elders of one community, mainly the Jats.
Had these been a congregation of wise old men giving sage advice against moral turpitude, there would have been no cause for alarm. But the boost received by the caste system in 1990 has strengthened their traditional prejudices, resulting in the issuance of directives against inter-caste or even inter-village marriages. These panchayats have also forbidden marriages between boys and girls of the same gotra, a system of clans in Hindu society.
What is ominous is that these illegal bodies haven’t stopped after issuing their regressive diktats. The excessive importance which the caste system has received has emboldened the khap panchayats to order even the killings of defiant couples to save the ‘honour’ of their families. This repulsive practice has now spread from the villages to the towns, including Delhi.
It will be a mistake to believe that such outrages are the result of a generation gap or of a religious or class divide, the usual reasons of disagreement between parents and grown-up children. Such divergence of views can lead to estrangement, but not murder. The killings are the result of the whipping up of an intense antipathy towards perceived opponents.
The belief at the time of independence was that the caste system would gradually wither away with the spread of education and modern, scientific ideas. There was wide agreement among the intelligentsia about the reprehensible nature of the system with its concepts of ritual purity which made the Dalits untouchables in the eyes of the upper castes.
As a form of affirmative action, therefore, the founding fathers of the constitution had called for reservations in jobs and education for only the Dalits and Adivasis – the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes – and that, too, for a period of 10 years.
Unfortunately, not only has this restriction been consistently bypassed with extensions being provided every 10 years, but the scope of reservations has been widened to include, first, the OBCs, and then the women in panchayats, which will be extended to parliament and state assemblies as well.
Quotas for the OBCs along with those for Dalits and Adivasis are also being set aside in the higher educational institutions. Now, to give further importance to the caste system, castes could form a part of the census data.
Earlier, the fear was that the quotas will keep out the meritorious from employment and education, thereby affecting the quality of services and academic degrees. Now, as the ‘honour killings’ show, the emphasis on caste can have other horrendous consequences, which were evidently anticipated by the politicians because of their eagerness to exploit the divisive sentiments to build up their bases of support.
(27-06-2010 Amulya Ganguli is a writer on current affairs. He can be reached at aganguli@mail.com)
