Honour killings or Murder????

To be born a Hindu in India is actually a passport to enter the caste system, one of the world’s longest surviving Social Stigma. Want proof ? Look for the current Honour Killings which are flooded everyday in the news paper with much of its pride. As if the rest of the social evil like female foeticide, dowry deaths, unreported Sati pratha etc were not enough that we have come up with a modern terminology called Honour Killing.

First of all, I object the term “Honour Killing” as I don’t see any honour in such killings. To me it is the media who has named it as honour killing which actually should be called as pure murder so that society do not take a pride on this path. Our media has always posed themselves as the guardian of the society and we see what they show us. So my humble request to the media is please call a murder a murder instead of coining it in a new phrase of honour killing.

Though I agree that this is not a new evil to the society, it prevailed even in early days also, just that, they were unreported and now suddenly it came into hype. But Indian law should tackle this situation also in the same manner as was done for other social evil like sati etc. No clan or politician can justify these murders in the name of culture in the 21st century. It is a real shame that at the time when we talk about India’s development in global scenario we are still facing such dark age social crime.

Another notable point here is that, when our so called social judges are deciding against the freedom of the choice of the life partners they are forgetting that there are other issues also which needs more attention than this barbarism. Just think over how many of us have heard of killing a family member for raping a minor girl within the family. We often hear of father raping the daughter and when exposed the matter is curbed and when the same girl goes out of the caste and marries a boy of her choice the mother takes the initiative to kill the girl in the name of family honour. Where does the social justice falls in the case of father raping the daughter..Such a hypocrite society we have in the name of Indian culture.

The irony is the Khap panchayats don’t order the Honour killings, instead they create such an atmosphere that the mother , father and the brother are forced to kill their own child just to save the honour of the family. Many politicians are supporting the Khap though they do not agree with the principal personally, but they do support just to gain the sympathy of the common man. This is purely politics of convenience with negative consequences.

At times I feel that these honour killings are worse than murders as murders do take place on the spur of the moment and the killer do regret at times but in the case of honour killings it is not so, in fact, they take pride in killing those people who have been grown up by or with them. It is extremely surprising that just to prove a point some people can go to any extent and be so inhuman.

Actually, what are these children asking for? Freedom to choose their life partner? which anyways is their fundamental right. And parents are anyways expected to look forward to the happiness of their children, so where is the gap in the thinking? Why are we becoming so judgmental and blood thirsty? It’s high time the parents stop assuming the child as their property and stop behaving like a dictator. They should treat them as an individual who does have their own mind and heart to take the most important decision of their lives. At the most the parents have the right to abandon and isolate the children from their social circle but Killing! No way!!!

I wonder that at a age when we have so much of starvation, and other basic problems like drinking water, medical care, sanitation etc do we have the mind frame and time to crib on this baseless issue?

Is it not the time we come out of the dark age which we left behind long back and move ahead for a better future to “live and let live” which is the basis of our culture…..