Murder in the name of honour?

Like the scourges of dowry and female foeticide a generation ago, honour killings seem to be spreading to newer areas. Not many years back we use to think that this kind of barbarism happens only in remote and tribal areas or countries like Pakistan, Iran and Dubai but unfortunately now it is very much in our home in our own nation.

The question here arises is it really only in the name of honour? These days every few weeks a new honour killing captures headlines, to a chorus of condemnation around the nation.

The double standard we play here is at one end we have not just intercaste or intercommunity but also inter-religion marriages being accepted as normal. At the other end we have parents and relatives poisoning, hacking, and burning alive youngsters because they married on their own, in the name of family honour.

The number of love marriages might have gone up in the metros in past years but the reality remains different honour killing, where men or women are killed by their kin or other members of their caste, is still very rampant in many parts of India. But the question is why this heinous crime is committed?

How can you kill innocent people, your relatives, just to protect your family's so called honour? Is it actually for the sake of family honour? I doubt. Is a family’s honour compromised only when a youngster marries outside the caste? In a country having scams galore from national to local level, isn’t it amazing that there has been no killing to wipe away the blot of corruption?

It is very unfortunate that the caste system and blind beliefs in India has turned into a social evil for many especially the youngsters. I wonder how many young people have lost their lives unfortunately by their own family members or relatives in the name of honour . And there are many more who are at the gunpoint of this rigid belief system. I am not against the traditional belief systems that exist in India. But what baffles me is the fact that so many innocent lives are lost in the name of this belief.

Though many of us associate the term more with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan than with 21st century India, honor killings are shockingly frequent in villages in the northern and northwestern parts of the country, where those daring to cross the barriers of caste are made to pay with their lives

So, what's the answer? Should we make all reasonable efforts to stamp out this practice around the world, or should we leave it well enough alone? If we decide to combat it, how should we go about it?

India is world’s largest democracy and in a country where people have the right to voice their opinions freely, to be young and to marry the person of your choice shouldn’t be fatal anymore. The fact is, what we are seeing are not honour killings at all. These are murders to defend an old order that has nothing but contempt for individual freedom.

-Anubha K. Singh