anti-caste

INTER-CASTE COUPLE–A BRAHMIN MAN AND A JAT WOMAN–SUFFER ATTEMPTED LYNCHING, CONTINUED THREATS FROM WOMAN’S FAMILY

Couple thrashed for marrying out of caste (Hindustan Times)

“A couple who had married against the wishes of the girl's parents were thrashed by the girl's brother and an uncle on Wednesday, and have been admitted to the local civil hospital. Jasleen Kaur, a Jat and Pankaj Agnihotri, a Brahmin by caste, had been forced to marry in court in August 2012,as the former’s parents did not approve of their relationship due to their different castes. They said they had since been running from one place to another as Jasleen's maternal uncle had threatened to kill them.

“‘On Facebook, he had posted messages threatening to kill my brother and and also insulted my sister,’ said Pankaj.

“He claimed that they had returned to their native village Motian on May 6 as his father was ill. However, on May 8, his in-laws thrashed them up severely.

“‘A mob, including my younger brother, uncle, grandmother, aunt and others arrived at our doorstep. Without a word, my brother and uncle started beating me and my husband,’ said Jasleen.

“‘They were carrying baseball bats, rods and an iron chain. They dragged us out and tore my husband’s clothes. They threatened to drag him naked by tying him to their jeep. However, the villagers intervened and they left the place,’ alleged Jasleen, exhitibiing the bruises on her body. She said her uncle had threatened them to leave the village or face certain death.”

See all anti-caste posts on inter-caste couples

NEPAL: THERE ARE CASTE LINES AMONG UNTOUCHABLES, TOO, AND MARRIAGE ACROSS THEM CAN HAVE BITTER CONSEQUENCES

Dalit family ‘expelled’ from Baitadi village (Kathmandu Post)

“A Dalit family from Rudreshwor in the district has been expelled from the village after one of the male members married a woman from an ‘upper-caste’ Dalit family.

“Mandodari Damai and eight other family members fled to the district headquarters three weeks ago after they were chased away by other Dalit villagers belonging to Wada and Pal castes. The dispute erupted after Mandodari’s son Naresh married a woman of the Wada community more than two years ago.

“The villagers had earlier driven away Naresh and his wife from the village and of late, they were persecuting the entire family members. Mandodari said people from Wada and Pal communities started mistreating and forced her family to leave the village immediately. [...]

“Naresh’s wife Baragrathi said her relatives not only disowned her but also tried to attack her and husband’s family members because she married to a man from a ‘lower-caste family’.”

IN NORTH INDIA, WOMEN BROUGHT IN FROM OTHER REGIONS FOR MARRIAGE ARE SUBJECT TO EXTREME OPPRESSION, CASTE DISCRIMINATION

In male-dominated Haryana, Rajasthan, cross-regional brides are deprived of rights (The Hindu)

“Oppression and discrimination suffered by the low caste groups and Dalits at the hands of the dominant caste groups in Haryana and Rajasthan is reproduced within the families bringing in wives from other parts of India.

“The brides are ‘needed’ solely for their ability to perform free reproductive and productive labour. They are also preferred over local women as the loosening of natal family connections renders them vulnerable to domination and abuse.

“In the last decade and a half, the male marriage squeeze in the prosperous north Indian provinces such as Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and western Uttar Pradesh has led to men from these States paying money to marry women, usually from under-developed or economically marginalised regions of eastern India.

“They are segregated, isolated and shunned primarily because of their ‘unknown’ caste status, though the families overtly insist otherwise. Furthermore, the caste-based exclusion and humiliation is experienced both in the public arena and the private space of the family, according to a study ‘Tied in a Knot–cross-region marriages in Haryana and Rajasthan, Implications for Gender Rights and Gender Relations,’ funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy. [...]

“Caste discrimination is further amplified by deep racism against women and their natal communities. They are all pejoratively called ‘Biharan,’ a term that implies poverty, desperation, filth and savagery. Their parents and natal communities are branded as ‘thieves,’ ‘sellers of daughters’ and ‘primitive savages.’ The repeated denigration is internalised by the brides, and this leads to lowering of their self-esteem and self-worth. As a survival strategy, they minimise their social contact with others, with a negative impact on their mental health.

“Most cross-region brides are victims of colourism (darker pigmentation of their skin). Dark skin leads to their rejection in the local marriage market, making them more likely to be offered for long-distance alliance, resulting in dislocation from their culture, community and family. Apart from casteist and racist slurs, these brides are considered, and often taunted as ugly and dull in intelligence, because of their dark skin, the study suggests.

“Shortage of women is not common across all caste groups, but is endemic among the dominant caste groups of Jats, Ahirs and Yadavs. While the well-off from these groups are able to marry locally, men who are underemployed, poor, those who have little land, suffer from some deformity, are less educated or are old are the ones who most often seek cross-region brides. This practice, however, is slowly spreading to some lower caste groups and Muslim communities

“Such marriages are non-customary as the women come from different ethnicity, region and, sometimes, even religion. Families of these brides are extremely poor, often in the Below Poverty Line category, with little or no land assets and seasonal low-paying agricultural work. Inability to meet the exorbitant dowry demands made by local grooms forces them into long-distance alliances. This is the main reason why they opt for ‘dowry-free, no wedding expenses’ offers made by Haryanvi or Rajasthani men. [...]

“Children of such unions face similar racial taunts from their peers and are not accepted as one of their own. The insults range from sidelining in games or bullying with name-calling. Such incidents are high in Rohtak district of Haryana and the Alwar region of Rajasthan. Some older male children have faced difficulty in finding local girls because of their mother’s ‘questionable’ caste identity.”

ICL ARTICLE ON DELHI GANG RAPE PROTESTS

India: Deadly Rape Sparks Mass Protests

For Women’s Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!

Workers Vanguard No. 1017

“The heinous gang rape and mutilation of a 23-year-old paramedical student in Delhi on December 16, who later died of her injuries, sparked a momentous wave of protests against the oppression of women in India. Demonstrations erupted in many of India’s cities, including Kolkata (Calcutta), Mumbai, Bangalore, Panaji and beyond. Significantly, demonstrations were also held in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, where women face conditions similar to those in India.

“The epicenter of the protests was Delhi, which prides itself on being part of the ‘new’ India, where shopping malls and night clubs exist side by side with massive slums. In fact, the capital has the highest recorded incidence of rape of any major city in India. Demonstrations by students and other youth continued for days, courageously defying repression by the police who attacked with water cannons, tear gas and lathi (bamboo sticks).

“Anger among women intensified with an outburst of grotesque anti-woman chauvinism that sought to blame the victim for the crime. M.L. Sharma, a lawyer for one of the five accused, stated that ‘respectable’ women do not get raped, while the Indian president’s son, Abhijeet Mukherjee, baited the demonstrators for being ‘painted’ and ‘dented,’ i.e., ‘Westernized’ and not young. A leader of the fascistic Hindu-chauvinist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) declared that sexual crimes ‘hardly take place in Bharat but occur frequently in India’ (Wall Street Journal, 8 January). The RSS is connected to the Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which openly espouses Hindutva (‘Hinduness’), a toxic mix of nationalism and religious obscurantism, to stoke violent pogroms, particularly against Muslims.

“The term ‘Bharat,’ the Hindi word for India, harks back to an imagined past of idyllic rural life—as opposed to urban India, which is supposedly blighted by decadent Western influence, especially on women. The reality of life for most people in Indian villages is extreme poverty and brutal caste oppression. In the countryside, rape of dalit (so-called ‘untouchable’) women is considered a matter of caste privilege by ‘upper’ caste men, who use rape as a weapon in the subjugation and humiliation of the woman and of her entire caste. A March 2006 study of violence against dalit women by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights reported that out of 500 women studied, 116 had been raped or gang-raped; among the perpetrators, ‘dominant caste landlords emerged as the most prominent group.’

“Police often assist vigilante groups which conduct raids on entire dalit villages, burning homes and raping women. The scope of such violence is captured in a November 2012 incident in Tamil Nadu, where 148 dalit houses were torched by a 2,500-strong mob because of a non-dalit woman who had married a dalit man in secret. Police also rape and murder with impunity as part of the military offensive in areas such as Chhattisgarh in eastern India, where it is directed against a Maoist insurgency based on the adivasi (tribal) people. In Kashmir, the occupying Indian Army uses murderous violence, including rape, to subjugate the Muslim population, with the perpetrators exempted from prosecution by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. In 1991 in Kunan Poshpora, units of the Indian Army gang-raped nearly 100 Kashmiri women, aged 13 to 80, in a single night.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

CASTE-BASED COUNCILS DEFEND HONOR KILLINGS BEFORE INDIAN SUPREME COURT

Caste Council ‘Explains’ Honor Killings, While India Still Reels From Gang-Rape Tragedy (International Business Times)

“Less than one month after the death of a young Delhi gang-rape victim sparked a massive series of protests across India demanding a change in the country’s attitudes toward its women, a group of council elders have defended another type of violence against females–the ancient practice of ‘honor killings’ in the country. [...]

“On Monday, in documents presented before the Indian Supreme Court, the Sarv Khap Panchayat, which comprises 67 ‘khaps’ (or unelected caste-based councils) from the Rohtak district of Haryana, a state in northern India, explained the reasons behind honor killings and absolved themselves of any responsibility in them. [...]

“The Times of India reported that in response the Panchayat declared before the court: ‘The main culprits [behind] honor killing are not the representatives of khaps but the near and dear ones of the couples and more so the relatives of the girls, when they cannot resist the social pressure of the locality and the taunts of relatives.’ [...]

“‘The killings are initiated by the family members of such couples–marrying inter-caste or within the same gotra [clan]–and especially by the relatives of girls. It is observed that such incidents happen only [among] the peace-loving and law-abiding people of the village and not [among] the mischievous families,’ the Panchayat said.

“‘Such ‘love marriages’ being socially, customarily and traditionally prohibited relationships against the age-old custom and tradition of marriages, their relatives and friends cannot withstand the hostile taunts of their companions and [the] public at large and this aspect forces them to commit such heinous crime of killing the couple on the pleas of saving the honor of their families in the eyes of the villagers.’ [...]

“The victims of most honor killings in India (as well as Pakistan and the Arab nations) tend to be women, who are viewed as the holder and symbol of a family’s ‘honor.’

“By choosing her own husband in defiance of her family’s wishes, a young woman in India is ‘seen as polluting not just herself but also her domestic group,’ Delhi-based sociologist Deepak Mehta said to the Wall Street Journal.”

ON THE DELHI RAPE PROTESTS: SOME RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

Delhi gang-rape: Six accused laid a trap for us, says braveheart’s friend (Zeenews, January 8, 2013)

New Delhi Attack: The Victim's Story (Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2013)

How India’s rapid changes are putting women at risk by Miranda Kennedy (Washington Post, January 4, 2013)

Amid rape fiasco, India’s leaders keep up insensitive remarks (Washington Post, January 4, 2013)

A nation outraged (Frontline, January 12-25, 2013)

Delhi Gang-Rape Protests: What About the Sex Crimes Against Untouchable Women? by Palash R. Ghosh (International Business Times, January 5, 2013)

No candlelight protest for Lalli Devi by Badri Narayan (The Hindu, December 30, 2013)

How Do We Break the Indian Penile Code? by Meena Kandasamy (Outlook India, January 14, 2013)

For Rape Victims in India, Police Are Often Part of the Problem (New York Times, January 22, 2013)

India’s Narendra Modi and the Tale of Two Rapes by Shikha Dalmia (Bloomberg, January 17, 2013)

INTER-CASTE LOVE HAS DEADLY CONSEQUENCES: THREE RECENT CASES

Man attacked over inter-caste marriage (Indian Express, January 5):

“A man was attacked by his brother-in-law late on Friday following a dispute over his inter-caste marriage. An attempt-to-murder case was registered at Yerawada police station. Police said suspect Nitin Kadam’s sister married Alok Kamble of Ambedkar Nagar colony in Yerawada about two-and-a-half months ago. The Kadam family was not happy with the inter-caste marriage but Kamble went against their wishes and married Kadam's sister. This led to a dispute between Kamble and Kadam. Police said on Friday angry Kadam allegedly attacked Kamble at Ambedkar Nagar with a sharp weapon around 7 pm.”

Father kills girl over affair with man from another caste
(Indian Express, December 27):

“A 45-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly killing his 17-year-old daughter after spotting her with a young man near his house around midnight. The accused was opposed to his daughter's friendship with the young man, who belonged to a different caste.

“According to the police, Jhallar, a farmer, had gone to sleep along with other family members at his house. Around midnight, he woke up for some purpose and realised that one of his four daughters, Anju, was not in the house, the police said.

“Jhallar began looking for her and spotted her with the man at a tubewell, around near the house.

“‘The man escaped from the spot, while Jhallar caught hold of his daughter. He brought her to the house and beat her up badly. As the girl fell unconscious, he picked up a gandasa (a sharp agricultural implement) and slit her throat. The girl died on the spot,’ Station Officer (Kokhraj) Sri Prakash Yadav said.”

Caste shadow over lovers’ suicide (Times of India, December 25):

“In a tragic incident here, a boy and a girl hailing from two different intermediate castes in love committed suicide after their parents opposed the relationship.

“A Premkumar, 19, from Othaveedu near Alanganallur was in love with 16-year-old M Vijayalakshmi, from Kumaram, a neighbouring village. The boy was working in a company in Madurai after completing a diploma and the girl was a Class 11 student in a school near Madurai. They reportedly met on the bus they travelled on daily to Madurai and fell in love. Recently, the parents came to know of their relationship and chided them. It was also said that the girl's family was planning to stop her studies and marry her off to someone in the community. Scared that they will be separated, they committed suicide on Monday by hanging from a tamarind tree near a tank adjacent to their villages.”

THREE RECENT CASES OF CASTE-BASED HONOR KILLINGS

Chennai: Dalit youth missing since last week found dead in alleged honour killing (IBNLive, December 19):

“The body a Dalit youth, reportedly in love with a Vanniyar girl and missing since last week, has been found in a village lake in Cuddalore District, the Madras High Court was informed on Wednesday.”

Another Dalit lover gets murdered for ‘family honour’ in UP (Deccan Herald, December 17):

“A Dalit youth was allegedly killed by the family members of his lover in Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur district for the sake of ‘family honour’.

“On Saturday, one of the girl’s family members, as per a planned conspiracy, told Rinku that they had agreed to their marriage and wanted to discuss it with him. He was asked to come to the house.

“They caught hold of the youth when he visited them and killed him.”

Suspected dishonour killing reported from Punjab (Zee News, December 8):

“Police on Saturday said the suspected murder of a 25-year-old woman was a case of dishonour killing with her parents, fiercely opposed to her affair with a dalit boy, allegedly getting her eliminated.

“Manpreet’s father Kapur Singh, mother Balwinder and two others – Satnam and Jaswinderpal – had been arrested and Rs 1.50 lakh, a sharp-edged weapon and a car used in the crime seized, he said.

“‘The girl’s mobile phone and her burnt clothes were also seized from the arrested persons,’ Gill said.”

INTER-CASTE LOVE HAS DEADLY CONSEQUENCES: FOUR RECENT CASES

Honour killing in Haryana: Family kills married girl
(Haryana Tribune, October 29):

“It was an intercaste marrige the victim, Indu, had married her friend Ajay Rohil against her parents wishes. Unhappy with the inter-caste marriage, girl’s parents killed her daughter after 16 days of Indu’s marriage.Indu was a student of engineering.

“Indu’s parents had convinced her in-laws to let her go home with them after the wedding. But they killed her and took the body to the cremation ground cladestinely and consigned it to flames so that the evidence can be destroyed.”

Inter-caste love claims 3 lives (Express News Service, October 7):

“A 50-year-old man, who was opposed to the love affair between a youth from a different caste and his relative, shot dead the youth’s aunt and father at Avathi village in Mallandur police limits Chikmagalur district on Wednesday night. The man was also killed by the youth and his relatives on the spot.”

Young couple found hanging from tree in UP (September 26):

“A young couple was found hanging from a tree in Bhaluwani area of the district, police said on Tuesday.

“[Police] said the couple belonged to different caste and police suspect they committed suicide after failing to get married.”

A case of honour killing? (The Hindu, September 22):

“The family members of 19-year-old Suma B., who witnessed the murder of her husband by an armed gang of four on September 6, are alleging that the murder is an honour killing. But, the police differ saying it was the fallout of an eve-teasing row.

“After a month of married happiness, Ms. Suma’s dreams were shattered when her husband, Naveen Kumar (23) of Anekal, was hacked to death even as she watched helplessly.

“Suma is yet to come out of the shock. She stopped going to college fearing for her life as she is the sole eye-witness to the murder.

“Married on August 6 this year against her parents’ wishes to Naveen, who is from a Dalit family, Ms. Suma now says her husband was killed at the behest of someone who was against their marriage as she is a ‘caste’ Hindu.”

UNTOUCHABLE WOMEN WORKING FOR A PITTANCE UNDER HELLISH CONDITIONS

Bangalore’s Female Trash Pickers by Sonia Faleiro (New York Times)

“Shobha, 25, who goes by one name, is a widow who supports her elderly mother and her two children on a salary of 5,000 rupees ($96) a month. The family lives in a tiny room in a Cox Town slum. Shobha owns exactly two pieces of furniture: chairs foraged from the very garbage dump she visits, stuffed with the garbage she’s handed most often – paper and plastic bags.

“Shobha is clearly poor. But her circumstances are made more acute by the fact that her profession is despised and deemed fit only for people of the so-called low castes. She’s a Dalit, as are most of the city’s pourakarmikas. And like her, they’re illiterate, unskilled and chose garbage collection because their parents were pourakarmikas too. Many feel they’re equated with and treated like the garbage they collect. ‘I tried to explain the new rules to one housewife,’ said Shobha. ‘She replied, “You’re no one to talk to me.” Then she flung a bottle at my head.’

“The impact of Shobha’s poverty on her physical wellbeing is clear. The impact on her job is clear too. She signs in for an eight-hour shift at 6:30 a.m. But long before that she joins a queue of people to draw water from a public tap. She could hardly have slept well the previous night — her room doesn’t have electricity, so to keep from stifling, she leaves the door open. Fear of intruders keeps her awake. During the monsoon, rain sweeps in.

“By the time she reaches work, Shobha is tired and often filled with hopelessness. But she’s responsible for manually cleaning approximately 1.5 kilometers (almost 1 mile) of road and collecting garbage from about 500 households.

“The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (B.B.M.P.), or municipal corporation responsible for the city’s civic governance, has only 2,000 pourakarmikas on its rolls. These ‘permanent’ workers, as they’re known, are protected by labor laws. But since the 1990s the B.B.M.P. has hired only temporary pourakarmikas through contractors, and so the majority of pourakarmikas like Shobha aren’t covered under labor laws. They’re paid irregularly, cannot comfortably afford basic amenities, and are even expected to acquire their work tools.

“Shobha goes through four brooms a month, at a personal expense of 160 rupees. To save money, she scoops up trash with pieces of metal, cardboard or Styrofoam, which, like the containers into which she haphazardly empties waste, are foraged from the dump. If she can’t find a container, she uses plastic bags.

“Even permanent pourakarmikas are only given thin gloves to wear, but Shobha must handle all sorts of waste — wet, dry, and hazardous — with her bare hands. On her feet she wears the sort of slippers most people would consider too flimsy to venture outside with. In these she tramps down roads and wades ankle deep into dumps wet with animal excrement.”

INTER-CASTE LOVE HAS DEADLY CONSEQUENCES: FOUR RECENT CASES

Parents hack girl for loving boy from 'low' caste
(TNN, September 19):

“Parents of a Class X student dragged their girl out of her lover’s house early on Monday morning and hacked her to death for continuing with the relationship they vehemently opposed. Neighbours rushed to rescue the girl but by the time she was freed from her parents, uncle and elder brother, it was too late. She died on the spot.

Father, uncle ‘kill’ 20-yr-old girl for honour, arrested
(The Indian Express, September 14):

“Upset over his 20-year-old daughter’s affair with a boy of another caste, a retired army personnel allegedly killed her with the help of his elder brother by asphyxiating her with a pillow on the intervening night of September 11 and 12.

“Inquiry Officer Harpal Singh said the deceased, a resident of Jandiala, was allegedly in a relationship with Sukhdev Singh (21), a resident of Jaanian village, for the past one year. Kaur belonged to Mazhabi Sikh community and her friend was from a Jat Sikh family.”

Dalit youth burnt alive in Junagadh (TNN, September 14):

“Tension mounted in Una town of Junagadh district on Thursday after a 27-year-old dalit youth was charred to death by a group of 12 people in Akolali, a village about 25 km from the coastal town.

“The attackers suspected that the youth, Lalji Sarvaiya, had eloped with a girl from their community. The girl had been missing since two days. They came to Lalji’s house at around 8am and started asking for his whereabouts. They also threatened his father Kala Sarvaiya to hand over his son or face dire consequences.

“After heated arguments, some people barged into his house while others climbed onto the roof and started breaking it. ‘Seeing him sleeping, the attackers closed the main door of the house and those on the roof poured some inflammable liquid on him and set him ablaze. They also tried to set the house on fire but escaped after the commotion,’ Dipanker Trivedi, SP, Junagadh, said.”

Couple threatened for marrying without parent’s wish
(TNN, September 7):

“A youth from Temni village near Gondia was allegedly threatened by the parents of the girl whom he married out of the caste.

“Rajesh Dongre, who married Sarita Neware, was allegedly threatened by her parents and the village sarpanch that they would be killed if they settled in the same village.”

THREE RECENT CASES OF CASTE-BASED HONOR KILLINGS

Hung up on ‘honour’, father murders girl who eloped (Deccan Herald, August 10)

“Eighteen-year old Reshma was strangled by her father Salim in Hapur district on Thursday after she refused to desert her lover and marry someone else as wished by the family. After killing his daughter, an unrepentant Salim went to the local police station and told everything to the cops.

“According to reports, Reshma had an affair with Aqueel, who is already married and a father of four children. Reshma’s family did not approve of the relationship as Aqueel was not only married but also belonged to a different caste.”

In the name of honour, Gokak couple butchered (Deccan Chronicle, August 15)

“Lives of a young couple, who married out of their caste and ‘economic status’, were snuffed out by the girl’s family in a case of ‘honour killing’ in Gokak on Tuesday. The girl’s family hacked the couple to death in broad daylight, leaving the city in a shock. Twenty-year-old Nethra and 26-year-old Vittal Kuri married one-and-a-half-years ago, against the wishes of their parents and relatives. Nethra was from the rich family of Bagai brothers, while Vittal was from a poorer background. As they could not get their parents to agree to their relationship, they got married in a sub-registrar’s office and settled down at Loslur near Gokak, away from trouble. The couple, in the meanwhile, had a girl child, who is seven months old now.”

Woman, 3-year-old daughter killed for ‘honour’ (Times of India, August 26)

“A married woman Sanjana Raj (25) and her three-year-old daughter Gungun Kumari were murdered allegedly by her family members in Gulab Bagh locality under Barh police station in Patna district late on Friday night. [...]

“Sanjana had married one Dilip Kumar, a resident of Gulab Bagh, in 2008. Dilip owns a tailoring shop. It was an inter-caste marriage and it seems that the girl’s family members were not happy with the marriage. He said about four days ago, Sanjana’s family members reached Dilip’s house, saying they were not opposed to the marriage and wanted to do her vidai (send-off) properly. Dilip allowed his wife and daughter to go with their family members.

“On Friday night, Dilip made a call on Sanjana's cellphone and found it switched off. He said when Dilip reached his in-law’s house, the neighbours informed him that his wife and daughter had been murdered and their bodies had been thrown into river Ganga.”

A VILLAGE WHERE UNTOUCHABLE WOMEN MUST GO BAREFOOT WHEN PASSING UPPERCASTE HOUSES

Shoe comes right back to the foot (Times of India)

“Dangariya village in eastern Rajasthan’s Karauli district is still separated from the nearest city by 80 kilometers of a long, deserted road. [...]

“Last month, an NGO put out an online petition on a shameful custom that forced married dalit women passing by the houses of upper caste families to take off their footwear and carry it in their hands. The campaign was accompanied by a video that actually showed a few of them removing their slippers as they crossed the dwellings of the sawarna community.

“‘If we walk by wearing our slippers, our husbands are taunted in the village meetings,’ said one of the women in the video that was first put up on the internet two years ago. [...]

“Now, villagers from both sides of the caste divide are afraid to discuss the matter with outsiders. Skirting the issue, they grow defensive, even hostile. Those from the Dalit community, who agree to speak, refuse to divulge their names. Initially, there is an outright refusal that the custom of removing footwear ever existed at all. But persistence yields problematic qualifiers. ‘We ask them to wear their slippers if they’re carrying them in their hands. This custom has been around since our grandparents’ time,’ says Kailash Sharma of the sawarna community in the village. [...]

“Dalits in the village almost seem to have internalized and accepted caste interactions as they take place. Saubhagyawati (name changed on request), a farm-worker, adds her own two matter-of-fact cents. ‘If someone of authority sits on a chair, won't we sit on the floor?’ she asks. Ram Shahe Meena feels there is merit in the argument that Dalit women observed the ritual of their own volition. ‘Would women go into a temple wearing slippers? Baat maryada ki hai (It’s about boundaries),’ explains Meena, beginning to get agitated. In other words, the problem is not just that of caste discrimination, but also of gender. [...]

“‘Dalits who depend on the ‘upper’ castes for their livelihood are usually afraid to speak up. In the last 20 years, we’ve heard of fewer instances of such discrimination, particularly in Bhilwada,’ says Bhanwar Meghwanshi, an activist working on caste issues in Rajasthan.”

VICTIM UNDER ARREST ON HIS HOSPITAL BED, ASSAILANTS GO FREE: UNTOUCHABLE MAN STABBED TWENTY TIMES BY IN-LAWS IN ATTEMPTED HONOR KILLING FACES CHARGE OF “ELOPEMENT”

Dalit stabbed; in detention for marrying upper-caste girl (rediff.com)

“A Dalit youth, who had married an upper-caste girl against the wishes of her family, was stabbed, and his wife abducted by his in-laws in Motihari town in Bihar's east Champaran district nearly 10 days ago, is seeking justice from the hospital bed as he has been put under police detention.

“‘I was put in police detention and handcuffed in the hospital where I am under treatment after being stabbed 20 times by my in-laws, who also abducted my wife, in an old case filed by my father in law, which is baseless. It appears to me that police is more keen to torture me instead to recover my wife and arrest the named accused in my complaint,’ Krishna Prasad Ram, the 24-year-old victim said.

“Ram told rediff.com over telephone from his hospital bed that the police is behaving as if he is the real criminal, but the fact is that at the time of his court marriage a year ago, he and his wife Khushboo Singh were adults, and India's constitution allows an adult to marry or choose his life partner.

“‘Nine police personnel have been deputed for my security and surveillance round the clock, despite the fact that they handcuffed me during treatment at the Sadar Hospital,’ he said.

“Ram was 23 and Khushboo was 21 when they got married. ‘Even if we were forced to to elope after her family opposed, it was not a crime as both of us were adults and consenting adults,’ Ram said.”

VILLAGE CASTE COUNCIL ABDUCTS COUPLE AND PUBLICLY TORTURES THEM IN NAME OF MORALITY

Couple tied, stripped for falling in love (Hindustan Times)

“A couple were tied to a tree, stripped, tonsured and beaten up for hours on the orders of an Udaipur village caste panchayat ‘offended’ by the ‘illicit’ relationship as the woman, 20, is married.

“The couple, who come from Kolar village, 85km from here, are neighbours and have been seeing each other for two years, said the police. While the man, 25, is single, the woman has a two-year-old daughter.

“They eloped 10 days ago but the villagers along with the woman’s husband tracked them to the neighbouring Kalyanpur village. Sunday they were presented before the caste council. Stripping and public thrashing was the kangaroo court’s order.

“‘In front of hundreds of villagers, they were tied to a tree, stripped and beaten up,’ said a police officer. Villagers stoned a police team sent to the spot. It took police four hours to rescue the two, who are now under their protection.”

CASTE-BASED HONOR KILLINGS IN DELHI AND TAMIL NADU

First they agreed, then killed him (Hindustan Times, July 5)

“Two brothers’ misplaced sense of honour drove them to stab their sister’s ‘lower caste’ husband to death at a park in northwest Delhi on Thursday morning, police said. [...]

“‘At around 9:30 am on Thursday morning, Jyoti’s brothers, Gaurav and Rahul, went to Ranvir’s house and took him to the neighbourhood park on the pretext of talking to him. They then stabbed him to death,’ said a senior police officer. [...]

“Ranvir and Jyoti, according to police, had got married on April 17 and, sensing a threat to their lives from their own family members, had approached a city court seeking security. After the court made both families resolve the matter, Jyoti’s family had consented to get the couple remarried in accordance with necessary rituals.

“‘However, persistent taunts from their neighbours drove Jyoti’s brothers over the edge,’ [...] said the officer.”

Honour killings in Tamil Nadu (The Asian Age, July 15)

“Elango was murdered by a gang of men who opposed his falling in love with Selvalakshmi, 18, a dominant-caste girl in Erode.

“Selvalakshmi’s brother Saravanan, who wanted to save the ‘honour’ of the family, arranged his friends to ‘finish off’ Elango, a dalit. His friends brought Elango to Muneerpallam secretly and killed him.

“Now Saravanan’s gang has been put behind bars. Selvalakshmi is depressed and sees no hope for her future. [...]

“In another case in Ramanathapuram, a mother and grandmother of a bride were arrested for killing the girl who got married to a lower caste man.

“Three days ago, a dominant caste parent was alleged to have kidnapped her grandchild as the child was born to a dalit man. There is a misconception that honour killing occurs only in villages.

“In another incident, a caste Hindu girl of Chennai, Sadhura, who married a dalit, Daniel Selvakumar, working in a private bank, was poisoned by her family for ‘spoiling’ their family name.”

NEPAL: WOMEN TREATED AS PROPERTY OF THEIR HUSBAND, DENIED CLAIM TO HIS PROPERTY UPON HIS DEATH

Nepalese Widows Struggle for Inheritance Rights (World Policy Blog)

“In Nepal, there is a haunting old adage that the day a woman is married, all happiness falls away from her life. This was certainly the case for Sadhana [name changed for confidentiality purposes], a 40-year-old widow from the Newari caste who lives in Kathmandu, the capital. As a child she grew up in a family that was relatively well-off. They owned a gas stove and were planning on construction of a new modern cement house—a huge status symbol for a Nepalese family.

“Then one day, when she was only 18 years old, her family advised her that she would be married later that afternoon. Throughout the ceremony she cried in terror as her new husband, whom she had never met before, took her away from her natal family. After the ceremony was over, she could never return to her parent’s household, as she was now the property of her husband. After two years of forced hard labor and abuse at the hand of her mother-in-law, Sadhana had birthed no children. She and her husband were getting desperate. Without a male heir there would be no one to support the parents in their old age. More importantly, without a son Sadhana held no standing within her husband’s family. Then one wretched day, the unthinkable occurred. Her husband had been involved in a motorcycle accident on his way to work, and was instantly killed.

“Dazed by shock and immersed in grief, Sadhana was incredulous as she found herself expelled from her husband’s home on the very same day of his death. The family had not only taken all of her possessions, but even the clothing off her back. She was categorically denied any claim to his inheritance, with no consideration of the law. Within a matter of hours, Sadhana had become a homeless and destitute widow.

“In Nepali society, the inheritance rights of women depend on their marital or sexual status. Traditionally, a woman is only entitled to her husband’s property if she is legally married and sexually faithful to him. A failure on either of these terms, whether real or alleged, results in the loss of her claims to her husband’s estate. Legally, this should not be happening. Nepal has guaranteed equal inheritance rights for widows, but religious and societal norms have a more profound effect on the execution of these rights than the actual laws. [...]

“Sadhana, a widow without a male heir to confirm her place in her husbands family, and unwelcome in her own parent’s home, was forced into a life of street beggary for some years. Ultimately, she was taken into an extended family member’s home where she was treated as little more than a slave.”

FORCED MARRIAGE TO SETTLE DISPUTES (SWARA) AND OTHER EXTREME FORMS OF WOMEN’S OPPRESSION IN PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Enslaved by tradition (IRIN)

“Despite the placing on Pakistan’s statute books of tougher laws against the practice of ‘swara’ or the ‘giving away’ of a woman to a rival party to settle a dispute, the tradition continues.

“The women’s rights advocacy organization Rahnuma, which guides victims, describes ‘swara’ as a practice “where a girl is given as an offering to `settle’ a conflict or dispute.” The practice is most common in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa Province (KP) and the southern Punjab, where it is known as ‘vani’, but also takes place in other parts of the country.

“A ‘swara’ exchange can be used to settle murder, adultery (a crime under the law), kidnapping or another offence. [...]

“‘Yes, the laws have helped but “swara,” “vani” and similar practices still go on,’ [activist Samar] Minallah told IRIN. ‘Estimates based on newspaper reports indicate there are hundreds of cases each year. Of course, there are many others which do not get reported,’ she said.

“She also said that tougher laws and arrests made under them had ‘led to people disguising the handing over of a woman or girl. The deal is not announced within the community as a “swara” or “vani” marriage, though within the families concerned it is known that the woman has been given away as “swara” and is treated accordingly,’ Minallah said.

“While ‘swara’ brides are wed to the men they are given to, these men are usually far older than the ‘brides,’ who are often mere children.

“The girls are also usually treated extremely badly or ‘like slaves,” according to Minallah, in the home of their in-laws.

“‘Honour killings’

“Other ‘traditional’ practices also harm women. According to the autonomous Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRPC), there were 943 ‘honour killings’ in 2011. An ‘honour killing,’ according to HRCP, involves the murder of a woman who is deemed to have let down her family, or ‘dishonoured’ it in some way. This can involve an act such as alleged adultery, a marriage decided on by the woman herself or other trivial matters. Couples choosing to wed by choice frequently end up having to go on the run, as in a recent case reported in the media from Karachi in June this year.

“The kinds of threat women face was illustrated by a recent case from the remote Kohistan District of KP where four women were sentenced to death by a local ‘jirga’ (gathering of tribal elders) after being caught on video clapping as two men unrelated to them danced at a wedding.

“Child marriages

“‘Custom’ or “tradition” also works against women in other ways.

“According to figures presented at a seminar in Karachi by the Family Planning Association of Pakistan, 30 percent of all marriages in the country are child marriages though the law bars the marriage of a girl under 16 or a boy under 18.”

THE PRICE OF LOVE ACROSS CASTE LINES: FOUR STORIES FROM THE PAST FOUR DAYS

Couple harassed for inter-caste marriage (Times of India, July 1):

“According to the police, Suman Kumar, a resident of Banswara's Anjana village had married Happy Kalal who comes from a different caste.

“‘Suman Kumar says that he and his family members are being harassed since the marriage took place. He says that members of a caste council in their village forced him to vacate the shop that he was running, rendering him completely jobless,’ said a police officer.

“He added that his mother and brothers are being forced to stay separated from him and his wife.

“‘Whenever my wife heads out of home, she is subjected to mockery and humiliation,’ said Suman Kumar in his statement to the police.”

Young woman strangled to death (The Hindu, June 29):

“In a shocking case of ‘honour killing’ on the outskirts of the Capital, a young Municipal Corporation of Delhi school teacher was strangulated to death allegedly by her brother and mother in Kanjhawala here over her affair with a man belonging to a different caste.

“The accused, Birmati (50) and Mohit (22), stuffed the body of Deepti Chhikara (26) in an Alto car and dumped it in Uttrakhand helped by the victim’s uncle Amit, the police said.

“The sensational murder came to light more than a month after the incident, when Deepti’s paramour Lalit Vats, a diploma holder in computer science, wrote an e-mail to the senior police officers saying that he suspected something wrong had happened to the woman. [...]

“When subjected to sustained interrogation, Birmati and Mohit purportedly confessed to having strangulated Deepti on April 19 night when they caught him talking to Lalit over the phone. The mother-son duo first beat her up and Mohit later strangulated her to death. Birmati held Deepti by her legs, while Mohit strangulated her, the police said.”

Dalit killed after 4 yrs of marriage to upper caste girl (Times of India, June 28):

“A dalit youth, who had married an upper caste girl in the face of strong opposition from her family four years back, was killed in Sector 8 of Kurukshetra. [...]

“Rohtas Kumar, a property dealer and resident of village Rojla (Karnal), had met Sonia first time when she was pursing a post-graduate course in Kurukshetra University in 2008, said Kumar's family members.

“They got married in the same year after a love affair despite the fact that her parents opposed the wedding, said Kumar's brother, Vajir Singh in a police complaint.

“‘But, even after marriage, the couple faced lot of opposition from her family members who pressurized her to seek divorce from him. Finally, she gave in, agreed to divorce her husband and returned to her parent’s house,’ he added.

“Singh told the police that they could not track his brother for five months as his mobile phone remained switched off.

“Finding that his house was locked for long, the house owner requested the police to break the lock, to find the body of Kumar, which had been reduced to a skeleton.”

The Class Prejudice Still Plaguing a Culture (Huffington Post UK, June 28):

“Parvati has been secretly dating the same man for over four years. This independent and educated female was terrified of the consequences if her parents discovered that she was in a relationship with a low-caste Hindu, because in Parvati’s high-caste Brahmin family it is forbidden for women to marry into lower caste families. Here Parvati lost my understanding. How could she allow what is essentially a form of racism concealed by religion to continue through her own choices?

“I didn't feel able to ask Parvati this question aloud, but I did ask why she didn't just marry her partner. ‘They might have him murdered’, she whispered to me one evening over a bottle of wine, shaking and tearful. ‘The extended family would laugh at us and disown us, and they’d never forgive me for dirtying their honour. I don’t know what they might do in response to that.’

“A rare anecdote, you might say; an unlikely story? But this is the story of [South] Asian women around the world. Whether they are living in India, Europe or the US, whether they are artists, lawyers or doctors, scratch the surface and the thick residue of an old inequality still remains. With their modern dresses these women wear a set of rusty, confining shackles.”

VILLAGE UPHOLDS CHILD MARRIAGE, THREATENING TO EXILE A WOMAN FOR SEEKING TO DISSOLVE A UNION SHE ENTERED AT THE AGE OF NINE

Jodhpur girl approaches court to annul marriage (TNN)

“When Shobha Choudhary, 23, expressed her wish to annul her marriage, which had been solemnized in May 1998 when she was barely 9 years, the caste panchayat threatened to expel her from the village and impose a penalty as high as Rs 9 lakh ($16,830). [...]

“Shobha, a well-educated girl of Rajwa village in Keru (nearly 25 km from Jodhpur) got inspired by Laxmi Sargara, who decided to call off her marriage, fixed in childhood, on Akha Teej, a day infamous for child marriages. [...]

“When asked the reason of annulment, Shobha said ‘The marriage was not my choice. The boy can hardly write his initials whereas I am a graduate, a computer literate working in an institute and am preparing for my B.Ed and RAS examinations.’

“She spent 2-3 days at her in-laws' house after her gauna [consummation ceremony], for which she was forced but she could not stay there and returned to her parents’ place citing the boy’s uncooperative and humiliating behaviour and his illiteracy as the reason. “Now, I am an adult and can take my life’s decisions and find a suitable match for myself,” Shobha said.

“When we tried to contact Shobha's husband, he remained inaccessible. Kriti said that, we also had a joint counselling session with him, but later on he disappeared and is intractable, perhaps on account of pressure from the village panchayat.”

WOMEN’S OPPRESSION IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE CASTE SYSTEM: SOME RECENT ATROCITIES COMMITTED IN DEFENSE OF FAMILY HONOR

Mob lynches woman, man forced to attempt suicide (The Hindu, May 10, 2012):

“Madhavan, a Dalit, has literally escaped the noose and is grateful that he is still alive.

“On Tuesday morning, he was dangling from a sari, after he was forced to attempt suicide.

“But, there was no such luck for Chitra, a 29-year old caste Hindu, who was lynched by a village mob for her alleged relationship with Madhavan.

“The honour killing took place on Tuesday just after dawn in Vandal in Vedaranyam. Chitra and Madhavan were bullied and beaten up. Their crime was that their ‘relationship' was not only extra-marital, but also inter-caste.”

Minor Dalit girl sent out of village for inter-caste affair (The Hindu, May 3, 2012):

“A minor Dalit girl from Bannirsarige in Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka was forced to leave the village by her family and local people for falling in love with a boy from a different caste and, in their view, bringing ‘ignominy’ to the community.

“Suma (name changed), 17, and pregnant, was left to fend for herself after her father and other family members threatened to commit suicide if she did not leave the house.”

Father kills daughter for family honour (Deccan Chronicle, May 2, 2012):

“In a bid to save family honour, a man strangled his daughter at Gedellanka village of Mummidivaram mandal in East Godavari on Monday night as she insisted on marrying her lover who belongs to another community.”

Dalit youth, victim of honour killing (The Hindu, May 1, 2012):

“In yet another case of suspected honour killing, the Tirunelveli district police on Friday arrested four persons on charges of murdering a Dalit youth who fell in love with a caste-Hindu girl.

“According to police sources, S. Elango (25) of Periyar Nagar in Erode was invited for a discussion by his girlfriend's maternal uncle and his former employer Saravanan. When he went to see him in a village near Munnirpallam on August 5, 2011, Saravanan and his associates took Elango to an isolated place and murdered him. The body was thrown into a pond.”

FOUR RECENT CASTE-BASED HONOR KILLINGS: CASTE AND WOMEN’S OPPRESSION REINFORCE EACH OTHER

Father bludgeons daughter to death for loving low-caste suitor (Bikya Masr)

“The 19-year-old girl Tabassum Khatun had got involved with 21-year-old Imran Khan, who was living as a paying guest in the upper floor of their apartment and was romantically involved with Tabssum the past four months.

“The two had even sought the permission of the deceased’s parents to legalize their relationship in matrimony. However the parents would have none of it, as Khan was from a lower caste.

“On Sunday, night the father Mohammad Kitabuddin Abdul Gafur Shah was awoken with a sudden sound and caught the two in the middle of a clandestine meeting, when in a fit of rage he killed his daughter.”

See also three other cases of caste-related honor killings in the Indian press this week:

Man kills wife belonging to backward class (Times of India, April 23, 2012):

“In a shocking incident, a backward-class woman was murdered allegedly for hiding her caste and marrying an upper caste man in Chitrakoot district. The man and his father have been arrested.

“The man confessed that he had killed his wife. He told the police that he was in love with his wife, who introduced herself as Puja Mishra when they first met. The two got married. When he came to know that she belonged to a backward caste, the man got furious and murdered Puja.”

And:

Girl’s mother, grandmother arrested for honour killing in Ramanathapuram (The Hindu, April 22, 2012):

“Irked over the girl eloping with a Dalit boy, Ilanjiam forced Thiruselvi to consume a pesticide. When the victim refused to do so, she forcibly poured the poison into her mouth. [...]

“The issue had been brought to the notice of the State Director-General of Police. According to him, at least a dozen honour killings were reported across Tamil Nadu in the last three years.

“‘There is a caste angle in almost every case and a majority of victims were women. We have called for enactment of a special law to eradicate honour killings.’”

And:

Dishonour killing: Father kills daughter in Indore (NDTV, April 29, 2012):

“Shivnarayan Verma (45), a resident of Pardeshipura area, choked his daughter Jyoti late on Saturday night, police said today. Afterwards, he went to the police station and confessed.

“According to police, the girl was in relation with a boy who lived near her house and wanted to marry him. But her father was against it as the boy was from another caste.

“The victim had decided to elope on Saturday night, but her father learnt about her plan and tried to stop her. She, however, refused to change her mind, which led to her murder, police said.”

REPORT: GARMENT INDUSTRY IN TAMIL NADU RECRUITS UNTOUCHABLE WOMEN AND GIRLS AS SUPEREXPLOITED LABOR

“Maid in India”: Young Dalit women exploited in Indian garment industry (SOMO [Stichting Onderzoek Multinationale Ondernemingen]: The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (Netherlands))

“Recruitment is targeted at young, mostly unmarried, women and girls, aged between 14 and 25. The majority of these workers have a Dalit (so-called scheduled castes) or other low-caste background and come from poor, often landless and indebted families that depend on irregular income earned as agricultural coolies in the dry south of Tamil Nadu. Orphans and children of single parents are also targeted. When free education ends at the 8th grade (at the age of fourteen) parents or relatives lack the means to enroll children in school. Agents that recruit for spinning mills or garment factories are aware of the situation and may approach poor families at this precise time. Brokers convince parents to send their daughters to the textile and garment factories with promises of a well-paid job, comfortable accommodation, three nutritious meals a day and opportunities for training and schooling. Clothes and household articles are also given to attract the parents. Sending the girls to work in the mills where they will receive daily meals is a relief for the household; the (small) income girls bring in is a much needed addition to the means of the family. The lump sum offered to the girls is a way to meet the social pressure to purchase jewels for their daughters’ marriage. [These recruitment and employment practices are often referred to as 'Sumangali scheme.’]

The Tamil word sumangali refers to a married woman who lives a happy and contented life with her husband with all good fortunes and material benefits. Workers under this scheme are recruited with the promise that they will receive a considerable amount of money after completion of three to five years of employment. This amount could be used to pay for a dowry. In this report, these workers are referred to as ‘scheme workers’. [Often, completing the contract period is a condition to receive the lump sum amount, which is not a bonus but made up of withheld wages.] If the lump sum is added to the monthly wages, the total amount earned in the contract period in most cases does not equal the amount a worker would have earned if she had received the minimum wage for an apprentice in the garment industry.

“[Labour migrants often live in strictly supervised factory-owned hostels where they have little opportunity for contact with their families, let alone with trade unions or labour advocates. Workers make long hours, including forced overtime, in some cases even up to 24 hours on end, for low wages, and under unhealthy conditions. Verbal and physical abuse is frequently reported.]”

Read the full report: “Maid in India”

See also:

Young Dalit women exploited in Indian garment industry (SOMO press release)

WOMEN’S OPPRESSION IN TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES HAS A MATERIAL BASIS

In India, Girls Are Considered ‘Someone Else’s Wealth’ (The Epoch Times)

“According to research [by the Center for Global Health and Research published last year], the selective abortion of girls may account for 12 million missing girls over the past three decades.

“While a boy adds to the family’s wealth in India, a girl becomes part of another family after marriage. She is considered Praya Dhan, meaning ‘someone else’s wealth’ in Hindi.

“In patriarchal Indian society, boys are those who carry forth the family lineage and are responsible for taking care of the parents in old age.

“When a girl is born, along with her comes an excessive responsibility to protect her and through her the family honor, to marry her off to another household and to pay for her dowry.

“While the whole community, particularly in rural areas, breaks out into celebrations when a boy is born, the birth of a girl is usually a hush-hush affair met with either sighs or frowns. [...]

“Women who only have daughters not sons face a general curse and are blamed for not being able to provide an heir to the family lineage.”

MURDERED BY HER BROTHER FOR MARRYING AN UNTOUCHABLE MAN

Honour killing of assistant professor? (The Hindu)

“In what is being described as an ‘honour killing', a married woman was strangulated to death allegedly by her brother at her residence at Alanahalli Layout here early on Tuesday.

“The victim, Smruthi (28), was an assistant professor in Kannada at the Government First Grade College at Kuderu in Chamarajanagar district.

“The accused, Mahadeva, had strongly opposed her marriage to Sudeep Kumar (28), a Dalit, who is an assistant director in the Physical Education Department in Tumkur University.

“Smruthi, a Lingayat, and Sudeep had a civil marriage last November after a seven-year courtship. They wanted to hold a wedding ceremony after getting the consent of their families.

“Smruthi, a native of Periyapatna taluk, who lost her father a year ago, was staying with her grandmother Nanjamma and a friend Savita Hegde. She was pursuing doctoral studies, according to sources.”

BANGLADESH: STATE ENFORCES SECTARIAN, ANTI-WOMAN BAN ON BOOK BY COURAGEOUS EXILED NOVELIST

Teacher arrested for having a copy of a book by Taslima Nasrin (AsiaNews)

“The principal of a technical school in the district of Pirojpur (southern Bangladesh) was arrested for possession of a copy of Lajja (Shame), the famous novel by writer Taslima Nasrin. The book has been banned in Bangladesh since 1993 because it is considered blasphemous against Islam the state religion. The teacher, Yunus Ali, faces up to three years in prison.

“The police took him out of the KC Technical and Business Management College after finding a copy of the book in the school library. Ali defended himself against accusations claiming to be the victim of a conspiracy. The inspector Abdul Malek said: ‘Lajja is a banned book. Nevertheless, the principal kept it in the library. He must answer for this crime.’

“In Lajja, Taslima Nasrin, 49, tells the life of a Hindu family persecuted by Muslims. The author had to flee the country in 1994 after receiving death threats from Islamic fundamentalists. Since then, she has lived between India and Europe, without being able to return to Bangladesh. Her family is Muslim, but today she proclaims herself to be atheist.

“Contacted by AsiaNews, Nasrin said: ‘The arrest of this teacher is a sign that Bangladesh is not in reality a democracy but a totalitarian regime. Since 1990, Islamic fundamentalists have silenced my freedom of expression and tried to kill me, forced me to flee my country and leave my family.’

“Now, she concluded, ‘someone is in danger because of my book, and risks his freedom. But Lajja is not a novel of blasphemy: it is just the defense of a persecuted religious [Hindu] minority, one that is constantly harassed by the Muslim majority. I wish the best for this man and for those who are every day deprived of their freedom of expression.’”

See previous anti-caste posts on Taslima Nasrin

HINDU-RIGHT MORAL POLICE MOBILIZE AGAINST WOMEN DRINKING

Hindutva activists try to barge into star hotel (The Times of India)

“Activists of a local Hindutva brigade attempted to barge into a leading star hotel in the city on Wednesday demanding to stop its plan to hold New Year party in ‘western style’. What provoked the Hindutva outfit was the announcement of the hotel that alcoholic beverages would be served free to women who accompany men to the New Year party. Police have arrested and removed 27 activists of the little-known Hindu Makkal Katchi (Tamizhagam).

“They told the management of the hotel not to engage in attempts to infuse Western values into Indian minds.

“‘The Le Meridian hotel has announced ballroom dance party on the occasion of New Year. By inviting couples to the party, the hotel is trying to popularise drinking culture among women. While the younger generation is already addicted to alcohol, the star hotel is now trying to spoil our culture and such parties are encouraging alcoholism among the youths,’ said Arjun Sampath, founder-president of Hindu Makkal Katchi (Tamizhagam).”

BARRIERS TO CIVIL MARRIAGE IN INDIA TARGET INTER-CASTE AND INTER-RELIGIOUS COUPLES

Thwarting a union (Communalism Combat)

“It is important to mention that any unmarried, sane, consenting adults (where the bridegroom is over 21 years of age and the bride is over 18 and who are unrelated within the degrees of prohibited relationship), irrespective of faith or caste, can get married under the Special Marriage Act. The couple from Rajasthan, who come from an inter-caste background, could have done so too. So why did they decide to have a religious marriage ceremony? It was almost certainly because they wanted to make sure their parents did not receive any intimation about their marriage through the official notice – as would any couple who anticipated threats to their life and liberty. [...]

“Barring Delhi, all other states follow the dangerous practice of sending a copy of the notice of intended marriage to the permanent addresses of the marrying couples [in non-religious ceremonies under the Special Marriages Act]. Thanks to the initiatives of the Delhi government and a landmark judgement by Justice S. Ravindra Bhat of the Delhi high court in April 2009, the practice of sending notices to the homes of couples desirous of solemnising their marriage under the Special Marriage Act was curbed. However, it has not been completely discontinued, as the officials fear the wrath of the parents of marrying couples.

“The administrations in Ghaziabad, Noida and Gurgaon in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are not even willing to bear the expenses of dispatching notices and they insist that couples provide pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelopes beforehand. Couples also have to publish an advertisement of their proposed marriage in a leading newspaper and submit a copy of the published advertisement to the marriage officer’s office. In Gurgaon, the concerned deputy commissioner’s office has taken the pains to add a column for specifying the applicants’ religion in the ‘Intent to Marry’ form and an additional point about the citizenship of the applicants in the declaration form. I wonder why religion should be mentioned at all in the one legally recognised marriage procedure intended to be outside the realms of faith or caste.

“The Gurgaon office also requires that couples provide envelopes bearing the names and designations of the marriage officers in districts where the applicants permanently reside. I can only speculate on the amount of homework a couple has to do before they file their application. A marriage cannot be solemnised under the Special Marriage Act without receipt of a verification report from the concerned tehsildar; and the report will not, of course, be issued as a matter of routine. The couple has to take great pains to ensure that the report is in fact released by the tehsildar’s office.

“Looking at just a few of the requirements essential for marriage under the Special Marriage Act, one can safely say that no couple would choose to go through the traumatic experience on its own. So those couples who are still determined to get married under the Special Marriage Act are forced to engage an advocate and shell out a large sum of money for his/her fees. Unfortunately, the majority of couples cannot afford the services of an advocate and thus, confronted by various hostile and complex sociopolitical pressures, they are forced to opt for a religious form of marriage.”

HORRIFIC KILLING IN THE NAME OF CASTE PURITY AND PATRIARCHAL HONOR

Village watched as woman was set on fire by husband, in-laws (NDTV)

A married woman who tried to elope with her Dalit lover met a gruesome death when her husband and in-laws tried to hang her, then set her on fire in Madhya Pradesh.[...]

Guddi, who was married to Dhaniram, was trying to escape from their village with her lover. Her husband and his parents tried to hang her from a tree. When she survived, they allegedly beat her up, poured kerosene over her, and then tried to set her on fire. When that attempt to kill her also proved unsuccessful, they placed her on a wooden pyre and then lit a match.

She was finally killed near a temple while the whole village watched, police said.

See also:

Married woman killed for eloping with dalit (Times of India, October 25, 2011):

Guddi's younger sister Brijesh is married into the same family. She remained a mute spectator while Guddi was tortured to death. Police were surprised that Brijesh, an eyewitness to her elder sister's murder, refused to give a statement or talk about the incident. [...]

Guddi was married into the influential family of farmers more than a decade ago. She was about 15 years younger than her husband. She fell in love with a dalit youth Kamal Valmiki, who visited their village often. On October 2, Guddi eloped with Kamal to Delhi so that her husband and in-laws could not find her.

ICL ARTICLE ON ATTEMPTED HONOR KILLING OF RUMANA MONZUR

Barbaric Mutilation of Bangladeshi Woman
(Workers Vanguard (reprinted from Spartacist Canada)

“On June 5, in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh, 33-year-old Rumana Monzur was permanently blinded and disfigured by her husband.[...]

“[S]ome feminists insisted that the attack had nothing to do with religion and was purely a ‘domestic violence’ issue, claiming that to say otherwise would be racist. It is true that violence against women occurs in all societies, crossing class, religious and national bounds, but what happened to Rumana had all the markings of an attempted ‘honour killing.’ There have been countless such murders in the Near East, in South and Central Asia as well as in many imperialist countries. These brutal crimes grow out of the clash between a woman’s desire for independence from ‘traditional’ culture and the legacy of pre-capitalist social and economic norms that persist in large swathes of the world.[...]

“We sharply oppose this racist ruling-class drive against Muslims and other minorities. At the same time we strongly solidarize with women who seek to throw off the strictures of religious traditionalism. Bangladesh, like the rest of the Indian subcontinent, bears the imprint of pre-capitalist social and economic norms. This neocolonial country is dominated by the dictates of the imperialist order while also subject to the tyranny of religious obscurantism; capitalist exploitation manipulates and deepens the ancient traditions and taboos.

“The concept of ‘family honour’—control of a woman’s sexuality by her family—is not the exclusive purview of Islam but occurs in a number of religions, including Christianity. It is the reflection of the treatment of women as the property of their husbands or fathers. This was powerfully captured by Friedrich Engels in his classic work The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884): “In order to make certain of the wife’s fidelity and therefore of the paternity of the children, she is delivered over unconditionally into the power of the husband; if he kills her, he is only exercising his rights.” [...]

“Christianity and Judaism, in their many variants, also preach stifling moral codes to uphold the patriarchal family, the main social institution oppressing women. But these religions, though they had roots in pre-capitalist society, adapted to conform with rising industrial capitalism and the bourgeois democratic nation-states where they existed. The radical democratic principles of the Enlightenment were the ideological reflection of historical material advances over a backward, feudal society. As a religion Islam has not had to adapt, largely because it is rooted in those parts of the world where the imperialists have reinforced social backwardness as a prop to their domination.

“The emancipation of women as part of the liberation of all the downtrodden of Bangladesh and the entire subcontinent requires a struggle for permanent revolution—the working class seizing power at the head of the peasantry and oppressed masses through socialist revolution, reorganizing society on the basis of collectivized property and fighting to extend the revolution internationally, especially to the imperialist centres.”

NEPAL: IMPOVERISHED LOW-CASTE WOMEN THROWN INTO TRADITIONAL CASTE-BASED SERVITUDE

Dalit women into Balighare profession (The Himalayan)

“An increasing number of Dalit women in Banke district are attracted towardsan annual labour contract called Balighare Partha locally under which so-called high caste people give food in return to their hard work and service.

“Until recently the age-old Balighare occupation was dominated by Dalit men. Prem Kala BK of Chisapani-9 is an example of increasing number of women taking up this profession mainly by women from Bishwokarma community among other Dalit castes.

“Lately she has started working in her forge, where only her husband used to work till some time ago. She melts metal in the forage and crafts kitchen utensils and sickles, knives, hoes and other traditional weapons of neighbours. In return, she gets rice, maize or millets (as per her choice) for her whole year’s works from them.

“Sewing clothes as well making hand drums and other musical instruments are also part of Balighare system in existence in the district from ages taken up by Dalit people as their one of the major sources of livelihood.”

anti-caste: In the balighare partha system, one of several traditional forms of caste-based labor extraction in Nepal, members of (low-ranking) artisan castes provide services to upper-caste landholders in exchange for one meager allotment (perhaps ten, fifteen, or twenty-five kilograms) of inferior food grain annually at harvest time.

See also:

Dalits continue to be exploited in Nepal (Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle, October 24, 2010):

“Dal Man Bishwokarma, a resident of Rautaha village in Udayapur, not only manufactures domestic weapons and equipments used in farming but also repairs them. He provides his service to 21 Bishta families. However, he gets only 10 pathis [about 50 kilograms] of maize once a year from each of them.

“During festivals like Dashain and Tihar, Bishta families provide Dal Man with a mana (one mana is roughly equal to half a kilogram) of rice and Rs 20 each. His family has to survive on this meager income for the whole year. ‘With this income, I find it difficult to make ends meet even for six months,’ he said. ‘For the rest of the year, I have to go somewhere else to work as a laborer.’

“The tradition, which exploits Dalits’ labor, is still in fashion mainly in Bhutar, Nametar, Bhalayodada, Panchawoti, Dumre, Barre, Iname, Jante, Thanagau and Laphagau villages. Harka Bahadur Pariyar, a resident of Jaate village where 24 Dalit families are stuck in this tradition, said, ‘We have been surviving like this for generations.’”

A WOMAN MARRYING AGAIN AFTER SEPARATING FROM HER HUSBAND SEEN AS THREAT TO FAMILY HONOR

30-year-old woman killed for deciding to re-marry (DNA)

“In a case bearing resemblance to honour killings elsewhere in the country, a 30-year-old woman was killed by relatives for deciding to re-marry. Shabana Khan, a resident of Shivaji Nagar, Govandi, was strangulated in the wee hours of Monday. The police arrested the suspects on Tuesday.

“According to the police, Shabana, a mother of two, had reportedly separated from her husband a few years ago. She had planned to get married to a person named Ali. ‘Her cousins were not happy about her decision,’ B Pardeshi, inspector of the Shivaji Nagar police station said. [...]

“Her ten-year-old daughter woke up on hearing the commotion and saw the suspects fleeing. ‘She immediately raised an alarm and alerted the neighbours, who rushed Khan to a nearby hospital,’ the officer said. Khan was declared dead before admission.”

CASTE-BASED HONOR KILLING IN TAMIL NADU

For marrying a Dalit, man slits daughter’s throat in police station (Times of India)

“Following a complaint by Joshua and Kalaivani that they feared for their lives as her family was against their marriage, Red Hills police inspector K Kumaran called Ezhumalai for talks. ‘Ezhumalai, a real estate businessman, came to the station dressed in a pair of trousers and shirt. As soon as he entered, he walked towards Kalaivani, pulled out a knife from his pocket and slit her throat,’ Kumaran said.

“Kalaivani, an undergraduate student, fled home on January 21 to get married to Joshua in a city church. She had met Joshua, an employee of a private firm in Ambattur, some 18 months ago through a common friend. Fearing opposition, she did not disclose her relationship to her family and registered her marriage at the sub-registrar's office in Egmore last week.”

A PORTRAIT OF VILLAGE INDIA IN 2010: SCARCITY, BIGOTRY, SYSTEMATIC RAPE OF UNTOUCHABLE WOMEN

India’s languishing countryside: A village in a million (The Economist)

“The 10,000-odd villagers—who make Shahabpur a medium-sized settlement in crowded north India—are arranged largely on the basis of caste. They live in caste-based ghettos; rarely socialise across caste lines, and never inter-marry. And the village dalits, as the former untouchables are now called, are often abused.

“The chamars, the biggest of Shahabpur’s half-dozen dalit caste-groups get the worst of it. They are, not coincidentally, the village’s poorest people. And several villagers—including from Shahabpur’s small Muslim community, well-informed observers of Hindu wiles—say they are routinely bullied and beaten. The worst dalit-bashers are said to be the patels, Shahabpur’s biggest community, which is about 3,000-strong. They are typical bullies: of a low-caste peasant order, the patels are just a rung or two higher up the caste ladder, which makes them jealous guardians of their perceived superiority.

“There is an exception to the caste divide in Shahabpur, which many Muslim and Hindu men enjoy. For a few rupees or handfuls of rice, they are said to demand and get sex with dalit women, typically just after sundown, when the villagers troop out to the fields to ablute. At an informal gathering of Muslim men outside the house of Anwar Ali—an upstanding clerk, who also housed your correspondent—it was estimated that perhaps 40% of the village’s non-dalit men upheld this ancient tradition. According to Sarju, until Sushila lost her youthful good looks, he suffered near-nightly terrors from drunken patel youths, who came clamouring for her outside his hut.

“This practice recalls a famous condemnation of village India by one of the country’s founding fathers, B.R. Ambedkar. The architect of the country’s 1949 constitution and a dalit, Ambedkar asked: ‘What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism?’ (Mohandas Gandhi, by contrast, considered the villages to be India’s ideal social units.)”

DOCUMENTARY ON CASTE-BASED TRADITION OF FORCED PROSTITUTION

Prostitutes of god (The Independent (UK))

Former Independent journalist Sarah Harris has made a documentary about India's temple prostitutes – Devadasi are young girls who are dedicated to a Hindu deity at a young age and support their families as sex workers.

The first instalment of the four-part exclusively online documentary “Prostitutes of God” goes live today on VBS.tv.

Harris talked to The Independent Online about making the film:

“I first went to India after I left The Independent three years ago. I wanted to run away and do something really different, so I went to volunteer with a charity in southern India which rescues victims of sex trafficking.

“On my very first day there I stumbled into a meeting of Devadasi prostitutes. I was told that they were temple prostitutes, but didn’t have any understanding of what that meant. [...]

“The only thing that has changed since the Devadasi practise was made illegal in 1988 is that the ceremonies have been driven underground. It’s still very common in some parts of India. A Westerner wouldn’t know to look at the girls that they are Devadasi, but Indians know on sight who they are and what they do. Really it comes down to caste. [...]

“Girls from the Madiga caste, otherwise known as the ‘untouchable caste,’ have really limited prospects. They can be agricultural labourers, sewage collectors or prostitutes, essentially. As prostitution is the most lucrative, a lot of Madiga women get into sex work.”

NIRUPAMA PATHAK CASE PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON CASTE-BASED HONOR KILLINGS

In India, Castes, Honor and Killings Intertwine (New York Times)

“New cases of killings or harassment appear in the Indian news media almost every week. Last month, the police arrested three men for the honor killings of a couple in New Delhi who had married outside their castes, as well as the murder of a woman who eloped with a man from another caste.

“Two of the suspects are accused of murdering their sisters, and an uncle of the slain couple spoke of their murders as justifiable.

“‘What is wrong in it?’ the uncle, Dharmaveer Nagar, told the Indian news media. ‘Murder is wrong, but this is socially the best thing that has been done.’

“Intercaste marriages are protected under Indian law, yet social attitudes remain largely resistant. In a 2006 survey cited in a United Nations report, 76 percent of respondents deemed the practice unacceptable. An overwhelming majority of Hindu couples continue to marry within their castes, and newspapers are filled with marital advertisements in which parents, seeking to arrange a marriage for a son or daughter, specify caste among lists of desired attributes like profession and educational achievement.”

[candlelight vigil in memory of Nirupama Pathak]

CASTE-BASED HONOR KILLINGS OCCUR ALL ACROSS INDIA

Now, honour killing rocks TN: Father attacks daughter (Times of India)

“The latest in a series of such attacks on women in the state, the Megala case dispels the popular notion that 'honour killings' are confined to Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the north; southern states such as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh too witness similar incidents periodically. Many of them are sparked off when educated single women walk out of their homes and choose their own partners, sometimes from another community or caste. [...]

“A study by the National Commission for Women (NCW), still underway, shows that of the 326 cases of conflict surveyed so far nationwide, 72% were because the couple crossed caste barriers and only 3% were because the couple were from the same gotra. ‘Women are making their own choices and in a patriarchal set-up this causes problems,’ says Ravi Kant, Supreme Court advocate and president of Shakti Vahini, the organisation that is conducting the study for NCW.

“Activists in Tamil Nadu endorse this view. ‘Honour killings are not unheard of in Tamil Nadu. The basis is usually caste, more often than not a Dalit boy marrying an upper caste girl,’ says U Vasuki, general secretary, All-India Democratic Women's Association.”

POLICE AND THE STATE ENFORCE CASTE LAW AGAINST YOUNG COUPLES: FORCIBLY SEPARATING THEM, CRIMINALIZING THE HUSBAND, SETTING THEM UP FOR MURDER

Honour killing: Between life and love (Times of India)

“Police protection hardly helps, say activists. Standard operating procedure in the case of a runaway man and woman ends up with the woman’s family filing a case of kidnapping and/or rape against the man or his family. The woman shows up as ‘missing’ in Haryana police’s records. From November 2009 to May 2010, of the 686 people filed as ‘missing’ on Haryana police’s website, a largish 30% are females aged between 15 and 28 years.

“Police hunt the couple down. If the girl is under 18, she is forcibly returned to her family. If her age is suspect, and she refuses her family, she is packed off to a nari niketan and the guy is jailed. This usually takes place in the month between a couple’s registering their wish to marry and the registration, which has mandatory month in-between: a provision begging to be altered. ‘Fear of cases filed under section 363 (kidnapping) and 366 (compelling/inducing woman into marriage) against the “husband” drives the couple to court. If registration is immediate, such cases can’t proceed,’ says advocate Kulbir Singh Dhaliwal. Jaipur-based activist Kavita Srivastava moots the idea of same-day registration. ‘The more time you give, more the problems for the couple,’ she says. Many couples also surface to protect their families. In the headline-grabbing Manoj-Babli murder, for instance, the posed picture of the two garlanding each other was taken for Babli to prove that she married Manoj of her own accord. This was the only way to ensure that the kidnapping case against her mother-in-law Chandrapati, of Karora village in Kaithal, could be quashed. It was on that visit that the two were murdered.

“As is clear, not every couple is killed. Activists say barely a handful are murdered: what determines the fate of the target is the couple’s financial independence, political clout or wherewithal to pay off the khap. Lawyers say 90% cases are ‘solved.’‘Nobody says a word when a politician’s children decide to marry against norms. It’s very selective,’ says Aidwa’s Sudha Sundararaman. Or when couples can pay the “fines” khaps impose, in short paying their way out. Matters come to a head if the woman marries a lower caste guy. Her succession rights can mean property going—via the girl—into a lower-caste family. Inter-caste, intra-village, intra-gotra are the big daddies frowned upon. But again, selective. ‘A khap had declared a couple brother-sister recently and nullified their marriage. We intervened and as the boy was Delhi-based and had clout, their khap revoked the decision,’ says Sundararaman.”

See all anti-caste posts on honor killings.

ANOTHER YOUNG COUPLE LYNCHED, THIS TIME IN THE HEART OF DELHI

Indian couple electrocuted for daring to marry outside caste (The Independent (U.K.))

“In a case that has stunned India's capital, [a young man] and his teenage girlfriend were tortured and murdered in a so-called honour killing, allegedly by the young woman's family, who objected to the relationship.

“Over a period of several hours, the young couple were bound, beaten and given electric shocks before they died. All that time, the woman screamed and begged with her assailants–apparently her uncle and father–to spare the life of the young man whom she so wanted to marry.

“‘When we found the bodies, the couple's legs and hands were tied and they were bleeding,’ the deputy commissioner of Delhi police, NS Bundela, told a press conference yesterday. ‘The couple were electrocuted as well, but we will wait for the full post-mortem report.’

“The killing of young couples who challenge the wishes of their families is not uncommon in rural India where the centuries-old traditions of caste and tribe remain little diluted. But this incident has triggered an unusual degree of outrage, both for its brutality and for its location in a city that is gearing up for October’s Commonwealth Games and a chance to showcase itself to the world.

“The couple, Yogesh Kumar Jatav, 21, and 19-year-old Asha Saini, lived just streets from each other in the crowded, claustrophobic Gokulpuri neighbourhood on the edge of the city and had started their relationship two years ago. Yet despite such geographic proximity, in the eyes of Ms Saini's family, the pair were from worlds apart; her father owned and operated a successful vegetable wholesale business, while Mr Jatav, whose parents are dead, worked as a taxi driver. More importantly, it seems, Mr Jatav was from a lower caste. [...]

“When he was brought before court yesterday, Ms Saini's uncle apparently confessed to the crime and told reporters: ‘We killed them using an electric shock. Yogesh had come to our house. We don't feel any remorse.’”

See also:

Indian community torn apart by ‘honour killings’ by Geeta Pandey (BBC, June 16, 2010):

“Cousin Lokesh Kumar Saini says: ‘We had talked to Yogesh and his family in the past and told them to stay away. We had also found a good match for Asha and she was engaged.

“‘What will any parent do if they see their daughter in a compromising position with a man? What would you do if you were in the same situation?’ he asks me angrily. ‘That's why my uncles killed them.’

“Another of Asha's uncles, Titoo Saini, is convinced ‘the killings were justified.’

“‘We did it for our honour. Honour in our community and society is paramount to us,’ he says.

“I ask them what honour the family has now that they are accused of murdering their own daughter?

“‘If she had run away with Yogesh, what honour would we have left then?’ he asks.

“‘Moreover, that would have set a bad precedent for the other children in the family. They would have done the same. Then it would have been a slow and painful death for us every living moment. This is better,’ he says.

“‘Asha played in my arms as a baby. I carried her for her funeral. Did that not make me unhappy?”

“But Titoo Saini is clear that marriage outside of caste is a bigger evil than murder.

“‘How can we marry outside the caste? This cannot be tolerated. Only an impotent man will accept this. If I was in their place, I would have done the same,’ he says.

CASTE COUNCILS DEMANDING REACTIONARY CHANGES TO MARRIAGE LAWS

No honour in murder (The Hindu)

“A newly-wed bride and her mother-in-law were killed and the groom seriously injured by the girl's relatives in the Tarn Taran district of Punjab on May 11. According to the police, 19-year-old Gurleen Kaur's naked body had deep cuts in the neck area, and her shoulder and fingers had been mutilated. Her father, brothers and uncles obviously thought this was fit punishment for her crime: marrying 25-year-old Amarpreet Singh against their wishes. [...]

“Will such so-called ‘honour killings’ stop if the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 is amended to prohibit marriages within the same gotra? Unlikely. That may be the most publicised of the demands and threats issued by the Khap Mahapanchayat–a congregation of caste Panchayats from Jat strongholds in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan–in Kurukshetra on April 13, and subsequently elsewhere. But it was not the only one. They have also reportedly called for a ban on marriages within the same village and contiguous villages, as well as de-recognition of temple weddings uniting runaway couples.

“The mythical gotra factor may have come to the fore because the Kurukshetra gathering was clearly triggered by the recent landmark judgment delivered by District and Sessions Judge Vani Gopal Sharma in Karnal (Haryana) in the case of Manoj and Babli Banwala, a young couple belonging to the same caste and gotra, who were murdered in 2007 because they dared to marry each other.

“But, as scholar and activist Jagmati Sangwan has pointed out, not all honour killings even within Haryana involve same-gotra couples. According to her, the majority of the marriages condemned by Khap Panchayats are of couples who do not share a gotra.

“Most victims of ‘honour killings’ reported from various parts of the country are young people who choose to love or marry outside their caste, sub-caste or religion. Not surprisingly, the socially and economically dominant castes are usually responsible for acts of reprisal against inter-caste relationships. [...] In the name of preserving ‘social order’ and saving the ‘honour’ of the community, caste or family, all kinds of justifications are pressed into service. If the same-village or -gotra obstacle does not apply, there is always something else: a man was killed in Haryana last year for violating the ‘customary’ proscription of marriage between residents of neighbouring villages. [...]

“The recent spate of deaths attributed to ‘honour killing’ and the aggressive, unrepentant posturing of Khap leaders seem to have pushed at least some in the government into taking a more decisive stand on the issue than was common in the past (under any political dispensation). However, it is no secret that these caste-based, extra-legal bodies enjoy at least tacit support from a number of political leaders, civil servants, police officers, lawyers and even judges. Already two politicians from Haryana–one supposedly enlightened, the other definitely old-school–have publicly sought to make peace with the increasingly combative Khaps, albeit with riders (which ring rather hollow).”

See also:

anti-caste: HONOR KILLINGS AND OTHER EXTREME FORMS OF WOMEN'S OPPRESSION ARE ROOTED IN MATERIAL BACKWARDNESS (January 1, 2010)

anti-caste: ANTI-WOMAN LYNCHINGS ORDERED BY CASTE COUNCILS DEFENDED (September 14, 2009)

anti-caste: WOMAN-KILLING CASTE COUNCILS IN HARYANA WANT LEGAL COVER (September 8, 2009)

HORRIFYING CONDITIONS FOR THE MASSES AND ESPECIALLY WOMEN

Excremental India by Malise Ruthven (New York Review of Books)

“India is about the only country in the world where you actually see human adults defecating. When traveling by road or rail you can be struck by the image of men squatting openly, impervious to the public gaze. The UN estimates that 638 million people—or 55 percent of the Indian population—still defecate out of doors. The practice is clearly born of necessity in a crowded country where the development of public amenities has conspicuously failed to keep pace with economic and demographic growth.

“Conspicuous defecation, however, is restricted to males. Female modesty—enjoined by Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism alongside age-old patriarchal codes—dictates that women may relieve themselves only after dark or in the most secluded reaches of the forest, a practice that exposes them to violence or even snakebites. The consequences for women’s health can be devastating. Women of the poorest classes notoriously suffer from a range of urinary and bowel disorders born of taboos about pollution and other social constraints applied to the most basic and banal of bodily functions.”

WITH CONGRESS GOVT REFUSING TO PROTECT HIS RIGHTS, M.F. HUSAIN TAKES CITIZENSHIP ABROAD TO ESCAPE HINDU-RIGHT HARRASSMENT

India shamed as its greatest painter is driven abroad by Shoba Narayan (The National (UAE))

“India’s treasured painter Maqbool Fida Hussain officially handed over his Indian passport and became a Qatari citizen yesterday. He is never returning home and Indians should not have let him go.

“Forced into exile five years ago due to death threats from Hindu hardliners, Hussain told interviewers that Qatar is his home now. While he loves India, the 94-year-old artist said, the country didn’t need him or want him. All over Bharatmata, the Mother India painting.

“I wonder if the Hindu fundamentalists who made death threats and lodged criminal complaints against Hussain had actually seen the painting in question. It is a stunning piece of art that does everything a great work should–it inspires and provokes; offers a point of view and forces you to question yours; it offers a window to the painter’s psyche; most of all, it is quite beautiful.

“The right-wing rebellion against Hussain boils down to a single and tragically polarising factor: MF Hussain is a Muslim painter portraying nude Hindu goddesses. How dare he?”

See also anti-caste: CONGRESS-LED GOVT WON'T PROTECT MUSLIM ARTIST FROM HINDU RIGHT (November 8, 2008)

AS CONGRESS GOVT THREATENS TASLIMA NASRIN’S VISA, FUNDAMENTALIST MOBS RIOT OVER A WRITING OF HERS AGAINST WOMEN’S OPPRESSION

Exiled Bangladesh author gets ‘last’ Indian visa (AFP)

“Bangladesh writer Taslima Nasreen, forced to flee her homeland by Muslim extremists, said Wednesday that India had told her it will no longer renew her residence visa after the current one expires.

“Nasreen, who has been unable to live full-time in India because of opposition from Muslim hardliners in the country, said the Indian government had renewed her temporary six-month residence permit.

“But 47-year-old author, who has spent the past two years mainly in the United States, said the government told her it was ‘the last time’ the permit would be extended.

“‘I don't know where I will go if India does not give me shelter,’ Nasreen told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location in the Indian capital where she was under federal protection.

See also:

Taslima article: 2 dead, media offices attacked (Indian Express, March 3, 2010):

“Late on Tuesday night, about 15 unidentified men attacked the offices of Kannada daily Kannada Prabha and an eveninger with petrol bombs in Mangalore, injuring a person and leaving computers and office furniture smashed. The latest attacks came even as the Karnataka Police registered cases against Kannada Prabha and Urdu daily Siasat for ‘hurting religious sentiments’ after communal violence erupted in parts of the state over the publication of a translation of an article purportedly written by exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen. [...]

“At the root of the protests and violence was a full-page Sunday supplement feature published in Kannada Prabha, entitled ‘Purdah hai Purdah.’ The article was described as a translation of a 2007 Nasreen piece published in sections of the media with the title ‘Let’s think again about the burqa.’”

And see:

L’affaire Taslima (Outlook blog, March 2, 2010)

And see also earlier anti-caste posts on this courageous writer.

HONOR KILLINGS AND OTHER EXTREME FORMS OF WOMEN'S OPPRESSION ARE ROOTED IN MATERIAL BACKWARDNESS

Not a matter of honour by Anuradha Dutt (The Pioneer)

"In recent months, cases of honour killing in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh have claimed public attention and triggered demands from civil society for expeditious legislation to curb such crimes. Unconventional alliances, involving couples from different castes and clans, or of the same gotra, provide the pretext for medieval village-level, caste-linked governing bodies, called khap panchayats, to pronounce judgement and award punishment that can only be termed barbaric. Errant parties are hounded out of the villages, driven to suicide or killed. Their kin may also be persecuted by community members. Such events are accepted as being permissible for upholding the status quo in terms of social and caste relations. Outside rabidly feudal areas, alliances that do not meet family and community approval are unlikely to end in death. The errant couple might at worst be shunned by relatives. [...]

"Sati, though rare now in view of the vigilance maintained against the practice by local administrations, can also be considered honour killing since the hapless widow, more often than not, is forced to burn along with the body of her deceased spouse as a point of misplaced family pride. It is also a convenient way to keep property and assets within the marital family.

"Sociological studies indicate that in cases of honour killings of the kind rampant in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh—and also Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and other northern regions—the motivation usually hinges on purely material factors. Marriage between dissimilar groups holds the real danger of family property and wealth passing out of the community into alien hands, and consequent loss of social precedence. It is for this reason that wealthy landholders and farmers zealously guard their females along with their land. The phrase, ‘Jiski laathi uski bhains’ [He who wields the stick owns the buffalo], popular in these northern States, succinctly sums up this ethos."

IN INDIA RAPE IS USED TO ENFORCE SOCIAL HIERARCHY

Rape takes bigger toll on dalit women: study (Times of India)

"The comparative study between Dalits and non-Dalits showed that Dalits felt anguish to a greater degree of intensity. They often see rape as "something ordained" by virtue of a double disadvantage: being Dalit and woman. "Whenever a Dalit woman is raped, it gets connected to all other sufferings and discriminations. Dalits being in a disadvantaged position and there's no resilience, no bouncing back," says [researcher Rajat] Mitra.

"'The women shared that during the attack, the men seemed to have more pleasure in humiliating their origins and background,' adds Mitra. The report details their almost-ritualistic ostracism after the rape where older Dalit women also attempt to explain rape as 'tradition'.

"In a qualitative assessment, the report says girls are almost prepared to expect assault. It says, 'Allusions to rape by upper castes begin to appear in subtle conversations and often inflate their anxiety and depressive symptoms that begin to mark (rape) as inevitable in the mind of young Dalit girls.'"

ANTI-WOMAN LYNCHINGS ORDERED BY CASTE COUNCILS DEFENDED

Honour Killings in Haryana by Kavita Krishnan (Countercurrents)

"'Only whores choose their own partners.... Recently an educated couple married against the samaj’s (community’s) wishes in Jhajjar. We hail the panchayat’s decision to execute them...The government cannot protect this atyachar (immoral behaviour).... (The law of the land) is the root of all problems... That’s your Constitution, ours is different.' – Mahendra Singh Tikait, farmers’ leader of Western UP

"'Yahan izzatdar woh hain jo ladki ko marte hain (Those who kill their girls are respected here).' – a teacher in rural Haryana

"'Khap leaders are keepers of Jat tradition.' - Justice (ret'd) Devi Singh Teotia, a former judge of the Punjab & Haryana HC, active member of the Sarv Khap Panchayat, demanding legalising of the khap panchayats

"Mahendra Singh Tikait’s outrageous and offensive remarks once again raise the question: why do the khaap panchayats of Haryana and Western UP which issue open ‘death sentences’ for couples who defy their caste-diktats on love and marriage, enjoy impunity?

"In the context of such executions, Congress MP from Rohtak Deepender Hooda (whom the Congress proudly counts among its contingent of ‘young MPs’) had expressed sympathy for the 'sentiments and local customs of khap panchayats.' Will the Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh tell us why leaders of their party endorse such “sentiments” that mock the constitution and openly call for lynching?

"Tikait says women who choose their own partners are ‘whores’. The ‘dishonour’ of ‘whoring’, in his eyes, does not lie, it seems, in the act of buying sexual services. After all, men in the same region openly buy their wives (as reproductive machines) from other states, because women are in short supply due to female foeticide. The ‘dishonour’ according to him lies primarily in women choosing their own partners. This choice threatens the structures of property and land, and with it, the very edifice of the feudal order."

See also:

Honour killings: A blot on Indian culture, society (Merinews, September 19, 2009):

"Honour killings are not always committed by the family, often the announcement of the brutal punishment is done by a Khap Panchayat (prominent in western UP and Haryana) or a Caste Panchayat, a court which protects traditional norms of caste in a village. Even if a household agrees to the will of their children, this panchayat does not go with the decision of the family; instead such families are asked to leave the village.

"Ravinder Singh Gehlout’s family is the recent target of Khap Panchayat in Dharana village in Haryana’s Jhajjar district. Gehlout's family has been asked to leave the village as Ravinder has married a girl named Shilpa, who is of the same gotra.

"Being from same gotra means sibling like relationship, so according to the Khap, the marriage in the same category is equivalent to incest."

And see anti-caste: WOMAN-KILLING CASTE COUNCILS IN HARYANA WANT LEGAL COVER (September 8, 2009)

WOMAN-KILLING CASTE COUNCILS IN HARYANA WANT LEGAL COVER

Khap panchayats seek legal claws (Times of India)

"Khaps are traditional area-based community organizations whose rulings have no legal sanction. In keeping with tradition, khap panchayats oppose marriages within the same 'gotra' (lineage) and are known to have meted out harsh punishments to 'erring' young couples.

"At a two-day meeting in Rohtak that ended on Sunday, the Sarv Khap Panchayat, a conglomerate of various khaps, decided to set up a core committee to suggest amendments to the Act to disallow same-gotra and same-village marriages as per Jat tradition.

[...]

"[Justice (ret'd) Devi Singh Teotia, a former judge of the Punjab & Haryana High Court, said:] 'One of the sections of the Hindu Marriage Act says that you can’t marry your brother or sister, unless custom permits.' This exception clause was added for some south Indian customs where sibling marriages are allowed under extreme circumstances. 'Since Jat custom doesn’t permit marriage within the same gotra and in the gotra of one’s parents, we can seek a similar clause.'

See also:

Pesticide pills for 'wayward' girls (Times of India, September 8, 2009):

"'With mobile phones and television, milna-julna (interaction between the sexes) is too much. What can parents do except kill a daughter who disobeys?' says a local teacher defensively.

"Girls who survive their mother’s womb are brought up as daughters of the village. Not just [one village's] daughters, but of 12 neighbouring villages, says a khap member. All 12 villages form the Khidwali Bara khap, a Jat territorial unit. It decrees that boys and girls within these 12 villages cannot marry. Interestingly, the entire onus of ‘siblinghood’ rests on the girl. She is the keeper of village honour. Exceptions may be made for a boy, if the khap decides, but a girl is never allowed to bend the rules. 'If a girl married in her community’s villages, she will be in purdah in her own house. How can we allow that?' asks middle-aged Bedo.

[...]

"Vidya, who teaches at a government school in Sanghi, says she has had students who died in mysterious circumstances. 'We are only told so-and-so is dead,' she says. The physical trainer in her school adds, 'Kaaran koi nai batata (No one gives reasons).' On average, 10 to 12 healthy girls die every year, locals reckon, but there are no reliable figures.

"Generally, it’s the parents or father-brother duos who kill ‘wayward’ girls. A sympathetic mother may plead with a daughter to take the goli herself. A protesting daughter may be force-fed a pesticide pill, the preferred mode. The other route is death by hanging, all the better to ‘show’ it as suicide. No police, no complaint, no records. 'Yahan izzatdar woh hain jo ladki ko marte hain (Those who kill their girls are respected here),' says another teacher.

"If a couple runs away, the women in their families run the risk of being raped, gang-raped, and boycotted. At times, khaps also ‘fine’ the families lakhs of rupees. For the locals, that is par for the course. 'What else can be done?' asks an old woman."

Sonia of Asanada village, Haryana stood up to a khap panchayat in 2004

And see:

Medieval justice just 50km from Delhi (Times of India, September 8, 2009)

"For its part, the state government grants them legitimacy. Its website reads: 'Khap Panchayats... would be requested to use their influence in combating various social evils.' Even CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda has defended them, saying they’re needed in times of crisis.

"But Ranbir Singh says the khap panchayats’ increasing assertiveness is a sign of the identity crisis within the Jat community. 'Their landholdings are fragmenting and many fear that they would lose their zamindar status.'"

Haryana, 2007: eloping couple Manoj and Bibli killed by Bibli's family

And see also anti-caste: COUPLE BELONGING TO THE SAME CASTE KILLED FOR BEING TOO CLOSE IN LINEAGE (July 14, 2007)

150 YEARS AGO TODAY, LOW-CASTE NADAR WOMEN IN KERALA WON THE RIGHT TO COVER THEIR BREASTS

A struggle for decent dress by R. Ayyappan (Express Buzz)

"The victory of the Channar Lahala or the Upper Cloth Mutiny (Maaru Marakkal Samaram), after half-a-century of violent struggle, is widely seen as the transformative event that triggered a wave of renaissance movements that shaped modern Kerala.

"'Cries for equality began to rise not just from various parts of Kerala, but from the whole of South India after the Channar Mutiny. The agitation to end ‘oozhiyam vela’ or work without pay, the agitation to secure entry into temples, the agitation to secure the right to walk on public roads, all these struggles that went on to change the face of Kerala were inspired by the success of the Upper Cloth Mutiny,' writes historian Joy Balan Vlaathangara in his book ‘Vaikuntaswamiyum Samoohika Navothanavum’. [...]

"It was western influence and the work of Christian missionaries like Charles Meed and Malt during the early part of the 19th century that revealed to the Nadars the indignity of their existence.

"There are historical accounts of labourers who had migrated to Sri Lanka to work in colonial tea plantations returning with enough money to lead European lifestyles. Converted Nadars, too, started wearing upper clothes and saw it as a sign of social progress.

"The upper castes, including the royalty, did not take kindly to these progressive thoughts. An account says that a lower caste lady who went to the palace of the Attingal Rani wearing an upper cloth had her breasts chopped off by royal decree. Out on the streets, the upper castes unleashed violence on Christian Nadar women who had their breasts covered."

July 26, 1859: declaration by ruler of the princely state of Travancore (modern Kerala)

NEW COLLECTION OF ESSAYS ON TASLIMA NASRIN

(Re)Reading Taslima Nasrin: Contexts, Contents & Constructions Edited by Ali Riaz

"Taslima Nasrin is one of the most controversial authors to emerge from South Asia in recent decades. She has been exiled twice — first from her home country, Bangladesh, in 1994 and then from her adopted home, India, in 2008. Both her work and personal life have attracted media attention in South Asia and worldwide.

"The articles of this edited volume give importance to the content of Nasrin’s work, but also to the contexts in which her poems, novels, short stories and newspaper columns were written. The overriding issue, however, is the construction placed upon her words and deeds by the many people who have used her story for their own ends."

published by Shrabon Prokashani (Dhaka)

See also previous stories on anti-caste about this courageous writer and activist

RAPE/MURDER IN SHOPIAN TURNS SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONAL OPPRESSION OF KASHMIR: INDIAN, PAKISTANI TROOPS AND SECURITY FORCES OUT!

Court orders arrest of 4 police in Kashmir murders (AP)

"The discovery of the women's bodies triggered widespread anger in Shopian, where the residents believed the killings were carried out by security forces. Two people were killed and more than 400 injured in weeklong violent demonstrations and clashes between residents and police in Shopian [a town outside of Srinagar, the main city of Indian-controlled Kashmir].

"On Wednesday, Ghosh asked Shopian residents to end the complete shutdown that has paralyzed normal life in the town since the bodies were found.

"Human rights groups and separatist leaders have long accused Indian security forces of using rape and sexual molestation to intimidate the local population. Rights groups say investigations into such crimes rarely yield results and are often meant only to calm public anger."

See also:

Militarization with Impunity: A Brief on Rape and Murder in Shopian, Kashmir by the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-Administered Kashmir (IPTK) (July 19, 2009) (via Kafila):

"While investigations have emphasized the procedural conduct of the police in their handling of the investigation, they failed to focus on the actual crimes that were committed, or the conduct of state institutions. The investigations in Shopian have not focused on the identification and prosecution of perpetrators or on addressing structural realities of militarization in Kashmir that foster and perpetuate gendered and sexualized violences, and undermine rule of law and justice. The investigations have instead concentrated on locating ‘collaborators’ and manufacturing scapegoats to subdue public outcry. ‘Control’ rather than ‘justice’ has organized the focus of the state apparatus, including all processes related to civic, criminal, and judicial matters."

And see:

2 Killings Stoke Kashmiri Rage at Indian Force (New York Times, August 15, 2009)