Killing of Humanity

When I began to research for an assignment, the list of heinous atrocities that appeared on my screen, happening to mankind, by mankind, made me flinch. Reading about honor killing and the cases, I believe it is wrong to call this heinous act ‘Honor Killing’ as honor and killing should not be words that are associated with each other in any manner. Here on, I would refer to the same as Killing of Humanity. 

The act of Killing of Humanity is the killing of a family member, out of rage, believing that their life choices have brought ‘shame to the prestige’ of the family. The notion of ‘defaming of family name’ is deep rooted in the minds of many orthodox Indians. I find it hilarious how Indians can be such hypocrites? They worship the Gods who loved each other and kill the humans when they do the same? The constitution of India does not discriminate between its citizens based on gender, caste or religion and provides basic rights to all individuals. The Indian Constitution advocates secularism and allows individuals to choose their own life partners and adapt to any religion. Is that what is actually practiced?

We live in a country where in not one but numerous states the heinous act of Killing of Humanity prevails, to name a few, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The need of the hour is to get proper law and order in place in order to get justice to those who were wrong in the eyes of these people because they chose their life partner, refused the choice of marriage, got raped, were homosexual or wanted/got a divorce to get out of a bad marriage. In many countries data on Killing of Humanity is not collected systematically and many of these cases are registered as suicides or accidents, by the families of the victims.

The case of Manoj and Babli are the most common names that come up when spoken about this sensitive topic. The case was set in 2007, they were two lovers belonging to the same gotra. The victims eloped and got married. Their families were against the marriage and set a reward for anyone who would indicate them of the couple’s whereabouts, then they took the case to the khap panchayat. Upon finding them, they were brought before the panchayat which was led by Babli’s grandfather and her relatives were a part of it too. They were abducted and killed. The khap panchayat was accused of being involved in the killing of the victims. This case is one where a landmark judgement was passed in the court of Karnal District, in 2010, where the five perpetrators who were involved in the killing were given life sentence and the driver who abducted them was given imprisonment for seven years.

As per the statistics taken in 2017 by Britannica, there are almost 70% cases world-wide and about 1000 killings in India under the name of “Honor”. Today, we are in 2020. Even amidst the nation-wide lockdown that was imposed in our country we had to witness such a terrifying act. M. Sudhakar, who belonged to a lower caste than the girl he fell in love with and later married, had to flee his village after his marriage was deemed null and void by the local panchayat. Since his parents feared for his life, they sent him to Chennai where he started working in construction. The girl’s family was making arrangements to marry her off to another man belonging to her caste. Due to the lockdown, he had to return back home and decided to meet his wife. He was charged by the girl’s father and his relative with iron rods and he succumbed to his injuries. Despite a landmark judgement being passed a decade ago, we still had to witness such an act. 

If I were to talk about the legalities in our country, the Constitution of India advocates equality of all citizens under Article 14 and equal rights before law under Article 15 which means every citizen of India would be treated equally before law irrespective or without any discrimination of caste, creed, sex, race, and religion.

Every person, whatever is his or her status or situation, is subject to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts. This right to equality is thus documented as one of the fundamental features of the Indian Constitution. Killing of Humanity is thus hideously against this very Constitutional right provided for the protection of Indian citizens. In India, we do not have separate laws for Killing of Humanity. It is considered similar to homicide and is punishable under Section 299 and 301 of Indian Penal Code which means culpable homicide amounting to murder. 

The need of the hour is the eradication of killing of humanity which is cloaked under the term ‘Honor Killing’ by intervention in the status quo. We not only need stringent laws but also need to make sure that the citizens of our society are independent and safe within their own families. To tackle this social evil, along with enforcement of laws we need to focus on the faulty sense of honor which is deep rooted in the minds of people, patriarchy and inequality. In spite of abundant rights provided by our constitution, such an old-aged evil crime is still rampant in our country and it is us who need to bring about a change. 

- Samriddhi Agrawal