Honor Killings or Killing of Honor???

One of my Casanova friends was lamenting his love tales to me few days back. He was objectionable to the fact that I call him a Casanova all the time, his point was I am seriously looking forward to settle down in life, so what’s wrong if I am choosing my life partner on my own. He continued by saying that I went on with a girl for around 5 months and then asked my parents to get me married with her; they opposed it by saying that she belongs to a different religion, I was helpless. Then again I went around with a different girl for 3 months and asked my parents to plan my wedding with her; they objected to it again saying that she belongs to a different community, I was helpless again. Unwillingly I have to again go around with another girl, 3 months later the same scenario cropped up; my parents rejected her because of her different caste, I was helpless again. But I didn’t lose hope, I found another beautiful girl who was a perfect housewife material and luckily for me she also belonged to our religion, community and caste too but my parents still disagreed on her citing a new found reason that she is of our gotra and we don't endorse the same gotra marriage fearing the menace of 'honor killing'. Hearing his comical but sorry tale I was laughing my heart out but at the same time I was flabbergasted too. My friend then asked me ‘am I still a Casanova?’ I replied I don’t know your intentions mate, but definitely what your parents are doing is not right at all, such parochial thinking is not good by any means.

Certainly this was not the first time and unfortunately also probably not the last time that I have been jolted by such a parochial mentality still prevalent in our modern society. And over that to hear these sorry incidents about 'honor killings' is even more hurting. People go on to kill their daughters and sisters just because they have married a person who doesn't belong to a particular caste or he actually does belong to their own gotra. So supposedly to keep up the honor and pride they end the life of there innocent family member whose only crime was that she wanted to live life with a person whom she considered the most apt human being to spend rest of her life. This is nothing less than the most heinous and barbarian piece of act a human being can ever perform. But the irony is a certain section of people have almost turned this act into a norm and they provocate it with such an authority that it almost seems to be a constitutional law in those areas. The setup of Khap Panchayats and their ideologies in this regards is a serious threat to the noble idea of democracy and freedom of thought which is the very basis of the existence our great nation. When the entire world is moving forward both technologically and socially, the Khaps have in a sense institutionalized this aghast practice to such an extent that its a matter of shame for our nation to still remain a breeding ground for such inhuman acts.

So at a time when we are patting our backs that we have successfully moved over those age old unacceptable practices of dowry, sati and female foeticides these frequent stories of 'honor killings' resulting from an out of caste or intra gotra marriage is horrendous. Infact it is far worse than old generation's sins of sati and dowry because awareness and literacy level were far less in those times. So, when highly educated and well to do people indulge into such acts, it is nothing less than an act of utter shame for all of us. And giving it a name of 'HONOR KILLING' is far more outrageous than the act itself, it's like deriving pride from such shameful acts, it's more of pressurizing and misleading innocent people by the name of family pride and honor. It's ultimately nothing but forcing free mongers into death trap for parochial political mileage. It's high time that the government actually takes some corrective,preventive and punitive measures to strictly stop such deadly practices because it's in the best interest of not only our society to collectively condemn such tragic acts but it is also important for the healthy upbringing of our future generations.

As a matter of fact marrying someone of your choice is by no means a dishonor of ones clan but certainly being dishonest in ones job is a surely an act of dishonoring ones community,caste and clan, so is being corrupt, being untruthful and being unhelpful towards the needy. In simple words honor killing is a contempt of individual freedom and it's not honor killing by any means but it's certainly killing of ones honor in a real but tragic sense.

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