Curbing the khaps

Curbing the khaps

Context

Recent SC guidelines against Khaps (Refer to the article in yesterday’s brief for the guidelines)

Other factors contributing towards honour killings besides caste system

Entrenched social prejudices, feudal structures and patriarchal attitudes

Measures taken by courts against these feudal bodies

• 24 hour helplines
• The High Courts of Punjab and Haryana and Madras have laid down guidelines to the police on creating special cells and 24-hour helplines to provide assistance and protection to young couples
• Safe houses

The Supreme Court has now asked the police to establish safe-houses for couples under threat

• Empowered police
  • Police officers try and persuade khaps to desist from making illegal decisions
  • But in the same breath, the court has also empowered the police to prohibit such gatherings and effect preventive arrests
• Videographing the assemblies

It may be a deterrent against any brazen flouting of the law

Arguments in defence of Khaps destroyed by SC

Verdict rejected outrightly the claims that they were only engaged in raising awareness about permissible marriages, including inter-caste and inter-faith ones, and against sapinda and sagotra marriages.

It’s not their job to decide what is permitted and what’s not

The court has rightly laid down that deciding what is permitted and what is not is the job of civil courts.

Need of a comprehensive law

• While these guidelines, if they are adhered to, may have some benefits to society, the government should not remain content with asking the States to implement these norms
• It should expedite its own efforts to bring in a comprehensive law to curb killings in the name of honour and to prohibit interference in the matrimonial choices of individuals.