Any Honour in Killing?

Claiming to be progressive, India holds a major position among other countries with its democratic secular constitution ensuring equality and liberality for all its citizens. But how far India has traversed from its early stance, which was largely caste-ridden in nature since independence, is a highly questionable aspect.

The recent data available from the National Crime Record Bureau statistics outlines that India, one of the largest democratic country in the world, though asserts to be a liberal has proved to be otherwise.

According to the figures given by the junior home minister Hansraj Ahir in the Lok Sabha, the country has registered 251 honour killings last year against 28 in 2014, recording a big spike in murders carried out by people proclaims to be acting in defence of their family's reputation.

Going by the term, honour killing refers to the murder of a person by the family members or relatives to safe guard their honour they lost through the "shameful" act which in many times, by marrying someone outside their caste or religion.

The 792% rise in the number of cases pertaining to honour killing shows the widespread existence of this "barbaric" action which has engulfed a large number of lives in India's largest state.

Uttar Pradesh, which recorded a single case in 2014, tops the list the next year with 131 cases of murder with honour killing as the prime motive. While 21 cases were reported in Gujarat last year, Madhya Pradesh too figures on the map with 14 cases.


Supreme Court in its 2006 judgement, observed that, "There is nothing honourable in such killings, and in fact they are nothing but barbaric and shameful acts of murder committed by brutal, feudal-minded persons who deserve harsh punishment".

Though decades have passed, it seems that nothing has changed much with regard to the attitude of Indian society. By sticking to the age old casteism and the notions of purity and superiority, the so called progressive society is lurking behind the darkness.

Living in a patriarchal society, Ranjana Kumari of the Centre for Social Research, a New Delhi-based think-tank thinks that, "Indian society is unwilling to accept the choices made by young women when it comes to their marriage". This puritanical mind set is well reflected in the haphazard implementation of laws that would curb the social evil. 

In an article published in a national daily, Left leader Brinda Karat affirms the aspect as she says, "If we do not have such a law, it is because vote-bank politics, that requires the appeasement of the most retrograde social forces such as those who lead the orthodox caste panchayats, supersedes the responsibility of those in government, or for that matter any who aspire to be in government, to protect the constitutional and democratic rights of citizens".

Despite several cases were reported regarding honour killing, the absence of specific laws to tackle the issue also worsened the scenario causing a rise in the number of cases.