The Supreme Court (SC) has laid down a set of guidelines to help couples who are harassed and face bodily threats from various organisations such as the khap panchayats. This is welcome since the khap groups cannot be allowed to function as extra-constitutional bodies who decide on marriages and the punishments to be meted out in case they are dissatisfied with a couple’s decision to live together. The argument that khap panchayats, being a representative body of village elders, have the right to advise youngsters on inter-caste and inter-faith marriages, is unacceptable in the broader sense. While they may offer advice, they cannot set rules and guidelines and enforce them. On the issue of raising social awareness about permissible marriages, there are established legal authorities to undertake the task.
Khap panchayats have on past occasions adjudicated on relationships and delivered verdicts regarding punishment for ‘offences’. This is not the first time the apex court has come down hard on khap bodies; earlier it had deemed them unconstitutional and directed the Government to disband them. But that is easier said than done, given the social structures in villages across north India, and especially in western Uttar Pradesh where the khap tradition is strong. There needs to be a social awakening to make the drive against khap panchayats’ over-the-board activities meaningful. It may be said here that some decisions of khap panchayats have also been welcomed — such as that of educating the girl child or speaking against female infanticide. They also ought to come strongly against so-called honour killings.
In a similar vein, it may be recalled that the SC had also declared fatwas issued by Muslim clerics to be unconstitutional and said they need not be followed, but that hasn’t stopped religious leaders from issuing the diktats one bit. We have seen fatwas on ridiculous matters, including directions on how to dress, what to eat, and even on how to have sex. Here too, social awareness is the key to tackling such practices. There is only that much that Government agencies can do at the ground level.
Suggestions that khap meetings must be video-recorded etc, sound good on paper to keep these bodies under the scanner and in check, but the long-term viability of such attempts remains to be tested. Nonetheless, the Government must take active steps to do whatever makes sense.
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