July 9, 2010
In India, Castes, Honor and Killings Intertwine
By JIM YARDLEY
KODERMA, India — When Nirupama Pathak left this remote mining region
for graduate school in New Delhi, she seemed to be leaving the old
India for the new. Her parents paid her tuition and did not resist
when she wanted to choose her own career. But choosing a husband was
another matter.
Her family was Brahmin, the highest Hindu caste, and when Ms. Pathak,
22, announced she was secretly engaged to a young man from a caste
lower than hers, her family began pressing her to change her mind.
They warned of social ostracism and accused her of defiling their
religion.
Days after Ms. Pathak returned home in late April, she was found dead
in her bedroom. The police have arrested her mother, Sudha Pathak, on
suspicion of murder, while the family contends that the death was a
suicide.
The postmortem report revealed another unexpected element to the case:
Ms. Pathak was pregnant.
"One thing is absolutely clear," said Prashant Bhushan, a social
activist and lawyer now advising Ms. Pathak's fiancé. "Her family was
trying their level best to prevent her from marrying that boy. The
pressure was such that either she was driven to suicide or she was
killed."
In India, where the tension between traditional and modern mores
reverberates throughout society, Ms. Pathak's death comes amid an
apparent resurgence of so-called honor killings against couples who
breach Hindu marriage traditions.
This week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ordered a cabinet-level
commission to consider tougher penalties in honor killings.
In June, India's Supreme Court sent notices to seven Indian states, as
well as to the national government, seeking responses about what was
being done to address the problem.
The phenomenon of honor killings is most prevalent in some northern
states, especially Haryana, where village caste councils, or khap
panchayats, often operate as an extralegal morals police force,
issuing edicts against couples who marry outside their caste or who
marry within the same village — considered a religious violation since
villages are often regarded as extended families.
Even as the court system has sought to curb these councils,
politicians have hesitated, since the councils often control
significant vote blocs in local elections.
New cases of killings or harassment appear in the Indian news media
almost every week. Last month, the police arrested three men for the
honor killings of a couple in New Delhi who had married outside their
castes, as well as the murder of a woman who eloped with a man from
another caste.
Two of the suspects are accused of murdering their sisters, and an
uncle of the slain couple spoke of their murders as justifiable.
"What is wrong in it?" the uncle, Dharmaveer Nagar, told the Indian
news media. "Murder is wrong, but this is socially the best thing that
has been done."
Intercaste marriages are protected under Indian law, yet social
attitudes remain largely resistant. In a 2006 survey cited in a United
Nations report, 76 percent of respondents deemed the practice
unacceptable. An overwhelming majority of Hindu couples continue to
marry within their castes, and newspapers are filled with marital
advertisements in which parents, seeking to arrange a marriage for a
son or daughter, specify caste among lists of desired attributes like
profession and educational achievement.
"This is part and parcel of our culture, that you marry into your own
caste," said Dharmendra Pathak, the father of Ms. Pathak, during an
interview in his home. "Every society has its own culture. Every
society has its own traditions."
Yet Indian society is also rapidly changing, with a new generation
more likely to mix with people from different backgrounds as young
people commingle on college campuses or in the workplace.
Ms. Pathak had studied journalism at the Indian Institute of Mass
Communications in New Delhi before taking a job at a financial
newspaper. At school, she had met Priyabhanshu Ranjan, a top student
whose family was from a middle-upper caste, the Kayastha.
"The day I proposed, she said, 'My family will not accept this. My
family is very conservative,' " Mr. Ranjan recalled. "I used to try to
convince her that once we got married, they would accept it."
Ms. Pathak deliberated over the proposal for months before accepting
in early 2009. Convinced her family would disapprove, she kept her
engagement a secret for more than a year, until she learned that her
father was interviewing prospective Brahmin grooms in New Delhi to
arrange a marriage for her. Her parents were also renovating the
family home for a wedding celebration.
Ms. Pathak called her oldest brother, Samarendra, who spent the next
week trying to change her mind.
"What I told her was that the decision you have taken — there is
nothing wrong with it," he said. "But the society we live in will not
accept it. You can't transform society in a day. It takes time."
When her father learned of the engagement, he wrote his daughter a
letter and paid a surprise visit to New Delhi.
In the letter, the father acknowledged that such marriages were
allowed under India's Constitution, but argued that the Constitution
had existed for only decades while Hindu religious beliefs dated back
thousands of years.
At one point, Ms. Pathak's mother called, crying, asking if they had
wronged her in a past life.
The death of Ms. Pathak remains under investigation. Her body was
discovered in her upstairs bedroom on the morning of April 29, while
her mother was the only person at home. Initially, neighbors and
family members said she had died from electrocution, but then later
changed their story to say she had hanged herself. The police arrested
the mother after the postmortem report concluded that Ms. Pathak had
been suffocated.
But Ms. Pathak's father and her two brothers have argued that the
postmortem was flawed and claimed that her death had been a suicide.
The family produced a suicide note and persuaded a local magistrate to
order an investigation into Mr. Ranjan, the boyfriend — which his
supporters have described as politically motivated.
Ms. Pathak's pregnancy has also complicated the case. Mr. Ranjan said
that he had been unaware of her condition, and her family told the
police that they, too, had been unaware. But in an interview, the
father and brothers changed their story, saying that Ms. Pathak
confessed her pregnancy to her mother on the morning of her death.
For now, the case has polarized opinion. In Koderma, supporters of the
Pathak family have rallied for the release of the mother from jail. In
New Delhi, former classmates of Ms. Pathak and other supporters have
held candlelight vigils, calling for the case to be prosecuted as an
honor killing.
"This kind of the thing is increasing everywhere," said Girija Vyas, a
member of Parliament and the president of the National Commission of
Women. "There should not be these things in the 21st century. These
things must be stopped."
Hari Kumar contributed reporting from Koderma, and Saimah Khwaja from New Delhi.
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