-Ramphal Kataria
Love under Siege: Caste, Honour and the Myth of Modern Haryana
Introduction
India’s post-liberalisation discourse has increasingly equated economic growth with social progress. Rising incomes, expanding markets, and technological penetration are frequently invoked as evidence of a society moving towards modernity. Haryana, often projected as a high-growth agrarian and industrial state, exemplifies this narrative. Yet, beneath indicators of economic advancement persists a deeply entrenched social order—one that systematically denies individuals autonomy in matters of marriage and personal choice.
The continued persecution of inter-caste and inter-religious couples in Haryana exposes the limits of development divorced from social reform. This commentary examines how caste authority, institutional inertia, and selective modernity combine to criminalise choice marriages, forcing couples to seek judicial and police protection merely to survive.
Caste Authority and the Persistence of Khap Power
Khap panchayats—informal caste councils prevalent in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh—have long exercised influence over social norms, particularly marriage practices. Although lacking any constitutional or statutory legitimacy, these bodies continue to regulate kinship, exogamy, and honour through coercive means. Their authority rests not on law but on social sanction, collective pressure, and the threat of violence.
The Manoj–Babli case (2007) in Kaithal district marked a critical moment in public awareness. The couple, who married against khap diktats within the same gotra, were abducted and murdered. In 2010, a sessions court in Karnal convicted the perpetrators, including members of the khap, sentencing them to life imprisonment—one of the first convictions recognising honour killing as murder rather than a “crime of passion.”¹ Despite its symbolic importance, the judgment did not dismantle the social legitimacy enjoyed by khaps.
Subsequent years witnessed continued interference by caste councils, including public threats, social boycotts, and forced separations. Studies and media reports between 2010 and 2013 indicate that khap influence remained particularly strong in districts such as Jind, Rohtak, Hisar, Kaithal and Sonepat.²
State Response: Protection without Rehabilitation
Faced with credible threats, inter-caste couples increasingly turn to the judiciary. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has, on numerous occasions, reiterated that adult consensual marriages are legal and deserving of protection.³ However, the translation of judicial orders into administrative action reveals a deeper structural failure.
Police protection is often provided in the narrowest sense—deployment of guards or placement of couples in government-run shelter homes or short-stay facilities. These shelters, designed originally for women in distress, are ill-equipped to house couples for extended periods. They offer minimal privacy, lack livelihood support, and impose restrictions that resemble detention rather than protection.
Crucially, there exists no comprehensive state policy in Haryana for the rehabilitation of such couples. While financial incentive schemes for inter-caste marriages exist on paper, their implementation remains inconsistent and procedurally burdensome.⁴ The absence of employment assistance, counselling, or long-term housing forces couples into social and economic precarity.
Honour, Gender and the Burden of Surveillance
While caste purity is the explicit rationale invoked against choice marriages, gender control remains its underlying logic. Women bear disproportionate consequences of transgression—restrictions on mobility, heightened surveillance, and threats of violence justified as protection of family honour.
Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveal the broader context of violence against women in Haryana. Although NCRB did not categorise “honour killings” separately until later, cases of murder, abetment to suicide, and kidnapping linked to family disputes provide indirect evidence of the phenomenon. Between 2009 and 2012, Haryana consistently reported high crime rates against women relative to its population.⁵
The social narrative that frames failed inter-caste marriages as outcomes of impulsive desire rather than structural hostility further entrenches patriarchy. It absolves families, caste institutions, and the state of responsibility while disciplining women’s choices through stigma.
Selective Modernity and Social Dualism
Haryana’s experience reflects a broader paradox in Indian modernisation. Economic aspirations coexist comfortably with social conservatism. Urbanisation, digital connectivity, and consumer culture flourish, yet personal freedoms remain tightly regulated by kinship and caste networks.
This dualism produces what may be described as selective modernity: individuals are encouraged to compete in markets but discouraged from exercising autonomy in intimate life. The contradiction becomes particularly stark when young adults, legally competent and economically productive, are rendered fugitives for exercising marital choice.
Conclusion
The persecution of inter-caste and inter-religious couples in Haryana is not a peripheral social issue; it is a structural indictment of development without freedom. Economic growth has neither dismantled caste authority nor weakened patriarchal control over marriage. Instead, it has coexisted with—and in some ways concealed—deep social inequalities.
Until the state moves beyond token protection and confronts extra-constitutional power structures decisively, constitutional rights will remain aspirational rather than lived realities. The measure of progress lies not in income statistics, but in whether citizens can exercise choice without fear. Haryana’s record up to 2013 suggests that this promise remains unfulfilled.
Footnotes
1. State of Haryana vs Manoj & Others (2010), Sessions Court, Karnal; reported in Indian Express, March 31, 2010.
2. Frontline (2011), “The Persistence of Khap Justice,” Vol. 28, No. 8.
3. Lata Singh vs State of Uttar Pradesh (2006) 5 SCC 475; reiterated in multiple Punjab & Haryana High Court protection orders (2008–2013).
4. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (2010), Dr. Ambedkar Scheme for Social Integration through Inter-Caste Marriages.
5. National Crime Records Bureau, Crime in India reports, 2009–2012 editions.
