Caste, Patriarchy and the Brutal Murder of Individual Choice
A society that sends satellites into space but still kills its children for choosing whom to marry has not conquered its past—it has merely concealed it beneath the appearance of modernity.
By Ramphal Kataria
“There is no honour in honour killing. There is only the naked violence of a society that cannot tolerate an individual exercising a freedom that the Constitution has already guaranteed.”
There are crimes that shock the conscience.
There are crimes that expose the conscience.
And then there are crimes that reveal that perhaps there is no conscience left to shock.
Honour killing belongs to the third category.
Every time it happens, society expresses surprise. Newspapers publish photographs. Television channels conduct debates. Politicians issue statements. Police announce arrests. Social media erupts for forty-eight hours. Human-rights organisations condemn the incident. Intellectuals write angry posts.
And then silence descends.
Until the serpent raises its hood again.
Another girl falls in love.
Another young man crosses the invisible boundary of caste.
Another daughter refuses to become a transaction in the marriage market.
Another family feels humiliated.
Another village whispers.
Another meeting is held.
Another threat is issued.
Another couple runs.
And somewhere, before dawn, two human beings are killed because they committed the unforgivable offence of choosing each other.
The tragedy is not merely that honour killings continue.
The deeper tragedy is that the social conditions that produce them remain remarkably intact.
We have changed the technology of our lives without adequately changing the morality of our society.
We have smartphones but retain caste.
We have social media but retain clan surveillance.
We have universities but retain matrimonial advertisements classified by caste.
We have global mobility but local restrictions on marriage.
We speak of women's empowerment but become furious when a woman exercises the most fundamental form of empowerment—the right to decide whom she will marry.
We call ourselves modern.
But when the daughter chooses, the medieval family often returns.
I. THE SERPENT HAS RAISED ITS HOOD AGAIN
The recent incidents recorded in the material before us are chilling.
In Hisar district, police arrested a father and grandfather after a 14-year-old girl was allegedly strangled and her body dumped in a canal. Police said the father suspected that she was involved with a boy. The body was allegedly placed in a gunny bag and thrown into the Kishangarh canal.
In another incident in Talwandi Rukka, Hisar district, an 89-year-old man, Mahavir Singh, was allegedly murdered while sleeping outside his house. Police suspected that the killing was connected with an inter-caste marriage involving his grandson. The grandson belonged to a Backward Class community while his wife belonged to the Bishnoi community.
The cases are different in their facts and must be investigated and adjudicated individually.
But they point towards an old and disturbing social phenomenon.
A relationship is perceived as a challenge.
A marriage is interpreted as an insult.
An individual's freedom becomes a collective injury.
And violence is then presented as restoration.
Restoration of what?
Of caste?
Of patriarchy?
Of family control?
Of the supposed right of elders to determine the intimate lives of younger generations?
Whatever the answer, it certainly is not honour.
The word "honour" is itself part of the problem.
It gives a moral vocabulary to an immoral act.
It allows murderers to imagine themselves as guardians.
It converts victims into alleged offenders.
It makes violence sound like duty.
And this is perhaps the most dangerous feature of honour killing:
the murderer is not always acting against society's values; sometimes he believes he is enforcing them.
That is why the problem cannot be solved merely by arresting the murderer.
The murderer must be arrested.
The murderer must be prosecuted.
The murderer must be punished.
But the social idea that makes the murderer believe he has done something necessary must also be destroyed.
II. THE NUMBERS ARE SMALL. THE PROBLEM IS NOT.
The official numbers of honour killings are startlingly low.
And that should not necessarily reassure us.
According to NCRB data reported from the 2023 crime statistics, India recorded 38 cases of honour killing in 2023, compared with 18 in 2022. The 2023 figure was the highest recorded in six years. Jharkhand recorded nine cases, Haryana six, while Punjab and Madhya Pradesh recorded five each.
Six cases in Haryana.
Five in Punjab.
Thirty-eight in India.
On paper, these numbers seem almost insignificant in a country where thousands of murders are recorded every year.
But that is precisely where statistical complacency becomes dangerous.
Honour killing is not a standalone offence under the criminal law. A killing may be registered as murder; the caste or family-honour motive may emerge later, if at all.
Consequently, the official category captures only those cases in which the honour motive is identified and recorded.
The statistical figure therefore should be treated as the visible tip of a much larger social phenomenon, not necessarily as its complete measure.
Even contemporary reporting notes that activists and researchers believe the actual number may be substantially higher because many cases are registered simply as homicide.
This creates a paradox.
If the number is high, we say the problem is serious.
If the number is low, we say the problem is small.
But what if the low number is partly a consequence of inadequate identification?
Then the statistic itself becomes part of the problem.
What is not properly named is rarely properly confronted.
And honour violence is particularly susceptible to concealment because it frequently occurs inside families, among people who know one another, in communities where silence is socially rewarded and disclosure may carry further danger.
A girl may be reported missing.
A death may be called suicide.
A murder may be described as a family quarrel.
A disappearance may never be investigated with the seriousness it deserves.
The social machinery of honour therefore has one final weapon:
silence.
III. WHAT IS THIS HONOUR THAT REQUIRES BLOOD?
Let us ask the question without euphemism.
What exactly is being defended?
What is this honour?
If a daughter marries outside the caste, what has been dishonoured?
If a son marries a woman whom the family dislikes, what has been dishonoured?
If two adults choose each other, whose dignity has been destroyed?
The answer reveals the structure beneath the rhetoric.
The so-called honour is frequently a combination of:
control over women's sexuality;
preservation of caste boundaries;
control over inheritance and property;
maintenance of family reputation;
preservation of clan identity;
fear of social ridicule;
patriarchal authority;
and the collective desire to punish dissent.
Honour, in this setting, is therefore not an abstract moral virtue.
It is social control disguised as morality.
The family says:
"We have to protect our honour."
But what it often means is:
"We must retain control over our daughter's life."
The community says:
"Our customs must be respected."
But what it often means is:
"Individuals must obey inherited boundaries."
The caste group says:
"We must preserve our identity."
But what it often means is:
"Our members must continue marrying within the group."
This is why honour killing must be studied not merely as murder but as a system of coercive social regulation.
IV. THE WOMAN'S BODY AS THE BORDER OF CASTE
The connection between caste and gender is fundamental.
Caste cannot reproduce itself merely through ideas.
It must reproduce itself through families.
Families reproduce themselves through marriage.
And marriage determines who enters which family, who inherits property, whose children belong to which social group and how caste boundaries are maintained.
This is why Ambedkar's analysis remains extraordinarily relevant.
In his 1916 essay Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development, B.R. Ambedkar identified endogamy—the practice of marrying within the group—as central to the reproduction of caste.
The insight is profound.
Caste is not merely a hierarchy of social status.
It is also a system regulating intimacy.
It determines whom one may eat with.
Whom one may socialise with.
Whom one may accept as kin.
And above all:
whom one may marry.
The wedding becomes the frontier.
Cross the frontier and the caste order becomes nervous.
This explains why inter-caste marriage has historically generated such intense opposition.
The young couple may believe they are joining two lives.
The caste system sees two boundaries being breached.
The family may see a daughter marrying a man.
The caste order may see the contamination of an entire lineage.
The young man may see a beloved woman.
The patriarchal order may see the loss of control over a woman's sexuality.
Thus one marriage becomes symbolically enormous.
The wedding becomes a political act without the couple necessarily intending it to be one.
V. AMBEDKAR'S WARNING STILL STANDS
Ambedkar understood something that India has spent a century trying not to understand.
If caste is to disappear, the social practices that reproduce caste must disappear.
One cannot destroy caste merely by condemning caste discrimination while preserving the machinery that keeps castes socially separate.
This is why inter-caste marriage matters.
It does not automatically destroy caste.
But it weakens caste's reproductive walls.
It produces relationships that caste ideology finds difficult to classify.
It creates mixed kinship networks.
It makes inherited identity less absolute.
It makes the idea of social purity increasingly difficult to sustain.
And this is precisely why the resistance can be so fierce.
The caste system has an extraordinary capacity for adaptation.
It survives elections.
It survives constitutional prohibition.
It survives urbanisation.
It survives modern education.
It survives capitalism.
It survives migration.
It survives the English language.
It survives the internet.
And it survives partly because marriage continues to reproduce it.
Research using India Human Development Survey data found that inter-caste marriage had increased only marginally over decades, reaching about 4.5% in 2012. The study also found that inter-caste marriage was more likely where women had greater say in choosing their partners.
That finding should disturb anyone who believes that caste will automatically disappear with economic development.
Apparently it will not.
VI. WE HAVE MODERNISED OUR MACHINES, NOT OUR MINDS
This is the central contradiction of contemporary India.
We have become technologically sophisticated without becoming socially emancipated at the same speed.
A young woman may be an engineer.
She may work in Gurugram.
She may communicate with colleagues in London and Singapore.
She may earn her own salary.
She may travel independently.
She may operate complex technology.
And yet her family may insist that the final decision about whom she marries belongs to the family.
This is not an isolated contradiction.
It is one of the defining contradictions of Indian modernity.
Economic independence has not automatically produced matrimonial autonomy.
The educated family often becomes more sophisticated in defending old prejudices.
It may no longer say:
"You cannot marry him because he is of a lower caste."
Instead it may say:
"You both come from different backgrounds."
It may no longer say:
"The community will punish us."
Instead:
"You must understand the practical consequences."
The vocabulary becomes modern.
The prohibition remains traditional.
The prejudice puts on a suit and speaks English.
That does not make it less of a prejudice.
VII. THE HYPOCRISY HAS REACHED ITS ZENITH
There is something almost unbearable about the hypocrisy.
We celebrate women winning medals.
We celebrate daughters becoming pilots, judges, scientists, administrators and entrepreneurs.
We speak endlessly about Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao.
We demand that girls become educated and confident.
But when that educated daughter says:
"I have chosen my partner,"
the applause sometimes stops.
The family suddenly rediscovers tradition.
The community rediscovers morality.
The relatives rediscover honour.
The same society that tells women to become independent tells them that independence ends at marriage.
We want educated daughters, but obedient daughters.
We want successful daughters, but controllable daughters.
We want modern daughters, but caste-compliant daughters.
That is not empowerment.
That is conditional freedom.
And conditional freedom is not freedom.
VIII. THE YOUNG LOVERS ARE CULLED LIKE HENS IN A SLAUGHTERHOUSE
There is no gentle way to describe the violence.
The young people are not always merely killed.
They are hunted.
Threatened.
Tracked.
Abducted.
Beaten.
Isolated.
Sometimes tortured.
Sometimes murdered collectively.
Sometimes the family itself becomes the execution apparatus.
The metaphor is brutal because the reality is brutal.
The young lovers are treated as though they are not human beings with constitutional rights but objects that have violated a community's property rules.
They are culled because they crossed a line.
And what is that line?
A line drawn by birth.
A line they did not create.
A line they did not choose.
A line inherited from people who died generations ago.
A person is born into caste but is murdered for refusing to die inside it.
That is the absurdity.
IX. HARYANA AND PUNJAB: THE PARADOX OF PROSPERITY AND PATRIARCHY
Haryana and Punjab provide perhaps one of the most striking examples of this contradiction.
These regions have experienced extraordinary economic transformation.
Agricultural prosperity.
Urbanisation.
Migration.
Education.
Industrialisation.
Global employment.
Diaspora connections.
Modern communication.
And yet caste, clan and patriarchal controls around marriage remain remarkably resilient.
A family may happily send its son to Canada.
It may celebrate its daughter studying in Delhi.
It may purchase an expensive SUV.
It may build a magnificent house.
But if the daughter chooses a man from another caste, the same family may suddenly retreat into a moral universe centuries old.
The passport may be global while the matrimonial imagination remains local.
This contradiction deserves far more serious sociological attention than it receives.
X. THE KHAP IS NOT THE WHOLE STORY
It is tempting to make khap panchayats the villain and conclude the discussion.
That would be too easy.
Research on Haryana's khap institutions has shown that they possess considerable social, economic and political influence, and that patriarchal attitudes remain resilient within communities where these institutions operate. Field research across villages in the khap belt has documented the continuing acceptance of patriarchal ideas despite modernisation.
Another recent study has gone further, examining the relationship between customary caste councils and state institutions. It argues that the problem cannot simply be understood as a confrontation between "tradition" and "the State"; patriarchal social attitudes can sometimes influence the functioning of state institutions themselves.
This is a much more uncomfortable proposition.
The State does not operate in a social vacuum.
Police officers come from society.
Revenue officials come from society.
Teachers come from society.
Politicians come from society.
Administrators come from society.
They carry constitutional duties, but they are also human beings shaped by social structures.
Therefore the real danger arises when social prejudice enters state machinery.
Then a family dispute becomes a police compromise.
A threat becomes a counselling matter.
A protection request becomes a reconciliation exercise.
A vulnerable couple is sent back into the very environment from which it sought protection.
And the State, unknowingly or knowingly, becomes part of the chain.
XI. WHEN THE STATE ARRIVES AFTER THE BODY IS FOUND
This is perhaps the most painful administrative failure.
The police arrive.
The body is recovered.
The accused are arrested.
The post-mortem is conducted.
The case is registered.
The investigation begins.
Statements are recorded.
The government announces action.
But the question that should have been asked earlier is:
Could the killing have been prevented?
The Supreme Court has itself recognised this preventive responsibility.
In Shakti Vahini v. Union of India, the Court directed States to develop preventive, remedial and punitive mechanisms against honour crimes, including identification of vulnerable areas, special cells, protection arrangements and institutional responses.
The Court's directions are not merely symbolic.
They recognise a fundamental truth:
honour killing is often preceded by warning signs.
Threats.
Family hostility.
Community meetings.
Abduction.
Harassment.
Police complaints.
Protection petitions.
Online threats.
Pressure from relatives.
Attempts to separate the couple.
The State does not always encounter the crime at the moment of murder.
Often it encounters the crime while it is still becoming a murder.
The real test of governance is whether it can intervene at that stage.
XII. THE SUPREME COURT HAS ALREADY SPOKEN
Indian constitutional law has moved far ahead of social practice.
In Lata Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, the Supreme Court emphatically protected an adult woman's right to marry according to her choice and condemned violence against inter-caste and inter-religious couples.
Later, in Shakti Vahini, the Supreme Court required States to establish preventive and protective mechanisms against honour crimes.
And in subsequent judgments, the Court has repeatedly affirmed the autonomy of adults in choosing their partners.
The Supreme Court has described the right to marry a person of one's choice as integral to individual liberty and has emphasised that society has no role in determining whom an individual should marry.
The law is therefore clear.
The Constitution is clear.
The courts are clear.
The problem lies elsewhere.
Society has not caught up.
XIII. THE CONSTITUTION VS THE COMMUNITY
The confrontation is ultimately between two moral systems.
The first says:
You are an individual.
You possess dignity.
You possess liberty.
You may choose.
You have equal citizenship.
The second says:
You belong to a family.
You belong to a caste.
You belong to a clan.
Your choices must conform.
Your marriage affects our honour.
Your body is part of our collective reputation.
The Constitution says:
individual.
Caste says:
community.
The Constitution says:
choice.
Patriarchy says:
obedience.
The Constitution says:
equality.
Caste says:
hierarchy.
Honour killing occurs when the second system violently refuses to surrender to the first.
That is why honour killing is not merely a crime against a person.
It is an assault on constitutional democracy itself.
XIV. THE SPECIAL MARRIAGE ACT AND THE PARADOX OF LEGAL FREEDOM
India legislated the Special Marriage Act in 1954, providing a legal framework for marriage outside personal religious forms and enabling marriage between persons who meet the statutory conditions.
The law was an important instrument of social modernisation.
But law cannot by itself dissolve social prejudice.
A couple may possess a legal right and still face social violence.
A marriage certificate cannot physically protect someone from an enraged relative.
A judicial order cannot stand guard outside a house.
A statute cannot change the mind of a community overnight.
This is why legal reform must be accompanied by institutional protection and social transformation.
Otherwise we create a strange democracy in which the State says:
"You have the right."
Society replies:
"Exercise it and die."
That is not meaningful liberty.
XV. THE FAMILY IS NOT A PRIVATE REPUBLIC
One of the most persistent misconceptions in Indian social life is that the family is beyond constitutional scrutiny.
It is not.
The family is an important social institution.
But it is not a sovereign republic.
Parents do not own adult children.
Brothers do not own sisters.
Caste councils do not own their members.
Communities do not own individuals.
The Constitution enters the home.
It enters the marriage.
It enters the bedroom.
It enters the workplace.
It enters the village.
Because dignity does not stop at the doorstep.
Article 21 does not become inoperative because the threat comes from a father rather than a stranger.
A woman's liberty does not become smaller because the person violating it is her brother.
A man's right to life does not become conditional because his marriage displeases his caste group.
Family affection cannot become a licence for coercion.
XVI. THE MOST DANGEROUS SENTENCE: "WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY?"
Perhaps the entire psychology of honour violence can be compressed into one sentence:
"What will people say?"
This sentence has governed generations.
It has stopped marriages.
It has destroyed careers.
It has silenced women.
It has forced people into unhappy relationships.
And sometimes it has killed.
But who are these people?
Why should the imaginary opinion of neighbours possess greater authority than the Constitution?
Why should the gossip of a village determine the life of an adult citizen?
Why should social embarrassment be considered more serious than murder?
The question must be reversed.
Instead of asking:
"What will people say if our daughter marries outside the caste?"
the family should ask:
"What will history say if we kill her for doing so?"
Instead of asking:
"What will the community think?"
society should ask:
"What will the Constitution think?"
XVII. SILENCE IS NOT NEUTRAL
Honour killing is sustained by silence.
The neighbour knows.
The cousin knows.
The village knows.
The relatives know.
The threats are often not invisible.
Sometimes everyone knows that something terrible is about to happen.
Yet nobody speaks.
Why?
Because speaking against the family may make one an outsider.
Because caste solidarity is powerful.
Because people fear social consequences.
Because violence is rationalised as a "family matter."
Because society has been trained to respect collective honour more than individual liberty.
And thus the murder becomes a collective production.
One person may hold the weapon.
But many people may create the environment.
A society does not need to commit the murder with its own hands to become complicit in it.
XVIII. WHY THE "RATIONAL" CLASS ALSO FAILS
There is another hypocrisy that deserves attention.
The educated, urban, rational and progressive section of society often condemns honour killings loudly.
But what happens when the issue enters its own household?
The answer is often less heroic.
Caste-based matrimonial preferences remain widespread.
Families may oppose inter-caste marriages while publicly denying caste prejudice.
Some progressive people support equality in public but insist upon caste compatibility in marriage.
This reveals an uncomfortable truth:
Caste survives not merely because the uneducated defend it. It survives because the educated reproduce it.
The educated class may reject untouchability while maintaining endogamy.
It may reject overt caste insults while practising caste-based matrimonial selection.
It may oppose honour killing while quietly endorsing the social logic that makes the killing intelligible.
This is why the battle against honour killing must move beyond criminal law.
It requires a confrontation with the everyday reproduction of caste.
XIX. WHY LOVE BECOMES DANGEROUS
Love is dangerous to hierarchical societies because it can disregard inherited categories.
Love does not necessarily ask:
What is your caste?
What is your clan?
What is your surname?
How much land does your family possess?
What is your social rank?
It asks something else.
Do I trust you?
Do I respect you?
Do I want to share my life with you?
That is precisely why autonomous choice can destabilise systems based on inherited status.
The caste system depends upon the idea that social identity is predetermined.
Love introduces contingency.
Choice introduces uncertainty.
Marriage across caste introduces permeability.
And permeability terrifies systems built on boundaries.
This is why the struggle over marriage is, at a deeper level, a struggle over whether birth or choice will govern human relationships.
XX. THE DEATH OF A COUPLE IS NOT THE DEATH OF THE PROBLEM
After every honour killing, society asks:
Who killed them?
We should also ask:
Who taught the killer that he had the right to kill?
Who taught him that caste mattered more than life?
Who taught him that a woman's choice was family property?
Who taught him that social shame justified violence?
Who taught him that obedience was more valuable than autonomy?
Who told him that the family would lose honour?
These questions lead us from the criminal to the culture.
And culture is much harder to prosecute.
XXI. WHAT MUST THE STATE DO?
The State needs a comprehensive strategy rather than episodic reactions.
1. Treat threats as potential violence
When an adult couple seeks protection, the police must conduct a genuine threat assessment.
2. Create effective protection mechanisms
Special cells, helplines, safe houses and designated officers should not exist merely on paper.
The Supreme Court has already prescribed such institutional responses.
3. Train police officers
Police must understand that an inter-caste or inter-religious marriage is not itself a social offence.
4. Identify high-risk situations
Threats, abduction attempts, community meetings, prior violence and family mobilisation should trigger preventive intervention.
5. Fix accountability
Where credible threats are ignored and violence subsequently occurs, responsibility must be examined.
The Supreme Court has recognised the State's duty to protect fundamental rights in cases involving honour-related violence.
6. Improve data
The State needs better identification of honour-related violence, including threats, forced confinement and attacks that may precede killings.
7. Strengthen safe accommodation
A threatened couple should not have to choose between returning to danger and becoming homeless.
8. Challenge community coercion
No informal council, caste group or gathering should be allowed to exercise coercive authority over lawful marriages.
9. Reform education
Constitutional morality must be taught as a living principle, not merely as an examination topic.
10. Support social reformers
Women's groups, legal-aid organisations, counsellors, civil society organisations and community reformers should be part of the preventive framework.
XXII. THE REAL BATTLE IS FOR THE MIND
Ultimately, honour killing cannot be eradicated merely by increasing punishment.
Punishment is necessary.
It is indispensable.
But it is not sufficient.
The deeper battle is ideological.
We must make it socially shameful to kill in the name of honour.
Today, in some communities, the shame is attached to the girl who chooses.
Tomorrow, the shame must attach to the man who threatens.
Today, the family fears gossip because the daughter married outside caste.
Tomorrow, the family must fear the moral condemnation that follows violence.
Today, conformity is rewarded.
Tomorrow, constitutional courage must be rewarded.
This is social transformation.
XXIII. THE STATE MUST CHOOSE SIDES
There is a tendency in administrative language to seek neutrality.
But neutrality between liberty and coercion is not neutrality.
If one side is a consenting adult exercising a constitutional right and the other side is threatening violence, the State cannot say:
"Both sides should compromise."
There is nothing to compromise.
The adult has a right.
The aggressor has no right to violence.
The State must protect the former and restrain the latter.
Constitutional governance cannot be neutral between a victim and the person threatening the victim.
That principle must become embedded in every police station and every administrative office.
XXIV. THE COURTS HAVE NOT FAILED. SOCIETY HAS
It is fashionable to say that courts have failed.
But the record tells a more complicated story.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly defended choice, autonomy and dignity.
It has condemned honour crimes.
It has directed preventive measures.
It has required State machinery to act.
It has recognised the constitutional importance of marriage choice.
The problem is not the absence of constitutional doctrine.
The problem is the distance between constitutional doctrine and social reality.
The judgment is pronounced in Delhi.
The threat occurs in a village.
The legal principle is written in a judgment.
The couple needs protection at midnight.
The court can declare liberty.
Only the State machinery can physically protect it.
Therefore the real challenge is implementation.
Constitutional morality cannot remain inside law reports. It must travel to the last police station, the last village and the last threatened household.
XXV. WE NEED A SECOND SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENT
India has had great social reformers.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy challenged sati.
Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule challenged caste and gender oppression.
Periyar challenged Brahminical hierarchy.
Ambedkar challenged caste and demanded social democracy.
Gandhi confronted untouchability and social exclusion, though his approach differed fundamentally from Ambedkar's.
The Constitution abolished untouchability and established equality.
But the unfinished work remains.
The next phase of social reform must confront endogamy itself.
Not by forcing people to marry across caste.
That would be another form of coercion.
But by ensuring that no one is punished for choosing to do so.
The goal is not to dictate whom people should marry.
The goal is to prevent society from dictating whom they must not marry.
That distinction is fundamental.
XXVI. HONOUR MUST BE REDEFINED
Perhaps we need to rescue the word "honour" from the people who have abused it.
What is honour?
Is honour killing a daughter?
No.
Is honour threatening a son?
No.
Is honour enforcing caste?
No.
Is honour obeying the mob?
No.
Honour is protecting the vulnerable.
Honour is respecting choice.
Honour is refusing violence.
Honour is allowing another human being to live with dignity.
Honour is accepting that one's child is an individual, not property.
Honour is standing against injustice even when the victim belongs to one's own family.
If society must preserve honour, let it preserve human honour.
Not caste honour.
Not patriarchal honour.
Not clan honour.
Not manufactured honour.
XXVII. THE QUESTION WE MUST LEAVE WITH OUR CHILDREN
What should we teach the next generation?
That their worth is determined by caste?
That family reputation is more important than personal happiness?
That obedience is more valuable than freedom?
That love is dangerous?
Or should we teach them that human beings possess equal dignity?
That consent matters?
That choice matters?
That marriage is not ownership?
That caste is not destiny?
That the Constitution protects the individual against the collective?
The answer will determine whether honour killing survives another generation.
XXVIII. THE SERPENT WILL KEEP RETURNING
The title of this essay is deliberately metaphorical.
The serpent of honour killing does not die because one murderer is arrested.
It retreats.
It waits.
It changes its skin.
Sometimes it appears as caste.
Sometimes as clan.
Sometimes as religion.
Sometimes as family reputation.
Sometimes as "tradition."
Sometimes as "social harmony."
Sometimes as concern for the daughter's future.
Sometimes as a threat disguised as advice.
But beneath the different skins is the same creature:
the refusal to accept individual autonomy.
That is why it keeps returning.
Because we have attacked the serpent's head but left its nest intact.
The nest is endogamy.
The nest is patriarchy.
The nest is caste hierarchy.
The nest is social surveillance.
The nest is silence.
The nest is institutional hesitation.
The nest is the belief that family honour is collective property.
Until these structures are challenged, the serpent will continue to raise its hood.
XXIX. THE LAST WORD SHOULD BELONG TO THE CONSTITUTION
There is a final irony.
The Constitution was born in a country divided by caste, religion, hierarchy and social exclusion.
Its framers knew that political democracy could not survive without social democracy.
The Constitution therefore did something revolutionary.
It took the individual away from the complete control of the community.
It declared that citizenship belongs to the person.
Not to the caste.
Not to the clan.
Not to the village.
Not to the family.
The individual stands before the State as a rights-bearing human being.
That principle is the foundation of modern India.
Honour killing is its direct negation.
When a person is killed because he married according to his choice, the murder is not merely of a body.
It is an attempt to restore the supremacy of inherited identity over constitutional citizenship.
That is why every honour killing should be understood as a small civil war against the Constitution.
The weapon may be a rope.
A gun.
A knife.
A piece of agricultural equipment.
A canal.
Poison.
But behind the weapon stands an idea:
"You had no right to choose."
The Constitution answers:
"You do."
The murderer says:
"Your family owns your life."
The Constitution answers:
"Your life is your own."
The caste system says:
"You must marry within the boundary of your birth."
The Constitution answers:
"Your dignity does not come from your caste."
Patriarchy says:
"A woman's choice dishonours the family."
The Constitution answers:
"A woman is a citizen, not family property."
And that is where the battle truly lies.
XXX. CONCLUSION: NO HONOUR IS WORTH A HUMAN LIFE
One day, perhaps, we will look back at honour killing with the same disbelief with which we now look at other barbarities that once possessed social legitimacy.
Perhaps future generations will ask:
"How could parents kill their own children because they married someone from another caste?"
"How could a village remain silent?"
"How could the police fail to protect them?"
"How could educated people tolerate it?"
And perhaps our descendants will find it difficult to understand.
But that future will not arrive automatically.
We must create it.
The first step is to stop using the language of honour to describe murder.
Call it what it is.
Murder.
Not honour killing.
Not family honour.
Not social justice.
Not tradition.
Not custom.
Murder.
The second step is to understand the system behind the murder.
Caste.
Patriarchy.
Endogamy.
Community control.
Gender inequality.
Social surveillance.
Institutional weakness.
The third step is to make constitutional liberty real.
A right that cannot be exercised safely is an incomplete right.
A constitutional guarantee without administrative protection is a promise written on paper.
And the fourth step is the most difficult:
society itself must change.
Not tomorrow.
Not after the next killing.
Now.
Because every time we remain silent, the message travels.
Every time we say "it is their family matter," the message travels.
Every time we tolerate caste prejudice in marriage while condemning murder, the message travels.
Every time we ask a threatened couple to reconcile with the people threatening them, the message travels.
Every time we protect family reputation before individual liberty, the message travels.
And eventually the message reaches the murderer:
Society will understand.
That message must end.
The young lovers must not be required to die so that society can preserve its imaginary honour.
A daughter must not become a corpse to prove the family's purity.
A son must not become a body in a canal to satisfy caste pride.
A marriage must not become a death sentence.
A woman's choice must not become a crime.
A man's love must not become a provocation for murder.
And caste must not be allowed to decide who is worthy of living.
We cannot claim to be a modern society while continuing to practise medieval violence in the name of tradition.
We cannot celebrate the Constitution while allowing caste councils to become parallel sovereigns.
We cannot preach equality while defending endogamy as social destiny.
We cannot call ourselves progressive while asking our daughters to surrender the very freedom that education supposedly gives them.
And we cannot continue to mourn the dead without interrogating the society that produces their killers.
The serpent has raised its hood again.
But this time, we must not merely wait for it to disappear.
We must enter the nest.
We must confront caste.
We must confront patriarchy.
We must confront social silence.
We must confront administrative indifference.
We must confront our own hypocrisy.
And above all, we must reclaim the meaning of honour.
Because there is no honour in killing.
There is no honour in obedience enforced by fear.
There is no honour in caste.
There is no honour in patriarchy.
There is no honour in making a daughter choose between her family and her life.
The only honour worthy of a constitutional democracy is the honour of protecting human dignity.
And if two adults choose to walk together across the boundaries imposed upon them by birth, society has only one legitimate response:
Let them live.
Let them love.
Let them marry.
Let them build their lives.
Let their children inherit a country less imprisoned by the sins of their ancestors.
Because the true measure of India's progress will not be how high we build our towers, how fast our economy grows, how many satellites we launch or how powerful our technology becomes.
It will be whether, in some village in Haryana or Punjab, when a young woman finally says—
"This is the person I choose."
her family answers:
"Then live your life."
And the village remains silent—not because it approves of murder,
but because it has finally learned that another human being's freedom is none of its business.
That will be the day the serpent finally dies.
Not because the police killed it.
Not because the courts sentenced it.
But because society no longer believes in the idea that gave it life.
References
1. B.R. Ambedkar, Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development (1916) — foundational analysis of endogamy and the reproduction of caste.
2. The Constitution of India, particularly Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 — equality, non-discrimination, freedoms and life and personal liberty.
3. The Special Marriage Act, 1954 — statutory framework for civil marriage, including marriage between persons outside conventional personal-law forms.
4. Lata Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2006) 5 SCC 475 — Supreme Court protection of the right of adults to choose their marriage partners and condemnation of violence against inter-caste couples.
5. Shakti Vahini v. Union of India, (2018) 7 SCC 192 — landmark Supreme Court judgment directing preventive, remedial and punitive measures against honour crimes, including special cells and protection mechanisms.
6. Tehseen S. Poonawalla v. Union of India, Supreme Court — subsequent consideration of the problem of honour crimes and the need for State mechanisms to protect vulnerable couples.
7. Supreme Court of India, judgments affirming that the right to choose one's spouse forms part of constitutional liberty and personal autonomy.
8. Pralip Kumar Narzary & Laishram Ladusingh, “Discovering the Saga of Inter-caste Marriage in India,” Journal of Asian and African Studies — analysis of India Human Development Survey data and the persistence of caste endogamy.
9. Nirmala Devi & Aditya Parihar, “Khaps in Haryana, Gender and Honour: A Field Study,” Social Change — field-based study of khap institutions, patriarchy and resistance to social change in Haryana.
10. Priyadarshini Bhattacharya, “‘Honor’ Killings and Customary Laws: A Case Study of Khap Panchayats in Haryana, India,” Violence: An International Journal — analysis of the relationship between customary caste institutions, patriarchy and state structures.
11. Kaushambi Kaushal, “No Honour in Honour Killing: Comparative Analysis of Indian Traditional Social Structure vis-à-vis Gender Violence” — examination of honour violence through caste, gender and traditional social structures.
12. National Crime Records Bureau, Crime in India — official crime statistics. Recent reporting based on NCRB data records 38 honour-killing cases in India in 2023, including six in Haryana and five in Punjab.
13. Punjab & Haryana High Court, judgments concerning honour killings, police accountability, protection of inter-caste couples and implementation of Supreme Court directions. The material supplied for this essay records judicial criticism of police inaction and directions concerning special cells, helplines, immediate FIR registration, protection and accountability.
Author's Note
This essay uses the term "honour killing" because it is the established legal, journalistic and sociological expression, but the phrase should always be understood critically. There is nothing honourable in such killing. The violence is better understood as caste-, gender- and community-based coercion carried to its most extreme conclusion: murder.
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