Bring To an end

Panchayti Raj in Haryana

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:18 PST

Panchayti Raj institutions have important and leading roll in Devlopment of Haryana. It was carved out of the state of Punjab in 1966 in name of tribes (casts) of agricultural orientation.

Haryana is primarily an agrarian state. And panchayats have a major role in life cycle of Haryana people, concept of Panchayats and community mobilization is quite old phenomenon in haryana.

Taj-ul-Maasir (588 A.H. 1192 AD) refers these institutions like khap panchayat.

In samvat 1252 (1195 AD) a meeting of Sarva Khap Panchayat (Federal clan council of the Jats and other kindred people of Upper Doab, Haryana and neighbourng areas) was held in a forest between the villages of Bhoju and Banera under the chairmanship of Rao Vijay Rao of the village, Sisauli. And this meeting decided among others to raise a big militia “to defend the Sarva Khap area against a suspected attack by Muhammad Ghori and to protect the area from loot and plunder. (Kanha Ram (Hindi Ms.) in possession of Chaudhary Qabul Singh of Shoram Muzaffarnagar])

There is another reference of a panchayat

“A Sarva Khap Panchayat meeting was held in samvat 1455 (1338 AD) in forest of Chugama under the president ship of Dev Pal Rana. It passed the resolutions that they should “vacate the villages, sending the children and women to the forests and that the able-bodied persons should take up arms and destroy the army of Timur. (G.C. Dwivedi, The Jats, Their role in the Mughal Empire, Delhi, Ed Dr Vir Singh, 2003, p. 11)”

The traditional accounts of the Jats record that on many occasions the Sarva Khap Panchayats and others met to express its deep resentment against the administrative oppression, unjust restrictions and humiliating exactions on ground of discrimination.

In modern India, Haryana is a traditional and rural society and they still believe in community level settlements. That is why Panchayat institutions are very powerful. But there is some conflict between traditional setups and government institution, but development works are screened by panchayats and community.

The Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, 1994 (Act Number 11 of 1994) was enforced w.e.f. 22.04.1994. The objective of this act is to provide for constitution of Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis and Zila Parishads for Development and public participation in administration of the rural areas of Haryana.

Drinking water supply system in a village of haryana

Gram Panchayat: consists of a Sarpanch elected by Gram Sabha from amongst its voters and 6 to 12 Panches from wards in the Panchayat area.

Block Panchayat: consists of a Chairman and a Vice Chairman, directly elected members from territorial constituencies as determined under section 58 of the act, the members of Haryana Legislative Assembly representing constituencies, which comprise wholly or partly in the Panchayat panchayat.

Zila Prishad: Consists of members directly elected from the wards in the districts, Chairman of all Panchayat Samitis within the district, ex officio members, the members of the House of People, Haryana Legislative Assembly whose constituency lies within the district or part thereof, ex officio member, a President and Vice President.

On administrative side, Directorate of Development and Panchayat is headed by Director and having District Development & Panchayat Officers [DDPO] at District level and Block Development & Panchayat Officers [BDPO] at Block level and Panchayat Sachiv at Gram Panchayat.

Sources of Revenue of PRIs

The main source of income of Gram Panchayats is the lease money of land ponds and other properties of panchayat. The cultivable land of Gram Panchayats is given on lease every year and income received from this source is utilized on development works of village by Gram Panchayats.

Gram Panchayat is powerful body, sarpanch have practical right to inspect every department which is notified and working in gram panchayat. No scheme or work can implemented without consent of Sarpanch or Gram Panchayat.

Mostly Gram panchayat receive direct funds from State finance commission or other concerned departments. And they also have own income from various source, funding and powers of gram panchayats are highly admirable, and sarpanch are implementing there role in development and administration of villages.

Block Panchayat is a deemed institution, most of Block samiti members even BDPO were confused about the role of Block samiti members. Elected representative of BP have no active role in any development or administrative work. Even there is no coordination between BP and other notified Departments who are liable to PRIs. Most of schemes have own mechanism and BP level ERs have no role in implementation or planning process. They have evaluation rights but it is not practiced in field. BDPO is CEO of BP and they have active role in Block, in most of block BDPO is nodal officer and every activity is determined with the consent of BDPO but not of Block Panchayat.

As an administrator BDPO is responsible for every activity and fund utilization in gram panchayats.

Mgnrega data entry unit in a block

District Panchayat is a planning body and their works are satisfactory but it is a example of failure self-government system. Most of schemes and other development works are done by concerned department with the help of bureaucrats of DP. Elected representatives are not aware about their basic duties and rights. In Mahendragarh every information and accounts or schemes can accessed with consent of ADC office. Even DDPO and staff of zila parishad are not aware about basic information. Karnal iis in same situation. District Panchayat members are member of different committees. They have evaluationa and inspection rights but it is not applicable in field. Fund allocation to gram panchayats is screened by ADC office and DRDA. DP can distribute their own fund. District panchayats of Karnal and mahendragarh are directly implementing some projects with the help of concerned gram panchayat.

Social conditions: Challenges and conflict

Women Reservation:

In the given social milieu it is the rural rich who continue to hold the levers of socio-economic power. They get their womenfolk elected on seats reserved for women while they themselves continue to function as de-facto representatives with impunity. Sarcastically called as Sarpanch Pati or Panch Pati, these proxy men are being unhesitantly entertained at all administrative levels as elected representatives. The government has never issued instructions to discourage this open fraud and clear cut offense of impersonation. There is a need of a clear cut notification and ensure the literacy and power trainings for EWRs.

Meeting board in BDPO chamber in kanina of mahendragarh

Mukesh devi upper cast woman is the member of Block Panchayat Ateli, Mahendragarh from a woman reserved seat she is an example convening the condition of women as puppet in the hands of their husband. She is not aware about her basic duties and rights as a vice- chairperson of block. It was first time when she came to Block office. She does not participate in the meetings of block panchayat and there are not any special educational and CB modules being provided from government to improve the condition of women.

Another interesting example is Sarpanch Nisha Rani (SC women seat) from Danoli village of Asandh block in Karnal district whose condition is also not different from the other EWRs. We could not even understand till her husband Santosh singh himself told us that his wife is the real Sarpanch of the village. BDPO of aasandh recommend us that Santosh singh is Sarpanch of Danauli village and you can visit him. Even Panchayat Sachiv Girmeet singh was posing like santosh is sarpanch of village. Even some people from same village are not aware about sarpanch of village. In a FGD we came to know that Nisha rani is only a puppet and all the powers are being yielded by her husband she does not come out from her Home. And here we also got an idea of community among whom most of the population does not keep good opinion about those women who try to assert their rights.

SC Reservation

poverty still exists in Haryana

Most of the dalit sapanches are sought to be remote controlled by influential people upon whom they have to remain dependent due to various compulsions. In the event of defiance or self assertion by a dalit sarpanch , the panchayat is virtually made defunct by unique methods. Panches belonging to upper caste would tactically stay away from the officially convened meetings which then can not take place for want of required quorum. Instances of public humiliation and even physical intimidation of dalit sapanches, including of women, have often been reported in the media. A sarpanch Ratanlal of aghihar gaon of kanina block (Mahendergarh) is being exploited by upper cast Panchs. He is understood to have been eliminated by the village upper caste vested interests while the administration remained totally unmoved.

Ratanlal has no cooperation from other panchs because of cast discrimination and lack of support from block officials. Gram sachiv is supporter of ex Sarpanch who is from a dominating cast. he face a non-confidence motion last year and he won that motion but his supporter panchs can’t stand with him. Ex.Sarpanch and panchayat sachiv always try to create obstructions in his way like they do not sign on proposals of gram sabha. They even create trap and send false complaints to the BDPO offices to remove him from his position.

Control of Bureaucracy

The bureaucracy continues to dominate most of the affairs of panchayats so much so that the proceeding register of most of the gram panchayats and their accounts books are kept by the panchayat secretary,

youths are really enthusiastic about
participation in local governance

In most of case they bypassed the elected structure. The mandatory gram sabha meetings provided in the Act are never convened. Even formal meetings of gram panchayats are seldom held. More often, signatures of the members are obtained on individual basis. There is an increasing tendency of diversion of funds provided for social welfare schemes meant for the weaker sections to other populist works. More and more cases of corruption and financial misappropriation have surfaced time and again during recent years.

Most of the elected panchayat members are still working within the traditional mode as far as the functions and areas of activities are concerned. These are mainly confined to digging of ponds, construction of roads, auctioning of village common lands for cultivation etc. while key aspects of village life in the social domain like health, education, sports, food security, managing potable water, sanitation (including drainage), housing, environment (including forestry), social justice and cultural affairs remain still untouched by the panchayats.

Absence of toilet facilities for women continues to be the most haunting problem. There is also the issue of giving residential plots for the landless. Until these problems are addressed within and even outside the panchayat system from the angle of dalits, women and the youth, neither the panchayats become participatory nor these ignored sections could be empowered in any significant way.

In the case of Karnal, a formal stocktaking is yet to be undertaken in this regard at the level of the government. Some efforts in terms of training etc., though, have been there at an informal level during the recent years, particularly in the area of orienting elected women panchayat representatives for making their personal participation possible in the first place. However, even such half-hearted efforts have been found lacking in case of those coming from dalit background in general and dalit women in particular as a distinct category.

Social Reforms

Paradoxically, the traditional caste panchayats known as Gotra Khap panchayats still continue to prevail in many social matters and quite often these outdated institutions are even found acting either in tandem with the elected panchayats or in some cases ignoring them totally in order to enforce traditional codes. Illegal Khap panchayats are issuing ‘Judicial orders; awarding penalties either in the forms of fines, social boycott or excommunicating innocent persons from the village. Existence of these traditional institutions with the tacit support of mainstream political class and the State apparatus continues to be a significant impediment in the independent functioning of panchayati raj institutions.

Therefore, apart from the need for social reform campaigns targeting caste and gender discrimination to create more sensitive environment for the marginalised sections, some kind of accountability mechanism for the panchayats should also be evolved, particularly in cases of atrocities and crimes perpetrated on vulnerable sections.

administration was very cooperative during evaluation study

Percolation of the democratic element of the Panchayati Raj 73rd amendment, especially in relation to dalits and women, is yet to be achieved at implementation level for various reasons as dealt above. Last but not the least, it is a fact that democratic decentralisation of power in any significant manner shall be a distant dream without providing a share for the downtrodden in economic resources. Radical measures, like creation of employment avenues and drive for female literacy and civic sense for the development or public participation.

Nevertheless, it should not be inferred that nothing is changing or that there has not been any positive impact of the reservations for dalits, women and other backward sections. On the contrary, elected representatives belonging to these sections supported by inputs and training, have steadily begun to aspire and assert for an independent role for themselves individually and collectively. The potential for such a role of theirs should be positively channelised through awareness campaigns and skill upgradation of the elected persons to develop their effective participatory role.

So it is high time that a critical evaluation is undertaken for identifying grey areas and an intervention is made towards achieving real decentralisation even while reorienting these institutions in favour of social justice and development goals.

(Evaluation study of “Panchayati Raj institutions in Haryana” with www.taru.org)

Anta-Santa (exchange marriage): Parental Transfers and Marital Bargaining

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Marriage is perhaps the epitome of an incomplete contract. Its terms can never be fully specified ex-ante or enforced ex –post. A vast body of literature has thus highlighted the role of post-marital bargaining in determining intrahousehold allocations.

In traditional societies , where women’s formal legal rights are often weak and divorce is highly stigmatized , bargaining power can shift radically in favor of the man once the women commits herself to marriage . This fact should have implications for the form of the marriage ‘contract’; in particular, its ex- ante provisions should reflect the interests of the wife & her family in deterring or mitigating ex-post malfeasance on the part of the husband.

In this Article, we argue that exchange marriage in north

India

can play just such a role. Bride exchange, known as anta-santa or watta satta also known as Golta (Literally, ‘give-take), usually involve the simultaneous marriage of a brother – sister pair from two households. Remarkably, Anta-santa now accounts for about a third of all marriages in rural areas, and is even more prevalent in parts of Do’ab. Anta-santa is more than just an exchange of daughters, however; it also establishes the shadow of mutual threat across the marriages. In this arrangement, a husband who ‘mistreats’ his wife in certain ways can expect his brother –in –law to retaliate in-kind against his sister.

Such reciprocal threats operating across marriage can be credible and may, consequently, prevent inefficient marital outcomes; in particular, actions which the wife more than they benefit the husband. The idea is that husbands generally have coercive power over their wives, whether through emotional intimidation, the use or threatened use of violence, or the ability to expel her from the household. Actions such as these may, however, permanantely destroy some of the marital surplus, either by limiting the gains to future cooperation between the spouses or by bringing the disgrace upon the family or families involved. family ‘honor’ is particularly susceptible to publicly observable acts, like banishment of the wife to her natal home. Our theoretical argument uses the fact that , when one party in a negotiation can permanently destroy the surplus to be bargained over , and thereby extract a larger share for himself , inefficient equilibria can arise; in other words , threats might actually be carried out.

Anta-Santa (exchange marriage)

Parents may be wiling to restrain their son from such destructive (albeit privately rational) behavior, but only if they could also be assured that the in-laws of their daughter would restrain their son in the same way. An exchange marriage essentially facilitates coordination between two sets of in laws.

While model of exchange marriage is unique, there are several linkages to past work. La Farrara (2003), in the context of credit transactions, shows how the family or kin – group fills the void left by the absence of legally enforceable contracts. La Farrara explicitly models the way in which families punish deviations from a particular equilibrium, although the mechanisms are quite distinct in the two cases. Zhang and Chan (1990) are perhaps the first to suggest that the form of the marriage contract might reflect ex-post bargaining considerations. Parents, they argue, choose the size of their daughter’s dowry ex-ante taking into account its effect in the value of her threat point. however, is that Zhang and Chan assume that the marital bargaining solution is efficient. By contrast, Bloch and Rao (2002) analyze a specific signaling game with an equilibrium featuring so-called dowry violence. In our model, which is more general, marital discord , including but not limited to domestic abuse, occurs even though there is perfect information about the husband’s ‘type’(Fernandez and Glazer (1991) were the first to demonstrate that labor strikes and other inefficient outcomes can emerge in bargaining games under complete information. To our knowledge, this idea has never been applied to spousal bargaining before.). Main concern is with the instructions that may emerge to deter such inefficiency. In this respect , our work fits in to a broader program that seeks to rationalize institutional design in light of commitment failures (see, e.g., North and Weingast ,1989 ; Greif,1993).

It is important to note that the allocation of goods or time within the household may not differ at all between conventional and exchange marriages. Instead, we examine measure of marital discord: estrangement, domestic violence, and the wife’s mental health (depression and anxiety).

The main empirical challenge is to deal with systematic selection into exchange marriages. For example, anta santa arrangements may tend to be chosen by low status or traditional households, in which women may be treated more poorly on average irrespective of marriage type. If so, anta-santa might spuriously appear to be detrimental to women (Indeed, popular press accounts of watta satta in Pakistan often lump it together with other ‘undesirable’ practices like child - marriage and honor – killings.).

A similar effect may arise, as the theory itself will suggest if men who are less averse to intimation of women select in to anta-santa marriages. Yet, the very nature of the institution offers us a plausible instrument. Exchange marriages opportunities are limited by the presence of age and sex appropriate siblings.

A anta-santa bride normally must have an available brother (although satta (santa) can be arranged with uncles and other relatives, brothers are strongly preferred.)

Moreover, given the preference for grooms to be older than brides, the likelihood that a woman is in a antta santta marriage increasing in the numbers of older brothers she has relative to total older siblings (While an analogous argument applies to the siblings of the husband (since he must also have an available sister), using demographic composition of the husband’s family as an instrument is more suspect, for reasons to be discussed.). The demographic composition of the wife’s natal family , particularly the age pattern , is arguably uncorrelated with any of the unobservable that determine her treatment in her husband ‘s family .

To understand the motives behind exchange marriage, we need to take into account the preferences of six actors; two husband—wife pairs and their two sets of parents. For ease of notation and analytical convenience , we assume that both couples and sets of parents are identical to each other in every respect . Parents are assumed to have exactly one marriage son and one marriage daughter and to make all marital arrangements , acting as a unitary decision- maker in so doing ; i.e. , any conflicts between the father and mother over preferences toward their children.

Parents have convex preferences over the utilizes of their son and daughter, Children are assumed to display no altruism, neither toward their parents nor toward each other.

Despite this assumption, we can see that brothers end up acting in the best interests of their sisters.

Parents make monetary transfers to both their children, which may include bequests and dowries.

In particular ,it would not be unreasonable to claim that , in rural north India, where typically move into their husband’s intergeneration ally extended family , it is more costly for parents to make transfers to their married daughters than to their sons ( perhaps because signaling a willingness to make such transfers opens them up to extortion ). In this case , exchange marriage may serve to substitute for parents ‘ financial support of their married daughters .

------------Continued

Often deprivation leads villagers towards Naxalism

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Bihar has many regions, which remain poor, backward reflecting the absence of a development pattern, which would take benefits to those stricken by poverty and resourceless. Perhaps, it is this, which has pushed the people towards another force that offers an alternative although in this case the cure is worse than the disease.

Ironically today, Gaya where the Buddha attained Enlightenment and opened a way for all humanity to a life of peace and goodness is also a region where Naxalism has taken a hold on people's minds and lives.

Those struggling with issues of sheer survival turn away from the existing system to seek justice and equity through joining hands with the Naxals.

It may be hard to zero-in on what makes it happen but what is discernable is the extent of deprivation coupled with a lack of basic services to ensure the health and well being of people in rural areas.

What happened in one of the villages in the region illustrates this. The village Bhoop Nagar, Ams block, some 50 km from Gaya town is just another village on the map where people eke out a living as agricultural labourers and by cutting wood from the forest and selling it.

Women of Village

They offered their labour to big zamindars in return of some food and clothes. After land reforms, instituted in 1956, one of the landlords Banihar Prasad Bhoop settled many of these labourers on pieces of land that he gave up in during the period. Thus the name 'Bhoop Nagar'.

It was 1995 in this village that one of the villagers developed a problem in his legs and began to walk lame. Those in his household gave the traditional 'maalish' or massage but that did not help. Gradually, the number of people with a similar condition increased in Bhoop Nagar.

It was a disturbing pattern and the villagers were out of their depth to deal with this. They perceived it to be the work of some 'evil spirits' and as an attempt to exorcise these, took recourse to godmen and mantras.

By this time, a couple of years had elapsed and the unknown, dreaded affliction had taken its toll on the villagers. Those afflicted look way beyond their age, often their teeth are broken and hands and legs take on a contorted sinuous look. The scenario is akin to what poet Akbar Allahabadi described "Seeing senility at a very young age".

What was really happening in Bhoop Nagar was that a disease called 'flurosis' caused by contaminated water was taking root. This is when the lack of medical facilities became glaring which even for common diseases like cough and fever was missing for which people had to go long distances to reach a health centre.

In modern day India, this is a cause to hang our heads in shame. A scenario in which an entire population is afflicted with a disease brought on by unsafe drinking water is bad enough. The lack of medical facilities to combat and cure it is really the proverbial last straw on the camel's back as far as the villagers in Bhoop Nagar are concerned. What is unacceptable is the response of the authorities, at best weak and naturally ineffective.

The first thing that strikes one about the response is the time-lapse. Several years infact passed before they woke up and during the time, many of the children had grown into young adults, all under the spectre of the disease.

The Indian Institute of Hygiene and Public Health undertook an in-depth analysis, thoroughly testing the water to catch every possible contamination. The report was sent to the district administration but here too, the policy response was poor.

The then district officer Brijesh Mahrotra merely sent a letter to the village headman of Bhoop Nagar, Balaki Manjhi detailing the findings and stating that flurosis had affected the village.

This was followed by building a primary school in the village, which no doubt was essential and a step forward in development but was far removed from the action required to meet the challenge of flurosis stalking the village. Infact if the situation was not so tragic, it would be laughable.

What added insult to injury was the headman; Balaki Manjhi himself was suffering from the disease. Infact it has wracked his body. His body has bent with his spinal cord shrinking. His own routine and daily life is compromised and he needs help. Infact it is his wife who has taken charge of his duties. To expect an afflicted person to take steps to help others amounted to a lack of sensitivity and a complete disconnect with the ground situation.

The point is who is listening and who is taking action? Shakeel Ahmad Khan, the local MLA, visited Bhoop Nagar when he was the Minister of Power. His approach was rather drastic and suggested that the entire village be relocated in another area to remove the population from the source of contaminated water.

This was communicated to the village headman and through him to the villagers. The response from them was also equally strong. They refused to move from their ancestral land and a slogan, which went up, was 'We will live or die, but we will stay only here.'

What are these people to do, where are they to turn?

The EMPOWER PEOPLE feels that in such a situation Naxalism lures the villagers, promising an answer to the deprivation and neglect they face.

At one level, the Union Government is pledging resources and policy attention to wiping out this scourge from regions afflicted by it. On the other hand, it is neglecting its people to such an extent that they are pushed to the wall, thus willy-nilly creating a situation where people are left with little hope to seek answers within the system.

This article was spread by ANI and published by Yahoo and some other website or magazines

WOMEN AT WORK: RIGHTS AND VULNERABILITIES II

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Women and Migration

Migration is not a new phenomenon, but there are several characteristics of contemporary migration that are distinctive. Today it is the changing context of a globalised world and the extent and scale of migration which makes it a key feature of the times. Most significant is the increase in female migration as independent migrants and not merely as associational migrants. According to the World Migration Report 2003, almost half of the estimated 175 million migrants worldwide are women. This phenomenon has been termed “feminisation of migration”.

Migrant, refugee, displaced person, illegal migrant, trafficked person – class and location determine how these different categories are viewed. The educated, upper middle class professional woman who migrates for work, the woman who migrates for marriage, the woman migrating as labour into the export processing zone factory, the woman migrating for seasonal agricultural labour, domestic labour, sex work,

EMPOWER PEOPLE : A Programme in Gaya of Bihar

entertainment –the list is vast. The experience of these women is different and is shaped by different circumstances and the position of the woman, her family, community and the nation within a globalised economy and polity.

Globalisation and neo-liberal economic policies have precipitated migration due to increased opportunities for finding work in certain areas and impoverishment

and disruption of livelihoods in others. The growth of exportoriented industries like garments, electronics and practices such as outsourcing and flexible labour have created a demand for female labour in certain locations. In addition migrant women are in

demand in jobs of care, specifically domestic work, child and elder care. Another feature of contemporary migration which has contributed to the demand for female labour has been the growing sex, entertainment and tourism sector.

The transnational character of production and services has created a market for migrant female labour which has led to large numbers of women migrating, nationally and

internationally, whether from villages in Bangladesh to garment factories in Dhaka, Sri Lanka to

Saudi Arabia

as domestic workers,

Thai women working in bars in Germany and Denmark, from Mexico to the US, northern Africa to

Italy

, and so on.

Migration and Trafficking

Migration takes place both legally and illegally and this has been the primary concern of governments.

Though migration is a worldwide phenomenon, it is highly controlled. States regulate the numbers and kinds of labour power that they want. Limited legal migration opportunities often lead to irregular and illegal forms of migration. Trafficking has been located as one of the possible outcomes of this process. Women in these situations are more likely to face human rights violations. Thus illegal crossing of borders, irregular migration and involvement of agents compound the vulnerabilities that women face when they migrate. The contexts within which trafficking and migration take place are often similar.

Over the past two decades, studies of cross border movements especially of women has been largely located within the framework of trafficking. Located within the framework of illegal crossing of borders and prostitution as the final destination, trafficking discourses foster strategies which will curtail movement. This has led to conceptualisation of the process of migration as dangerous and negative

for women. Women are seen as victims who need to be protected and the language is one of rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation.

There are multiple factors that increase women’s vulnerabilities which are enhanced because of their structural position within patriarchal society. The conditions which allow for deception, coercion, bondage, violence and exploitation of labour are the daily realities of the lives of many girls and women. The inherent vulnerability that women face is enhanced when it operates in conjunction with other factors that limit the rights of workers in general - for instance, the nature of work (sex work, domestic work, dangerous work, prohibited work and so on) and the location of work (own country/foreign country, at home/outside home and so on).

It is important to recognise that less extreme forms of violations of these rights also exist but are less visible - in fact there is a continuum of violations, with "voluntary" migration at one end and trafficking at the other. If we accept that movement of people is a part of our history, present and future, then we need to explore new ways of understanding women’s experiences of migration and labour.

Feminisation of Labour

From the seventies, there has been a significant change in the process of industrialisation. Some of its features are a new international division of labour with relocation of production from developed to developing countries, growth of export oriented manufacturing industries, increasing influence of transnational companies and the feminisation of the labour force. Factors for this include industries wanting to keep costs low, decreasing household budgets and loss of employment for men.

Gendered notions emphasizing the "nimble fingers" of young women workers and their capacity for hard work, especially in Asia, facilitated the recruitment of women for unskilled and semiskilled work in labour-intensive industries at low wages and unsatisfactory working conditions. The percentage of women in export processing factories, electronics and garment factories is very high, in some cases even 90% whereas in other industries it would normally be around 30-40%. In the nineties there has been a fundamental shift towards “flexible” labour, to new forms of working and outsourcing, including temporary, part-time, casual, home

Usha Kumari Convener Jharkhand Chapter : in a Anti trafficking
Awareness programme

based etc. Flexibility has several different layers of meaning such as flexible job delineations, flexibility in hours of work, and in financial terms. The flexibility also includes a flexible labour force which can move and adapt to any of the new industries. Women often accept flexible working conditions because of their double and triple roles, but in most cases it has also meant casualisation and tremendous insecurity. The trend towards flexibility has meant that less workers have a formal position, increased subcontracting, and loss of any benefits that come with full time work within the formal economy. The entry of large numbers of women into the labour market usually takes place under two different sets of extenuating circumstances – either when the economic situation is so terrible that women are forced to work under any kinds of conditions (and often accept very poor working conditions, e.g. the garment factories in

Bangladesh

); or in cases where due to rapid growth, multi-national corporations (MNCs) are willing to offer higher wages than those existing and better working conditions, including a modern lifestyle (electronics industry in Malaysia and

Singapore

The Work of Care and Love

Another significant aspect of contemporary migration is the growth in demand for migrant women workers within the service sectors, specifically domestic and sexual services. The low value and status attached to these traditional female services have been reinforced in the contemporary situation. There are several migratory flows fed both by demand and supply. These flows are shaped by racialised stereotypes such as submissive eastern women as better “wives” or companions in the case of Thai mail order brides.

Similarly Caribbean women are seen as highly sexual and that is their appeal as sex workers; or the Sri Lankan and Filipina women who are preferred as domestic workers.

This process of racial stereotyping, though present in most occupations, is most evident in the work of care and love.

The change has taken place at a global level where increasingly domestic tasks are being relocated to the market, both as goods and services. There is a shift of household functions to the labour market, which is serviced primarily by migrant women. The dynamic plays out whether it is internal migration from the village to the city, or from countries in the South to the North.

The State often encourages migration of women as they are considered earners of foreign revenue. For example Sri Lankan women remitted US $880 million in 1998. The Sri Lankan government facilitates their migration as domestic workers to countries in the Gulf and even

Italy

by providing them lessons on working in foreign countries. Thai women are encouraged to work in Europe as entertainers, sex workers or wives and send money back home. Women are seen as more likely to remit money home to their families rather than spending it on themselves. The economic contribution of women migrant workers has been recognised in terms of foreign revenue, whether through remittances or the revenue generated locally. Globalisation thus not only results in the mobility of capital, but also of labour, albeit controlled. It is important to locate all these forms of work within the global economy as they function to “sustain global corporate capital, First World identities and masculine hegemony” (Kempadoo,1999). Migrant women workers around the world are holding up the economy and supporting their families through their low paid, low status and often invisible work.

Women and Work in the Informal Sector in India

In an economy segmented in complex ways to generate employment for millions of people, the informal or unorganised sector has an important role to play. This sector has not only been credited with creating opportunities for livelihood for almost 90% of the population, but in the last decade has seen a tremendous expansion with the disruptions caused by neo liberal economic policies. The informal sector is not just a characteristic

of the urban economy, as was suggested in early research by economists, but also predominant in the rural economy – an observation made by Jan Breman while working in South Gujarat (Breman, 1996). Both the rural and urban informal sectors are distinguished by their high absorption of both female labour and migrant labour.

The 1971 Nairobi conference organised by the International Labour Organization provided the following characteristics of informal activity: ease of entry; reliance on indigenous resources; family ownership of enterprise; small scale operation; operation in

a semi-permanent or temporary structure or in a variable location; skills acquired outside

the formal education system; and operation in unregulated and competitive markets. In addition, scholars have pointed out that informal sector is also characterised by lack of protection of rights of workers and high degree of exploitation, absence of

labour laws, job insecurity, absence of workers' benefits and the absence of organised power for collective bargaining (Mazumdar, 1990).

The urban informal sector inherently appears to be a doubleedged sword. While providing options for survival for millions, it brings with it a specific set of vulnerabilities and issues of rights of workers - including that of non payment of minimum wages, equal wages for equal work, harsh conditions of work, lack of

benefits, lack of organised ways of negotiating and sexual exploitation.

These are compounded in the case of women workers, the majority of which are engaged in this sector and whose relationship with the labour market has by and large always been characterised by invisibility, undervaluation and vulnerability. In fact, the report of the Committee for the Status of Women 'Shramshakti' in 1975 brought to light for the first time the extent and nature of women's participation in the labour market and revealed that 94% of women workers remain untouched by labour laws. Feminist scholarship and

movements of trade unions and grassroots communities over the years have worked to give visibility and recognition to the work of women within the economy, and raised issues of their rights as workers. Being based on the availability of cheap, casual, unskilled labour the urban informal sector in particular provides "a universe of limited

opportunities and special vulnerability for illiterate desperate women" (Mazumdar, 1990).

Women in the informal sector are also found to be in disproportionately higher numbers

in certain occupations. Petty trading, food services, textile production, construction work and domestic service represent a few of the occupations typically dominated by women, occupations which are primarily an extension of the gender division of labour.

The context of an unregulated, and sometimes hidden (in the case of home based work) workplace and unorganised, atomised workforce only sharpens the vulnerabilities

inherent in the informal sector, and enables exploitation at different levels. This is made

worse in the case of migrant women workers, for whom new structures of economy and society and the circumstances of the migration mean that their ability to negotiate is

almost non-existent. Women have also been dependent on agents or middlemen to facilitate both their movement (in case of migrant women) and their entry into the labour

market, which opens up other avenues for exploitation. It is clear from existing studies

and surveys that the work that migrant women are engaged in is primarily located within the unorganised or informal structure. Clearly this structures their experiences of the labour market and often increases the vulnerabilities that they have to face.

References:

Breman, Jan. 1996. Beyond Patronage

and Exploitation: Changing Agrarian

Relations in South Gujrat. OUP,

London, New York.

Kempadoo,K. 1999. Sun, Sex and

Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the

Caribbean

Mazumdar, Vina (ed). 1990. Women

Workers in

India

. Chanakya

Publications, New Delhi

WOMEN AT WORK: RIGHTS AND VULNERABILITIES

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

One thing that emerges clearly is that many women have come to the city in search of a livelihood for themselves. Although many of them did migrate with their families, it

is they who became the primary bread earners over time. The changing scenario of the rural economy in the backdrop of privatisation and liberalisation has led to mass-scale unemployment in the rural areas. The loss of small-scale industries and the closing down of economic units has forced people to leave the village for the city. There is a hope that in the city they will at least be able to earn enough to sustain their families. The cities, at the same time, have seen a different kind of change. With greater education for the women and rise in the buying capacity of the middle class, the demand for the work of domestic care has increased. More women are coming out of their homes

to earn, however the responsibility of child-care and housework remains theirs too. This creates a need to employ others to take on these responsibilities of house-work and child and elderly care. Thus, the factors that push women out of the villages are omplemented by demand factors in the city that pulls them. The result is that there is a huge workforce of women in the city of Delhi, primarily in the unorganised sector.

Domestic worker in Taimoor nagar Delhi Photo-Srkhan

The Unorganised Sector

All the women in our sample were located in the unorganised sector.Characteristically, there is no written contract that enumerates the benefits and the conditions of work for women. There is no concept of a minimum wage, no redressal mechanism and no monitoring body.

The working conditions are often poor and the only recourse to any violations is to leave the job. Our field-work experience suggests that the factory, which is traditionally understood as a private-sector undertaking, is also slowly being converted into an

unorganised sector work- setting.

Such change should also be explained taking into account the policies of liberalisation and privatisation, which have entailed new work practices including outsourcing, flexible work and other such practices which further informalise their work.

Increasingly, in factories, less workers are employed on a regular basis and more are taken on a contract. A large portion of the work in the factory is also being distributed to the small, home- based kind of settings. Such homebased work is usually very poorly

paid.

The desperation to earn their livelihood somehow makes the women even more vulnerable to all kinds of violence at the workplace. These include theft accusations, nonpayment of wages, bribery, and sexual and physical harassment. The employers and others who are in the position of power take advantage of such vulnerability of the women working in the unorganised sector.

The City and Work: Some Common Concerns

The following are some of the common concerns that emerged from the interviews with the women: Opportunities for Earning: Working in the city and earning their livelihood has various meanings for the migrant women. It means having an opportunity to earn on their own, in stark contrast to their life in the village. It also offers an opportunity to make new working relationships- with the employer, factory owner, contractor and so on. Despite their vulnerability in such power relations, these people are the ones to whom women turn to in times of need. There are hardly any other support structures available to them.

Apart from providing a source of income for women in general, the city also provides opportunity for the single women, who would otherwise live without any earning in the village and in the absence of a male member to look after them.

In addition to this, the city provides opportunities for the women to engage in multiple

occupations.

The Triple Burden: Although most women migrate with their families and husbands, in due course of time they often become the primary earners of the family. For the women, it means that over time,

they are the ones who become responsible for everything- the children, the house and the work as well. While earning on their own may make the women more independent

and empowered, at the same time, it puts this triple burden on them.

This is to emphasize the fact that although more number of women have come out of their homes to work, there has not been a similar, or even comparable, increase in the

men’s responsibility at home. The workload of the women thereby has tremendously increased. Their life is a continuous drag of work from morning to night, often without

even a second’s rest. In addition to this, some women also express that their coming out of homes sometimes makes the men in the families become even more violent

and possessive. The result is domestic violence, regular abuse and accusations of infidelity. Thus, life at the same time becomes more difficult.

The Demon of Demolition: Most of the migrants live in illegal colonies that are in constant threat of demolition. Such demolition often happens without a sufficient legal notice period. A constant threat in the minds of women who are staying in migrant

colonies is the threat of demolition. The fact that their homes could be broken down any day lurks in their minds all the time and gives a sense of uncertainly to their lives. For them it means searching for a new place to live in, loss of livelihood and losing everything that they may have invested in building their homes.

Often, they are relocated to new areas, which are situated in the outskirts of the city. That means that they have to now travel much longer distances for work. The amount of money and time spent on the travel is huge making the occupation itself absolutely non-

viable for them. The result is loss of work for a large number of migrant men and women.

Harassment: The responses revealed a tremendous taboo around the issue of sexual harassment. For most of the women on being asked about their experiences of arassment,

their first reaction was strong denial. They denied having ever heard of or experienced it. We noted that the women talked more freely about domestic violence, as compared to sexual violence. But still, some of them did share about their experiences of having faced

such harassment. They talked about harassment by the people, police and their employers and even relatives. The need for work to sustain themselves makes them especially vulnerable to harassment which could be varied in its forms and intensity. It could be nonpayment of wages, maltreatment or verbal, physical and sexual abuse.

Types of Work

The migrant women in our study are employed in various types of work.

The largest percentage of women whom we interviewed work as domestic workers. They do tasks such as washing dishes, clothes, cleaning, mopping, and sometimes cooking for other households. These women fulfill the growing demand for domestic workers in the city.

A considerable number of women are also working in the factories in Gurgaon, Govindpuri and Faridabad. A factory, as mentioned earlier, is traditionally understood as a private sector undertaking that is guided by the rules and regulations of private enterprises. But, most of the women whom we interviewed worked in these factories on a

contract basis. The contract usually is from anywhere between 10 days to four months. A large number of women also work from home doing textile–related work like piece cutting, stitching sequins and beads on the cloth, and making drawstrings.

Shafique with Domestic workers children
in their community : Photo- Nirmala

Apart from this, there are a large number of seasonal migrants who come to the city every year to work at the construction sites. They leave their family and home behind and often move with friends and relatives from the same village.

More often than not, they come to work for the same contractor. Finally, some women are also categorized as self- employed. They are petty shop owners, tailors, vegetable and fruit sellers and so on.

The economic and civic issues that face all the women, no matter what kind of work they are engaged is, are the same. All of them are working extremely hard to eke out a living for themselves and are vulnerable to various kinds of harassment.

Domestic Work

The Rising Demand: Domestic work is taken up by a large number of women who are living in migrant colonies in Delhi. This is a low- skill job in which women do not have to have particular skills. The work that they do as a domestic worker is ‘gendered’, it is something that they have been doing as women all their lives- washing, cleaning,

cooking and other traditionally female household work. There is more demand to employ women to do household work as they are seen to be less demanding, less likely to

protest in cases of theft accusations and other kinds of harassment and most importantly due to the fact that domestic work is understood as ‘women’s work’.

The Informal Network of Information: For most women, the network that they use for getting the information about the availability of work in any household is informal. It is

usually a neighbour who is also doing the same job who tells other women about the work that is available in a particular house.

But, we have come across some rare cases in which women have gone on their own to look for job and have got it.

The Work: The women who were interviewed during this research are part-time workers. The work is part-time in the sense that they do not live with the employer. On an

average, one woman works in about four to five houses and she has to do two shifts. Often they have to leave home at about seven in the morning and it is only by late in

the afternoon that they come back after finishing one shift. They just have the time to finish their lunch and get a little rest, then it is time again to leave for work for the second shift. Most of the women have to cook after they come home and then feed the children and then eat. If there is an older daughter or a mother-in-law at home, then they gets some support for their household chores, otherwise the entire burden falls on them. In the words of a women from East of Kailash,

“I get up at six in the morning. After my morning chores I clean the house, wash the utensils of the past night make breakfast for everyone and most of the time leave

for work without eating anything.

After coming back from the work at around 1:00, I have to prepare the lunch and wash clothes. Again I leave for work at four in the evening and then come back not before 7 p.m. After making dinner and having it I go to sleep around eleven.”

The Pros and Cons: Despite the continuous hardships and monotony of the job, many women find it preferable to work as a domestic help. Many of them say that it is

because they are able to come home during the day to take care of their young children. At the same time, domestic work does not involve much commuting. Often, only

those women are employed who stay close to the employer’s place of residence. This gives them the freedom to call her whenever they want, sometimes earlier and

sometimes a little later than the scheduled time. Even the women do not have to travel much and spend money in commuting from one place to the other. In most cases, women

are able to walk down to their places of work. Benefits, however discretionary: In

working as a domestic help, women often make several new relationships with the various members in the households. It is these people, who often support the woman with money, food, medical assistance, old clothes and so on.

However such benefits are completely at the discretion of the employer. There are homes in which no such benefits are offered. We observed that the women took a lot of pride in not even asking for a cup of tea or any other benefits. If given, they will accept, but

they will not ask for anything on their own accord. This is the only kind of employment in which the women get some benefits, howsoever discretionary. They are given old

clothes, holidays, medicines, and sometimes even money from the employers in whose house they work, particularly in the case of any social event such as marriage.

There are cases in which the employer has helped the women in handling domestic violence from the husband. The following are the words of a woman who worked as a

domestic worker in East of Kailash about the benefits that she received:

“I got a lot of benefits. They would give me meals, clothes and blankets – everything, from there. They supported me whenever my husband would ill treat me or beat me. They got my daughter admission in a school and also gave her bag, notebooks etc. They would tell me that they would deduct my wages for the number of days that I took

leave, but they never did. They only wanted me to let them know in advance whenever I wanted to take leave. But this made them prepare for arranging for alternatives.”

Another woman from the same area went to

Saudi Arabia

for work. She shares her experience:

“I was treated very well there. I used to get food, good money and medical facilities. Once when I was washing heavy carpets, my earlier stitches opened up and I was in

terrible condition. This happened about 6-7 months after I had got myself operated. When I had the above mentioned health problem, I wanted to come back to

India

. They gave me a watch, golden earrings, one chain when I was leaving and also helped me in coming back to

India

by taking care of the travel expenses.”

Another domestic worker from the area shares her problems at work: “My employers, kothiwalis do not give me any food except for maybe a piece of bread and tea sometimes in the morning. No I cannot ask. That is bad manners. My salary gets reduced for those days on which I take leave. When my younger daughter was born, I went on leave and my brother-in-law filled my place during my absence. If we are absent for more than two days, salary gets deducted. I do not get anything much, except for old

clothes and some sweets and Rs. 20/-. Whenever anything is lost in the house, the blame is put on me.

Once a necklace was lost which was ultimately found in the same house.

I did not go to work for two days, till it had been found lest they blame me for planting it there. The employers came to seek forgiveness. Instead they give me stale food. If

I refuse to take it, they feel insulted. I work on one cup of tea practically throughout the morning. If I answer them back, madam says leave work.” Vulnerabilities: Although preferred by many, domestic work has its own set of vulnerabilities. Many women

complain of continuous bickering by the employers, more often, by the lady of the house. Apart from this,

they have to face theft accusations from the employers. It is evident from few interviews that often, these accusations would only be an excuse to make the worker leave the

house. There are also cases in which the woman was harassed by male members of the household and by the other male servants in the house. Since in the beginning, the workplace is new and unknown, and is within the closed, private domain of the household, the woman is vulnerable to sexual and physical harassment. When they

complain they are not believed. The only recourse in case of facing such violations and theft accusations is to leave the house. There is absolutely no redressal mechanism that the woman can go to, when faced with such circumstances. A woman from Hanuman Camp shares her experiences in the following words:

“…….then I joined another house where I would clean utensils. Phir mujhe us sahab ka niyat kharab laga (then I suspected the intentions of the employer). When madam would be out of the house sahab would come to the kitchen when I am washing utensils. He would ask me to light a cigarette for him. My hands would be wet at that time washing so how does he expect me to light one? And one day he said his wife is out and asked me to sit beside him and told me to demand whatever I want, he’ll give me everything. I told him, I’ll leave this house if you talk to me like this and I left the work next day itself. But I told his wife that her husband’s intentions are not good at all. We come from

such a distance to work here and your husband misbehaves. She got angry and defended her husband.

After 2 days they cleared my Money “.

Factory Work

The Contract System and the Contractor: The women working in factories state that there is hardly anyone who is employed in the factories these days for longterm employment. Most of the contracts are extremely short–term, no-benefit contracts, which are often as short as two to five days. The contract system works against the employee although it is done at the pretext of providing “greater flexibility”. The contract system has made the availability of the factory work erratic and women are unable to get other regular

employment, in the hope that there would be more work from the factory. They also need to maintain a good rapport with the contractor who takes decisions on whom to

hire. Although mostly informal, some appointments are made through notices that are put outside the factories for specific requirements.

Another problem that the women who work in the factory face is the problem of late payment of wages by the contractor. The factory employer pays the contractor on a

monthly basis. Thus, he or she is able to pay to the worker, only on a monthly basis. So even if a worker works for five days in the beginning of the month, she would get the money only after the month gets over. Even for this much, she has to be constantly after the contractor for her money.

Shafique With a Women worker

Uncertain Job Availability: There is no mechanism of knowing when contracts will be given out and how many women will be hired as it is completely ad hoc and at the discretion of the owner and contractors.

The Pros and Cons: One of the biggest problems with factory work is the extremely long hours that the women have to spend at work. Often, there are night shifts and overtime that the women have to do.

The children are left alone and unattended for this long stretch of time. As a result, the education and the care of the children suffer drastically. More often than not, they do not go to the schools regularly, or have already dropped out. Sometimes, the women in the

factory are also vulnerable to being exploited by the staff. Some older women indicated during the interviews that it is often the young women who are employed more

willingly in the factories.

The Vulnerabilities: The conditions in which these women work in the factories are also not very healthy. Often, a factory is made in a small warehouse kind of a structure, which is insufficient in light and ventilation. The health condition of the women often suffers because of such conditions.

An important factor that affects the women working in the factory most drastically stems from much larger environmental issues like VAT or pollution. For example, according to a Supreme Court Ruling, all the factories had to be relocated to the outskirts of the

city. For the women and their husbands, continuing to work in the same factories meant spending at least Rs. 30 daily in travelling to the new place of work and coming

back from there. For some of the lucky ones, a bus is sent from the factory, otherwise, they have to spend this much money. Often, this becomes the reason for which women

leave their work. Similarly, demolition also affects the women working in the factory very badly.

When they are provided plots that are located at the extreme outskirts of the city, it becomes very difficult for the women to continue going to the same factory.

At the new place where they have shifted, there are usually no factories because it is a less- developed area. In the words given below, a factory worker from Govindpuri shares her thoughts:

“You can never trust factory work, it is there today, not tomorrow…

There is a lot of insecurity and tension in life and we have no clue about our future here.

Maine apna majboori mein kaam karna shuru kiya. We were left with no money and no other options… So I put on my purdah and started going out for work. We did not have

anything at home so our neighbors called me and asked me to go with them for work. My husband was not very happy but he had no option so he agreed. Double work is not easy.

But we share whatever money we get and there are no fights at home about this. There are many days when we don’t get work. These days we get Rs.50 per day. There is

nothing done in paper in our work, only your name will be written in their papers and the work you have done. We work from 9 to 6 in the factory. There is 15 minutes lunch

break. No tea breaks. I do clothwork. The room is OK. It has lights. The factory is located in Okhla. Sometimes I have problems with my eyes and I do get back pains. We get paid only for the days we work.”

Self-employment

Some Autonomy: The self-employed women are the ones who are pettyshop owners, vegetable sellers, junk-dealers and so on. Many women use self-employment as a way to

complement their income, thereby engaging in multiple occupations. Self-employment gives the women some kind of autonomy over their work life. For example, in times of

illness, she can choose not to work, as the control of the shop lies in her hands. Fulfilling the responsibilities of housework and childcare at the same time (as, say, running a tea shop) can be extremely demanding and leaves the woman with absolutely no rest.

Getting Money Everyday: The biggest advantage cited by the self-employed women is that of getting money on a daily basis. It is also essential because it is this money itself that the woman has to use for buying the goods for her shop to sell on the next day. Thus, it is important that she sells a large portion of what she has bought on the same day.

Vulnerabilities: One of the vulnerabilities that the self -employed women, especially those who have shops on the road face is that of continuous police and public harassment. Often they have to bribe the police for the license of the shop. It was mentioned by

one woman that one policeman was from her own village, so he did not accept any money from her. And when the person was transferred and another policeman was made incharge of the area, she had to resume paying the bribe. Women street vendors also face a considerable extent of public harassment. When they go to the wholesale market to buy material, and, even on the road, they face the taunting of the public. Often, their own relatives living in the same colony also taunt and call names. There is a typical problem

with the Bangladeshi migrant women. From the areas where the number of such migrants was considerably large, the police often rounded them up, and released them only on

the payment of some money. Being Bangladeshi was an excuse that was used by the policemen to get illegal money from the women. Self-employed women, especially the

junk-dealers were often accused of being involved in thefts. The police often raided their shops looking for stolen goods. In addition to this, the women who are self-employed are on the job for very long hours leaving them with no time for rest or leisure.

Home-based Work

There are many women who are employed in home-based work, especially in the textile industry. The work is generally that of piece cutting, making of drawstrings,

embroidering or sorting beads and sequins, and so on. A large number of these women also work in the factory, whenever it is available. At other time, they work from home.

Even the availability of the home- based work is extremely erratic, due to a large number of factories closing down, and getting privatised. The wages that the women receive are pathetically low and are often based on the number of pieces (eg. of drawstrings) completed- from the lowest being 50 paise per piece to around Rs. 7-10 per piece being the maximum. Homebased work is almost always available through the contractors, who take a commission from the factory (or someone subcontracted by the factory) for each person they get to do the work.

Vulnerabilities: Various health problems are associated with homebased textile related work. The primary ones are backache and eyesight related problems since it is continuous work that strains the eyes and one has to remain bent for a considerable period of time.

Women have to cope with such occupational hazards without being taken care of at all, or any responsibility of the factory or the contractor for whom they work.

Like the self-employed women, these women who do home- based work also have to be on the job for long hours. This increases their vulnerability towards health hazards.

Construction Work

Seasonal and Temporary Construction Workers: Most of the construction workers whom we interviewed were seasonal migrants. They migrate to the city for a certain period of

time and then go back to the village. There are other women who do construction work at some times and stay in the city throughout the year. The experiences of working are extremely different for the seasonal and the permanent migrants.

The Contractor: This work is available either through a contractor or from the chowk. Chowk is a market place, or busy crossroad or intersection where daily wage labourers go and offer their services. Both the employers and the contractors visit the chowk at

a designated time (usually early morning) and take workers on a daily wage basis. During our interviews, we found that women hardly go to the chowk to find work. There are a large number of men who can be seen crowding the chowks early in the mornings. One

possible explanation could be the fear of harassment at the public places and the feeling of insecurity standing at such a place. Seasonal migrants generally have some land in the village and they come to the city at a time when their agricultural labour is not required in the fields. They work for about four to six months, save some money either to get their

daughters married off, or to pay off a certain debt, and go back. They often come with one particular contractor who provides them with a place to stay, and pays for their

other housing expenses.

Vulnerabilities: The construction workers have to work in terribly difficult conditions in which they are completely exposed to the extremities of weather. The children have to be left behind in the villages, and it is often the eldest daughter of the home who has to take care of her other siblings.

At the same time, the migrant workers who are engaged in the construction work are totally dependent on the contractor with whom they come to the city. This makes them vulnerable to any kind of violence that could be inflicted on them. The following are the

words of a migrant construction worker from Dakshinpuri that describe the problems that they face at work:

“The work is very strenuous. We often lift loads of 100 kg. Our hands and feet start paining. We do mostly government work- building roads, public utilities, toilets, garbage pits etc. The stench is terrible. We often vomit. We work the whole day. The shift begins at about 9 a.m. and finishes at about 5 p.m. We get an hour’s break for lunch, that’s all. Often we have to work after 5 p.m. Sometimes we work all night….till 5 a.m. the next

day. We don’t get any rest. We get overtime after 5 p.m. depending on how long after that we have to work. Night shift may cost the contractor 135 Rs. The munshi pays

us Rs. 65 for a day’s labour. Every week we get about Rs, 200 per labourer for rations, living expenses etc. We collect our total dues when we leave for the village.

No, we don’t get leave. The munshi informs us a day in advance when there is work and a tempo comes to collect us n the morning. No we aren’t given any food or water. We

pack our own food and take to the site. We aren’t given any water. We ask the people nearby or find a tap to drink from. No, we have to manage on our own. We either go to work in a tempo which comes to collect us or go to work in a bus The Munshi pays for our travel. We go to work in all kinds of places. Nizamuddin, Kotla, Okhla, Old Delhi. It takes an hour or two coming back in the evening…depending on where we go to work. We work as long as it takes to finish the job. We don’t decide where we go or the kind of work. We just go where we are told.” (------)

Draupadis bloom in rural Punjab

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Fraternal polyandry. If it takes a minute for the term to sink in, you're probably not affected by agrarian crisis the way farmers in Malwa region of Punjab are. Bizzare as it may sound, there is a connection. The problem of fragmentation of land holdings has led to unusual social developments. One being wife-sharing among brothers.

It may be the world's rarest forms of marriages in anthropological terms, but in Mansa district of the state, this is a reality that stares you in the face. Visit any village of Boha area — Gandu Kalan, Gandu Khurd, Reond Khurd, Bhakhrial, Aan-diawali or Khandkalan — there are families of up to seven brothers married to one woman.

The reasons are purely materialistic. It prevents the division of the family farm, thus facilitating all of the family to achieve a higher standard of living. It ensures there is one set of heirs per generation

Deogarh Pandava

"Polyandry helps in preventing division of land," says Dr Kuldeep Singh Deep, a noted Punjabi playwright, based in Boha town of Mansa.

He adds that publicly the woman is married to one of the brothers, but within four walls of the house there is "mutual understanding" because of which other brothers do not marry and the division of land is prevented. So far as day-to-day family decisions go, there is one brother — usually the eldest —who exercises authority respected by others. The woman, too, agrees to the practice for the well-being of her children

The concept is not new. It has been written about, depicted in plays and generally found acceptance among the farmer fraternity.

Another reason advanced for its prevalence is the importance given to landholdings in the Jat Sikh community, where marriages are settled on the basis of the land one possesses. Preference is always for a groom who has a good landholding or is in government service. With fragmentation of landholdings and high unemployment rate, it is really a Herculean task for a farmer having 2.5 acres land to find a bride for his son.

This is the reason for steady increase in the number of aging unwed boys in rural areas of Mansa, Bathinda, Faridkot, Muktsar and Sangrur districts

This is also the reason for many landless/small land holders here marrying Dalit women or bringing women from West Bengal and Bihar after making a payment.

Famous Punjabi writer and Jnanpith awardee professor Gurdial Singh says even before Independence, this practice existed in this part of Punjab, though at that time the reason was not the landholding, but the poor income from it due to absence of proper irrigation facilities

"Now the small landholdings and skewed sex ratio have abetted the problem," he says, adding, "In Punjab, on an average every farmer family has 3.5 acres land, so the problem is obvious in the absence of major employment avenues."

Mansa deputy commissioner Raj Kamal Chaudhary says since these marriages are never solemnised in a proper way, they attract no punishment under the Hindu Marriage Act or Indian Penal Code. "Moreover, since such types of relations exist only within the house, no one is raising any objection."

Published in Times of India, Jul 16, 2005

Background on Discrimination against Women

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

How women are discriminated against

Discrimination can be seen at all ages and stages of development for women.

Fetus & Infancy

UNICEF notes that “Where there is a clear economic or cultural preference for sons, the misuse of [pregnancy diagnostic tools] can facilitate female feticide.” This means that in parts of the world, like China, parents will abort their child or put the child up for adoption on the basis that it’s a girl.

EMPOWERMENT

Childhood

A principal focus of the middle years of childhood and adolescence is ensuring access to, and completion of, quality primary and secondary education. With a few exceptions, it is mostly girls who suffer from educational disadvantage.

Adolescence

Among the greatest threats to adolescent development are abuse, exploitation and violence, and the lack of vital knowledge about sexual and reproductive health, including HIV/AIDS. Specific areas that UNICEF highlighted were female genital mutilation/cutting; child marriage and premature parenthood; sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking; sexual and reproductive health; and HIV/AIDS.

Adult

A recent report from the Department of U.S. Labor showed that women today are paid only 72 cents for every dollar a man earns. “Even more troubling -- the study found that at least one-third -- or about 11 cents -- of the pay gap is caused by pay discrimination against women -- and this is 38 years after the Equal Pay Act became law." said Senator Tom Harkin.

Motherhood and old age

These are two key periods in many women’s lives when the detrimental effects of both poverty and inequality can combine – during childbirth and in old age. Shockingly, it is estimated that each year more than half a million women—roughly one woman every minute—die as a result of pregnancy complications and childbirth, 99% of which occur in developing countries. Yet many of these women’s lives could be saved if they had access to basic health care services. In addition, elderly women may face double discrimination on the basis of both gender and age. Many older women are plunged into poverty at a time of life when they are very vulnerable.

Wage Discrimination

According to Inter Press Service, "On a global scale, women cultivate more than half of all the food that is grown. In sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, they produce up to 80 percent of basic foodstuffs. In Asia, they account for around 50 percent of food production. In Latin America, they are mainly engaged in subsistence farming, horticulture, poultry and raising small livestock." Yet women often get little recognition for that. In fact, many go unpaid. It is very difficult for these women to get the financial resources required to buy equipment etc, as many societies still do not accept, or realize, that there is a change in the "traditional" roles.

Reasons for such disparity include the fact that women are generally underpaid and because they often perform low-status jobs, compared to men. UNICEF notes that the data isn’t always perfect, and that generalizations can hide wider fluctuations. In Brazil, for example, women under the age of 25 earn a higher average hourly wage than their male counterparts. However, in developing nations and in most industrialized nations, men are usually paid more than their female counterparts in the same field.

Wage discrimination is also prevalent As noted earlier, women today are paid only 72 cents for every dollar a man earns.

Background on Women’s Rights

Millions of women throughout the world live in conditions in which they are deprived of their basic human rights for no other reason than their gender.

Combatants in conflicts, like in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, and Rwanda, have raped women as a weapon of war without consequence. Men in Pakistan, South Africa, Peru, Russia, and Uzbekistan beat women in the home at astounding rates. Women from Ukraine, Moldova, Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, Burma, and Thailand are bought and sold, trafficked to work in forced prostitution. In Guatemala, South Africa, and Mexico, women's ability to enter and remain in the work force is obstructed.

students discriminate against and attack girls in school who are lesbian, bi-sexual, or transgender, or do not conform to male standards of female behavior. Women in Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia face government-sponsored discrimination that renders them unequal before the law.

Abuses against women are relentless, systematic, and widely tolerated, if not explicitly condoned. Violence and discrimination against women are global social epidemics. We live in a world in which women do not have basic control over what happens to their bodies. Millions of women and girls are forced to marry and have sex with men they do not desire. Husbands and other male family members obstruct or dictate women's access to reproductive health care. Doctors and government officials disproportionately target women from disadvantaged or marginalized communities for coercive family planning policies.

The realization of women's rights is a global struggle based on universal human rights and the rule of law. It requires all of us to unite in solidarity to end traditions, practices, and laws that harm women. It is a fight for freedom to be fully and completely human and equal without apology or permission. Ultimately, the struggle for women's human rights must be about making women's lives matter everywhere all the time. In practice, this means taking action to stop discrimination and violence against women. (Human Rights Watch)

'Framed’ in sex clip, girl fights for justice

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

A first-year BBM student from Puttur, near Mangalore, has been ostracised after a sex tape featuring a girl resembling her was edited, named after her and released as an MMS

Life has become hell for BBM student Shruti ever since the word spread in her town Puttur, about 60 kilometres from Mangalore, that she had featured in a sex video.

Nobody wants to be associated with this first-year BBM student from St Philomena College ever since a 3 minutes 30 seconds sex MMS in her name “Shruthi Puttur Sye (ready) to dance, do anything” was released in November. Shruti got to know about the CD on Nov 14 when her relatives came home and informed her family. Her friends and classmates came to know of it on November 9.

She said, “Everybody thought I was in the sex clip. It was only my mother who first said I wouldn’t do such a thing. Later, the rest of my family also believed that I wouldn’t do something like that.”

However, her dad was not informed right away as he suffers from blood pressure. After three days, he and Shruti’s brother were informed. As this incident happened around exam time, she could not do well in her exams.

Next followed social ostracism. Relatives did not want to talk to her or her family. Shurti and her family became the butt of jokes. She recalled, “My dad, a mechanic in KSRTC, found it hard to go around in the town. In class, girls did not want to even sit next to me. Nine members who used to perform with me in my dance troupe, quit the group.”

Amid all this, her dance teacher Ilyas Pinto and his wife supported her. “As soon as he got to know about it, he informed the police. But the inspector suggested that filing a complaint would mean inviting more publicity.” A local leader also stood by her in her fight for justice.

Things went from bad to worse for this bundle of talent after a local newspaper carried the CD clip and claimed that she was in it.

Shruti explained, “We started looking for the original CD and found it available on the internet. This tape features a Punjabi girl who resembles me. The original 15-minute clip had been edited to a 3 minutes 30 seconds clip, renamed and circulated widely. The result is that everyone has started calling me “Mallige” (a slang for sex clips originating in the area),” she said.

After the original CD was traced, a case was filed at the Puttur town police station on Nov 30. In her complaint, Shruti mentioned that the girl in the CD was not her and sought an inquiry into it. She named in the complaint the persons whom she suspected to be behind the incident. “It’s close to three months and police have failed to take any action against the culprits,” she said.

Shruti has been a finalist of a reality show that took place in May on a private television channel. She later even participated in dance show on a Telugu channel. She has been a first class student in academics. She takes up classes for kids, choreographs shows and is also into sports.

After the clip surfaced, a few of her relatives suggested that she quit college. However, Shruti has decided to continue studies and fight back. “I want justice at any cost and this should not happen to anyone else,” she said.

What the cops say

Dakshina Kannada Superintendent of Police A S Rao said the person who has circulated the clip has been identified and he will be arrested soon. “Nailing the culprit took some time as the case required dedicated and sustained effort. Lot of networking goes into it. The Puttur town police had written to all mobile service providers. Though the person who circulated the clip has been identified, we are working on tracing the origin of the clip,” he said.

Sources said the person has been identified as a student from the same college.

It’s not a first-of-its-kind incident

The latest incident is not an isolated one. Three years ago, a seven-minute MMS sex clip was converted into a 30-minute CD called ‘Mangalooru Mungaru Male’ and widely circulated.

There have been instances where girls have admitted they have no problem being featured in sex clips. A year ago, an MMS clip at Bajpe in Mangalore of a local leader was in wide circulation. According to sources, after the clip was released the girl admitted she had no problem being involved in the act. She, however, was unaware when the clip was being shot.

In a recent incident, a sex clip involving a girl from a prominent college in Ujire had made news. It was learnt the girl admitted she was the one featured in the sex clip. She was forced to quit her college and leave her home town.

In the rural areas of Sullia and Puttur, such clips are sold for Rs 50 or Rs 100.

In Dakshina Kannada, the hot belt for communal divide, such clips are used by those with a communal agenda, and they mostly target college students.

A local leader from Puttur said, “Youth often resort to such tactics to blackmail girls. Often, it happens that false publicity is created saying a particular girl is in the sex clip. It’s embarrassing for the family and often, the girl is forced to quit studies or even leave home.”

On Shruti’s case, he said, “We are confident the police will nail the guilty at the earliest. Shruthi had the courage to speak out.” Source

HONOUR KILLING in India : A notion of sanskritisation

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Every year thousands of lives are sacrificed, irrespective of caste, creed, religion or social status of the family. People kill their own kin and kiths in the name of family’s/caste’s pride and honour. The worst thing is that where the Panchayats pronounce death penalties for the youths who dare to enter in a relationship outside their caste/creed/religious and economic circle. The police act as a mere spectator and they don’t even register a case and if, by chance a case is registered, no proper action is taken in lieu of the excessive social pressure. In history of Indian democracy, no law has been enacted against the regional caste panchayats who pass such ‘judgments’. The regional and caste panchayats are so harsh and unquestionable (partly due to their role in elections) that they give death penalty straight away irrespective of the circumstances and ignoring Indian law. The caste panchayats are in themselves a ‘special court’ like the khap panchayat (Federal clan council of the Jats and other kindred people of Upper Doab, Haryana and neighboring areas as well as uttarpradesh and uttrakhand). It hears matters relating to 12 to 14 villages and various matters and problems relating to them. Historically their way of approaching and handling the things is not only against law of the land but also inhuman. Whenever they sit in a group they are proved to be more powerful than the police and the court of law. Indian state remains spectator. The greatest Democracy has to remain silent because it is the giant drawback of the democracies that it has to go asking for votes to them every five years. The youths and women even older women are the maximum victims of these panchayats. Due to all these glaring facts the voice of dissent has not been audible.

Photo The tribune

The castes of land-lords abbreviated as AJGAR in Hindi (Ahir or Yadavas, Jat, Gujjar, Rajput) are socially as well as politically strong since the times of the Mughals and the British and became more stronger after Independence. For the past two decades they are passing through a phase of cultural duality. Their traditional value system was such that it determined their eating habits, sex-marriages and the life style. Same is the case with the Dalits and the backward castes of this region that are used to follow them (the upper castes). Their social life was surrounded by and revolves around all these traditional beliefs and value system. The source of all this is development and prosperity that came after Independence which acted as a catalyst in ‘sanskritisation’ of the ‘lower castes’. The pace of ‘sanskritisation’ is very fast in neo-rich communities. We can see various social, political, and cultural ups and downs in this society. In these societies, today’s development in scientific, technological and educational arena and Government policies to promote such knowledge have caused various changes and people have become more aware of the changes coming around. These developments have given rise to new types of social tension and mental stresses to individuals. If we try to understand the historical character of these societies then we can understand that in order to satisfy and pursue their personal adventure and interests they can go to any extent but at the same time they can be unscrupulous in the name of their so called social discipline. So the fact is that the society is whereas changing horizontally it is unable to accept the change in its notion of social ethics vertically.

The love stories that we hear of in the northern region is just the beginning and it is a glimpse of change which is just trying to penetrate vertically in the society. The society is confused on the change because these changes are against their perceived social beliefs. A large number of people in our society are the biggest critique of the change. But the good thing is that the voice of criticism and the definitions has understood this change.

There are many differences of opinion regarding relationships and marriages in Indian society. Northern Indian rural societies have double standards favoring men regarding the change. It is said that number of unmarried or widowers are high in these societies. And in these villages out of two brothers only one will get married and the other one will have illicit relationship with the bride. Many unemployed boys who are from well reputed families buy girls from east India for their marriages. As a whole the paucity of girls are cited as the reason for inter-caste/class marriages. Whereas in such incidents of honor killings the girls family give excuses of morality and then comes the question of social status and family background. Later on respect of family, village, caste and gotra comes one by one. Panchayats sit in groups for discussing the issue and religious gurus and contractors of social morality pass their judgments.

In a sentence, honor killing is a result of a self-contradictory fight between tradition and neo-cauterized generation. Khaps and other social systems are losing their territory and young couples are breaking the traditions and odd social customs.

TV actress complains against husband for shooting explicit video clips

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

In a shocking revelation, a former TV actress has accused his husband of making explicit video clips and MMS of girls and even filmed the actress scenes when she decided to reveal his real face to the world. According to media reports, a TV actress whose name is not revealed, has accused his husband, Rajesh Patel, of filming sex scenes, and turned hostile when she threatened to reveal the matter. This is the incident of Juhu in Mumbai.

The TV actress had married Rajesh in 2008 in court which was a love marriage. Rajesh used to shoot video clips of girls through spy camera in his room, and when his actress wife knew about his acts, she protested. Rajesh would turn hostile and beat her up on protest and would threaten her of dire consequence if she came in public. He would even threaten to make her ugly by throwing acid on her face.

The actress was subjected to humiliating behavior on the part of Rajesh, and he even shot explicit scenes of his wife and threatened to reveal if she came in his way. When the things went out of control, the TV actress finally spilled the beans by complaining in the police.

The actress has, however, accused that police was not prompt in taking action and it acted only after intervention of senior officials. Rajesh and three other men have been arrested in this heinous act of making MMS and video clips.

The TV actress was seen on a news channel revealing the hardships she has gone through and was even terrified on the consequences after Rajesh comes out on bail.

This is an incident which maligns the pure relationship that binds a wife and a husband. Not only is the accused Rajesh a criminal of the TV actress but he is the villain for all those girls who have been filmed by him. As long as demons like Rajesh are in our society, we cannot dream of a safe and secure society. Source

A town of break up

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

One woman in every fourth house of Bharat Ganj, 57 km from Bhopal (Madhy pradesh) district headquarters, is a divorcee. Situated around Manda state, this village has a population of about 15000, 70% of which consists of Muslims. The interesting part of the whole story is that the divorcee women are very young and most of them are of less than 25 years of age. Illiteracy and severe poverty lead them to be married off between the ages of 6 to 15 years. They become mothers by the age of 16-17. Symbolically, there is a girls college in Bharat Ganj but people care very little to send their daughters to the college. Most of these girls make Beedis and earn few bucks for their livelihood, we can say that they are poor and not from well social condition but most of the boys are neither working nor studying. they just move around. Of course there is traditional gender discrimination. and hesitation regarding education.

Bharat Ganj is not the only village with divorcee women. Adjacent villages like Darupur, Sootra, Mohalla, Nai Basti and Kadi Chivhati also has the same ratio of divorcee women. Unaware of debates and laws on divorce, these women accept the divorce as a part of their lives. Most of these women are into Beedi making and clothe printing. It is obvious that there are a small number of women who moved to the court of law, fighting their battle with in-laws, but majority of them has accepted it as their fate and kept quiet. There are not any governmental or non-governmental institutions that can able to provide family counseling or handle with family dispute. I met some NGO workers but they don’t have any knowledge of Muslim personal law. A worker of local NGO says that “they are leading their lives according to the quraan. and we can not interfere in their religion.

It is clear that the NGOs treat them differently as if they do not come under the law of state.

Sabir, a meat seller of Bharat Ganj, finds it inconsolable whenever he talks about his daughter. He is the first man to raise his voice against the atrocities done to his daughter by her in-laws and approached government departments. His case was talked about in the newspapers as well. One of his four daughters, Sakeena was married to a Bharat Ganj resident Ajaz alias Doctor in 1991. Ajaz owns a tailoring shop in the local market. Immediately after the marriage, dowry was being asked. Ajaz was asking Rs. 50,000 in cash or a colour TV and motor cycle.

Sabir could not fulfill Ajaz’s demands and Sakeena came back. Later, it is only after the mediation of the Police, Sakeena could move back to her in-laws. Within a month’s time, she was given electric shocks and beaten before throwing out of the house.

Ajaz’s family has not returned anything to Sakeena what was given to them as dowry. Police also supported Ajaz. Sabir approached everyone, from local MLA to the city Kotwaal, but they were not appropriate authority for that case so nothing happened. But Sabir is adamant to fight this battle for his daughter. This time the matter is in court.

Ajaz said that he doesn't want to either divorce her nor does he wish to leave or marry again. He say according to Islamic law, Ajaz can marry four times without leaving his first wife. But it is impossible for Sakeena to marry again before formally getting divorced by Ajaz. But he is unaware about khula (divorce taken by women) concept of Islamic law.

Two young women’s life from Katra is a living hell. Akhtar Hussain's two daughters aging 34 and 31 are a picture of despair today. His elder daughter was married in 1985 when she was only 13 while the younger one was married in 1987. But both of them did not step in their in-law's house ever. Strange instances of divorce have come to the fore. There are instances where girls’ families have forced their spouse to divorce. For example, Haidarun was married to Hasnain Khan. Haidarun’s family wanted to marry her in some other family but a formal divorce was necessary. One day, when Hasnain was going on a bicycle, he was stopped and tied up by Haidarun’s family and a forceful divorce was signed. Bakadallah from Gadiwan Mohalla, Ramazan from Loharan Mohalla and Matak of Bazar, are just a few fathers who are suffering from the pain of their daughters. Hopelessness is written on all their faces.

On the one hand we see a patriarchal society, while on the other hand there are people like Sabir who are not only fighting a battle of her own daughter but encouraging others as well. Divorce immediately after marriage has become fashionable in Yamuna Nagar. Divorcee women only have an option of working as a labour to survive. In such a situation, the future of these women and their children looks bleak.

Man attempts to kill for 'honour' in Ghaziabad

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

In a case of attempted honour killing, a man shot at his niece who was riding on a motorcycle with her lover near Hindon Air Force station here Tuesday, police said. Jyoti, a 23-year-old government school teacher in Delhi, was travelling on a motorcycle with her lover Deepak from the national capital to Dadri. As they reached near the Hindon Air Force station, the girl's uncle Pramod Sharma came on a motorcycle, dragged a pistol from his pocket, fired a shot at his niece and fled from the spot. The bullet hit the girl on her right shoulder. Deepak rushed her to a local hospital where her condition was stated to be critical due to blood loss, the attending doctor said. Deepak lodged a complaint with the police in which he said that he was going to Dadri along with Jyoti as they were asked to reach their native place to sort out the dispute. 'He was in love with Jyoti for the last four years. Their conservative family members were creating problems for them and her uncle attempted to kill her,' Superintendent of Police City A.K. Vijaita said. 'We have registered a case against Sharma and are trying to arrest him. He is absconding. A team has been dispatched to nab him,' he added. (IANS)

101 East - Caste in stone

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Incest: Haryana's shameful social heritage

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

It was a national debate on a news channel. Tempers were running high, so were the decibels. The subject was explosive - Haryana's khaps and their diktats. In the midst of this charged atmosphere, a voice rose above the rest, silencing them all. Seema, a law graduate and resident of Karora village, made an allegation that changed the course of the debate. Her brother had been executed for marrying a woman from the same gotra, but that was not what Seema wanted to talk about on the primetime show. It was another shameful reality of Haryana villages she wanted to expose - incest.

"Khaps should look into their homes before passing fatwas on lovers and crying hoarse about honour. Incest is rampant in the state and virtually every home is affected. Where is the honour anyway ?" she screamed.

Early this week, the state was shocked when a pregnant girl was strangled by her parents and her body dumped on the outskirts of Bahadurgarh in Jhajjar district. Her crime: she was reportedly having an affair with her brother-in-law and her vengeful elder sister had complained to their parents.

In another embarrassing case earlier this year, a farmer in his early 50s developed a sexual relation with his 30-year-old daughter-in-law in a village in Kaithal district. Their liaison continued for almost a year. The matter even reached the village panchayat, which ordered separation of the two unlikely partners so that the woman could go back to her husband.

And only last month, Sonepat was jolted by the gruesome murder of two minor girls, just 12 and 14. They were killed and their bodies flung in a canal by their uncles and grandmother after their "affair" with a cousin was exposed. The police said the kin of the victims were enraged when they allegedly caught the minors getting intimate with their cousin. In Yamunanagar, a girl complained to the police that her father-in-law had raped her just a few months after her marriage.

These are not isolated incidents: incest is reportedly a real part of life in rural Haryana. "It's a menace nobody wants to talk about. Even the elders are setting a bad example, " says D R Chaudhary, member of the Haryana Administrative Reforms Commission. The elders, predictably, blame this perversion on the growing sway of the west over the state's youth.

When Kurukshetra-based Ramesh Kumar's daughter married a close relative, he blamed it on urban influence. Now he is fighting a legal battle to have the marriage declared null and void, terming it a contravention of the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The mothers of the newly-wed couple were apparently related, being granddaughters of the same person.

The incidence of incest may be higher in rural areas. "Social mores in villages are different. People here are very conservative and there is no scope for interaction between men and women and boys and girls outside their homes. So, they often end up having relationships with members of their accessible, extended family, " says Balbir Singh, a social activist in Fatehabad district.

Experts believe that such relationships have survived behind closed doors for many years. But given the modern means of communication and the proliferation of the media, the skeletons are now tumbling out of family cupboards.

The youth, interestingly, believe that incest is a traditional practice and not a new reality. "Yeh to hame virasat mein mili hai (incest is a part of our tradition), " says Naresh Kumar, a villager in Rohera in Kaithal district. Sociologists, in turn, say that the ethnic history of the region is full of such instances.

"In the pre-Independence era, in some parts of north India, the father-in-law almost had the right to physical relations with a daughter-in-law, and in most cases the female was not in a position to resist much. The very young husband also had no say in the matter. Widows would routinely be married to a brother of the dead husband. Sharing of the wife by brothers was also not uncommon, " says Ravinder Kaur, a professor at IIT-Delhi.

What adds to this problem in Haryana is its skewed sex ratio caused by rampant female foeticide. "Its effects are now being felt on intimate relationships within and without the family. The shortage of marriageable women can have many unintended consequences, especially when only one out of four men find a bride (as in the case of Haryana) in their own community, " adds Kaur.

Kumar's 35-year-old nephew, Roshan, is yet to get any offers for marriage. "We are at a loss, wondering what to do, " says Kumar. A growing army of bachelors has become a problem in the state, leading to more illicit relations.

Yet, there seems little the government and social organisations can do about this. Haryana has not seen any strong social movement in recent years and there are very few NGOs working on such issues. While a Haryana court was quick (it took three years) to deliver the death penalty to five khap members accused in the sensational murder of Manoj and Babli in March this year, it took a Bhiwani court around five years to give its verdict in a shocking case of incest that surfaced almost a decade ago.

In a letter to Bhiwani senior superintendent of police, an 18-year-old girl spoke of how her father and cousin exploited her sexually for seven months. "My father used to rape me. Not only this, my uncle and his son too sexually assaulted me, " stated the girl.

"My mother was usually sent to sleep in another house and I was made to sleep with my father. My mother was not aware of all this. When I told my boyfriend and he objected, my father and cousin beat him up and also got a false case registered against him. When I threatened to go to the police, I was locked up, " she wrote in the letter.

It was only after the girl said she would tell her mother that she was released from her confinement. The girl then ran away with her boyfriend and a case of abduction was slapped on the boy. Nobody knows where the couple is today.

Chilling tales of incest and abuse have been pouring in from all over the state. Inquiries reveal that physical relationship with a husband's brother is not considered 'unusual. ' "Such relations are not objected to. They are considered a family's 'internal affair', " says Prem Singh, a farmer-leader from Kaithal.

In a study conducted by the UNICEF in 2001 to gauge the context of abortions involving 83 adolescent girls in the age group of 10 to 19 years in Rohtak district, it was found that incest was a common cause. "It was responsible for pregnancies in 16 per cent of the cases. We have even had cases of girls getting pregnant through their kin, including fathers and brothers, " says Sonia Trikha, who's associated with the UNICEF. Many feel the situation has worsened in the last decade.

Leaders of gotra-based khap panchayats blame the law for protecting those who are guilty of incest. "A scheduled caste girl had run away with a boy from her family. Later, they married and even got police protection, " says Badan Singh, leader of the Kalayat khap. Another prominent leader, Om Parkash Dhankar, president of the Dhankhar khap, complains about new social trends: "Illicit relationships are on the rise. Even a Supreme Court ruling spoke of permitting live-in relationship without marriage. "

But Seema blames the khaps for shifting the focus from the real problems. "The problem, " she says, "is not of love marriages, or marriages within gotras and villages, but incest. Marrying out of choice is not a crime, incest is. Khap leaders should be addressing the problem of incest and check this evil instead of hounding people who are in love. "

INCEST IN MYTHOLOGY

If you thought Greek tragedies such as Odeipus Rex were embarrassing in their details of incest, our own epics and mythological texts are no less. They, in fact, abound with instances where men and women have conjugated with close kin. For instance, in the Mahabharata, Arjuna was married to Subhadra, the daughter of his aunt Rohini. Then there is the union of Yama with his twin sister Yami;Manu, son of Vivasvat, and his sister Sraddha;Prajapati and his daughter Ushas;Pushan and his sister Surya;Sukra and his three sisters;Satrajita and his 10 sisters;Nahusha and his sister Viraja. Purukutsa's queen Narmada after her husband's death obtained a son through her own brother

WHY IN RURAL HARYANA?

Skewed sex ratio; 860 girls for 1,000 boys

Very conservative society;girls and women are allowed to speak openly with only close relatives

A large number of girls and women don't work outside their homes

Social resistance to love marriages

Haryana against honour killing law

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Arguing that the IPC has provisions to deal with murder, Haryana is likely to oppose a proposed law to tackle honour killings.

Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Monday discussed the matter with top officials and legal experts prior to his scheduled meeting with Union home minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday. Legal experts of the government say that anybody involved in honour killing can be booked under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

Likewise, the planning or conspiracy of honour killing can be covered under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

These experts further disagree with the Centre's proposal in which an honour killing accused must prove his innocence in court. At present, the onus of proving the involvement of an accused lies with the prosecution.

The proposed law could be misused by police because its provisions allow a large number of people to be booked for the crime. How would panchayat members prove their innocence in a court of law when there are no written proceedings of khap panchayats, ask the experts.

Moreover, there is no system for marking attendance for such meetings or panchayats. "We strongly feel that public at large should not be made an accused in the name of honour killings as it would lead to increased corruption in the police department," said a senior officer requesting anonymity.

A section of the ruling party claimed that khap members do not issue fatwas for honour killings. Social activists recalled that a Karnal court had recently awarded life sentence to a panchayat leader in Manoj-Babli murder case for hatching conspiracy while another khap leader is in jail in regard with honour killing of a youth Ved Pal in Jind district. Though experts agree that in most of the cases khaps don't order killings, they suggested that they should also refrain from acts which may lead to honour killings. Source

Couple under police cover booked for abetting suicid

In a state where same-village marriages often result in the murder of a couple, this comes as a bizarre corollary to honour killing: A young couple, who married against village norms and is under police protection, was booked for abetting suicide of the girls' two brothers. While one of her brothers died, the other is in a hospital in a critical condition.

Police lodged a case on complaint of the victims' third brother.

The incident happened in Surewala village of Muktsar. Apparently, the two youth had been feeling humiliated after the marriage of their sister to a 22-year-old boy from the same village. Their family had been ostracised following the couple's wedding that took place in Chandigarh in April. Source

Man stabbed to death in honour killing'

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

JAIPUR: In a suspected case of honour killing,' a 30-year-old man was stabbed to death at Jobnaer in Jaipur district on Saturday morning. The victim, Rameshwar Chaudhary, had married a girl, Prema, of a different caste at Arya Samaj in June. The couple belongs to a village in Nagaur and has been living at Jobnaer in hiding over the past couple of months. The father and two brothers of the girl have been arrested by the police for the murder.

According to the police, the boy belongs to Jat community while the girl is from Balai caste. Rameshwar used to work as a teacher in a private school and his wife too was associated with teaching activities. "On Saturday morning, Prema's father Kaisarmal and her brothers Lala Ram and Narendra reached their house and assaulted Rameshwar with knives after a heated discussion," said SHO Jobner police station, Rajkumar Sharma.

Rameshwar sustained severe wounds on throat and died on the spot. All the three accused were arrested by the police and the weapons used in crime have been seized. The girl, Prema, has given statement to the police against her father and brothers. "The girl is around 20-years-old and has accused her relatives for the crime," said the SHO.

Father kills daughter, lover in Punjab

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

In yet another suspected case of honour killing, a man shot dead his daughter and her lover on Thursday at Chandpurana village in this Punjab district, police said. According to the police, the deceased were identified as Lovepreet Kaur, 17, and Harjinder Singh, 22. “According to the preliminary investigation

has been revealed that Lovepreet and Harjinder were seeing each other for the last many months. At around 1 am Thursday, Harjinder went to Lovepreet's house to meet her,” Partap Singh, a police officer, told IANS.

“Lovepreet's father could not control his anger on seeing Harjinder inside his daughter's room and fired at both of them. On hearing the gunshots, Harjinder's brother, who was waiting outside, came to intervene. He also sustained bullet injury in the thigh and is admitted in a hospital,” he added.

Singh said it could be a case of honour killing but it was too early to confirm as investigations were still going on.

Meanwhile, the police are raiding various places to nab the accused as he fled from the village after the crime.

The two bodies have been sent for post-mortem examinations in a civil hospital here.

Timely action by Haryana police saved minor girl from being sold

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Prompt action by Haryana Police has saved a minor girl of Sirsa from being sold for Rs.50,000. The Police has arrested four persons in this connection.

The case have been registered against all the accused under section 366A/120 B of Indian Penal Code on the complaint of 12 year old victim Palo, daughter of Lal Singh and resident of Jiwan Nagar, Sirsa.
While stating this here Monday, a spokesman of the Police Department said that the arrested persons have been identified as Surjit Singh, a resident of Bhadolawali, Hira Singh, resident of Jiwan Nagar, Pooja, a resident of Jivan Nagar and Manju, a resident of JJ Colony. However, the main accused of the incident Lakha Singh,28, son of Richpal Singh, resident of Hamjapur, district Fatehabad succeeded in running away from the spot.
He said that during interrogation, it was revealed that Palo was to be sold to Lakha Singh for Rs.50,000. The accused Surjit Singh and Hira Singh are uncle and maternal uncle of the girl respectively. Pooja and Manju are also relatives of the girl.
He said that the girl was brought to Rania from Sirsa on the pretext of purchasing clothes and other items। On suspecting something wrong, the girl started making a noise and a large number of people gathered there. On getting information of the incident the police arrested the accused. The Lakha Singh, who succeeded in running away, would soon be arrested, he added.

Khap panchayat puts Haryana, Centre on notice

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

The Sarv Jaatiye Sarv Khap Mahapanchayat has warned the Haryana government and the Centre of intensified protests if a law banning same-gotra marriage was not formulated soon. It has also threatened to call a bandh on November 21 if the state government failed to take adequate action in this regard by then.

The announcements came at a meeting of the Mahapanchayat held on Sunday at the historic Meham Chaubisi Chabutara in which Jats not only from Haryana but also from neighbouring Rajasthan, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh took part.

Mahapanchayat president Mewa Singh said: “We want the central and state governments to bring in an amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 and ban marriages within the same gotra. We also want that the Centre should not introduce any legislation against honour killing. If both the governments do not respond to our demands, then the Jat Khaps will go ahead with their agitation plan.”

Mewa Singh also said that a massive gathering of all the major khaps of north India will be held in UP

on November 13 and 14 if the government inaction persisted.

The meeting will be held under farmer leader Mahender Singh Tikait. “If the government does not pay heed to our demands, then we will block all roads leading to Delhi and cut off supplies of water, milk and vegetables to the capital,” added Mewa Singh.

Last week, 180 khaps belonging to the Mahapanchayat had held a meeting at Baba Haridas Mandir on the Nazafgarh-Bahadurgarh road to oppose the proposed bill against honour killing.

Santosh Dahiya, president, women’s wing, Sarv Jaatiye Sarv Khap Mahapanchayat, said: “We cannot allow the destruction of our age-old customs and traditions. The Centre wants a legislation against honour killing; we oppose the move.” Source

Couples in India dying in 'honour killings'

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Rajni, 19, and Sanjeev, 24, are under police protection. Rajni's family has threatened to kill them both if they marry out of class.

RICK WESTHEAD/TORONTO STAR

The word gotra originally meant “cow-pen.” For many centuries, cows were the most valuable asset a person could possess, so it was natural that families became identified with the group of cows they owned.

The Jats, for instance, are a caste made up of some 33 million people in Indian and Pakistan. But within the jat community itself, there are hundreds, if not thousands, ofgotras, or clans.

“With someone's gotra, it's not something that can be proven or documented, that lineage back to someone who lived so many generations ago,” said Tulsi Patel, a sociologist at Delhi University who has studied the caste system.

“It's more a general belief that you belong to the same clan.”

A bride belongs to her father's gotra before her marriage, and to her husband's gotra afterwards. Boys keep the same gotra throughout their lives.

“Then there also many Indians with no caste, who don't believe in this system,” Patel said.

Trend that's spreading: Every year in India, hundreds of couples die in ‘honour killings'

Nineteen-year-old Rajni had been a bride for only a few minutes when her husband, Sanjeev, suggested they head for a nearby police station to ask for protection.

It was only a matter of time, Sanjeev reminded his new wife, before her family started to hunt them down.

In February, after she told her family of her plans to marry Sanjeev, a 24-year-old milkman, Rajni's uncle grabbed her around the neck, slapped her, and threatened to kill her.

The couple was a mismatch, Rajni's uncle raged. Her father, after all, has 25 buffalo, wealthy in this lush stretch of India, a checkerboard of rice paddy and sugar cane fields. Sanjeev and his parents, on the other hand, were labourers who made $2 a day.

If she married Sanjeev, her uncle said, Rajni's family would be forced to kill both of them to preserve its honour.

Sanjeev and Rajni are hardly unique. Throughout northern India, young couples are being killed by the thousands in the name of honour and tradition. Some are poisoned, while others are hanged, drowned or beheaded.

In one recent case, a young woman was reportedly lit on fire and burned to death for marrying the wrong man in a village just outside New Delhi.

There are at least 900 so-called “honour killings” a year in the Indian states of Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, according to a study cited by Human Rights Watch, and there has even been a string of such murders in the country's affluent capital in recent weeks.

“It's a trend that's spreading,” says Ashish Nandy, a psychology professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. “In some families, when a woman goes off to school and marries someone of her own choosing, her siblings' marriage prospects are hurt. She has slandered the whole family and that can't be tolerated.”

Life in India changed in countless ways after reforms in the early 1990s. The reforms were designed to spur the country's foundering economy, but they have also turned social and cultural mores on their head.

Millions of villagers have migrated to large cities in search of work, and women are entering post-secondary schools and the workforce in unprecedented numbers.

Foreign firms such as Nike, Coca-Cola and Harley-Davidson eye the opportunity represented by India's 300 million-strong middle class and even luxury brands drool over their prospects. Women in New Delhi, for instance, can now rent Louis Vuitton handbags by the night.

But the economic miracle that is India has also has strained its social fabric. Many Indians still endorse their country's traditional customs and bristle at the sweeping changes.

Many Hindus believe women should marry partners of the same ancient caste.

Marrying someone from a different social class — Rajni's transgression — is also often outlawed. But perhaps the most forbidden love involves a match between partners of the same gotra, members of a single caste believed to have descended from a common male ancestor. That is considered incestuous.

In India, the government has decried “honour killings” and vows to stamp them out. But some say the promise of a crackdown is half-hearted.

The government is loath to lose the support of local khap panchayats, or village caste councils, a mainstay in some rural areas since medieval times.

A typical khap provides moral direction for at least five villages and, thanks to a woefully ineffective court system, is used to settle disputes. Each village usually has two members on its khap.

Most often, khaps tackle property disputes between neighbours, but cases can often be far more serious. Khap leaders in Bahan told the Star they recently intervened when a bride refused to take part in her arranged marriage. The khap directed her would-be fiancé to return her dowry, and then took him to a nearby village, finding him a new bride.

“We sit people down and make them come to a resolution both can agree with,” a khap leader said.

Some khaps have openly endorsed “honour killings,” going so far as to suggest they are a family's obligation.

In early 2007, Manoj and Babli Banwana, childhood friends from rural Haryana, eloped even though they belonged to the same clan. They were later dragged off a bus by 19-year-old Babli's relatives. She was forced to drink poison. Manoj was strangled by Babli's uncle.

Earlier this year, five of Babli's relatives, including her uncle and brother, were sentenced to death. Two others, a taxi driver and a khap leader named Gangaraj, were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the killings. Speaking from behind bars at the Karnal Jail in Haryana, 51-year-old Gangaraj wagged a finger when he was asked whether he regrets what happened to the young couple.

“Her marriage was a blot on their family,” Gangaraj said. “It is a scientific fact that people of the same gotra should not be married. They are brother and sister. When they get married, they are not just cursed in this life. They are cursed in the next seven lives.”

For Delhi, the problem is that khaps don't just offer moral guidance and advice. They wield enormous influence among voters.

On a recent weekday, khap leaders gathered a short drive away from Sanjeev's home to discuss the Congress Party's plans to amend the marriage act.

Though it's just a three-hour drive from New Delhi, the village of Bahan feels much further.

Irrigation pumps run like fire hydrants, gushing water into paddies around the clock. Haryana and neighbouring Punjab produce 76 per cent of India's food.

Some farmers stand neck deep in canals, washing down their livestock while others laze in the afternoon, sleeping on four-foot roadside cement walls painted with ads for Black Cobra plywood, Red & White Cigarettes and Edwards 5000 Super Strong Beer. Behind many of those walls, youngsters play cricket with abandon.

If cricket is the most popular sport here, politics runs a close second.

Almost 70 per cent of registered voters in Haryana went to the polls. The vast majority supported the ruling Congress Party, which won nine of the state's 10 parliamentary seats.

Alienating the Haryana khaps could herald severe political consequences for the Congress, which is headed by Italian-born Sonia Gandhi.

“We want to send a strong message to Gandhi, who doesn't have any knowledge on this subject,” said khap leader Mewa Singh Chhattar, speaking to local journalists from a fellow khap leader's home.

Chhattar, 65, a retired farmer who has been a khap member for 35 years, said Gandhi, the Congress Party leader, “is surrounded by advisors who have failed to explain Indian culture to her. There is unrest in Jammu and Kashmir. The northeast, Chhattisgarh and Bengal are equally disturbed. If there is peace in any part of the country, it is the north. She is disturbing that, too. We want to send out this message loud and clear that this region, too, will be in a state of war.”

“For a Westerner to understand this, you have to try to remember that, for us, this is like a brother marrying his sister,” said Chhattar.

And some politicians take heed.

Naveen Jindal, a cosmopolitan 40-year-old member of parliament from Haryana who attended the University of Texas and owns his own polo team, has said that while he doesn't approve of “honour killings” per se, he supports the khap's position outlawing same-gotra marriage.

“We should respect their customs and emotions,” he said. “The culture of villages is opposite of what we see in cities. Hence, there should not be any comparison between the two.”

In reality, you don't have to go to the washboard dirt roads of Bahan to find support for “honour killings.”

Several months ago, the Hindustan Times newspaper, one of India's largest English dailies, commissioned a survey of middle-class and upper-middle-class residents in the national capital region and found widespread support for the khaps.

In Bahan, as in New Delhi, the subject of “honour killings” is a popular talking point.

At a roadside food stand, labourers gobbled a lunch of peppers, chickpeas and eggplant and weighed in with their thoughts about Sanjeev and Rajni. “It's such a matter of shame that an ‘honour killing' is not a crime,” said Raghubir Singh, a Hindu priest. “It's the only option for the family.”

For 19-year-old Rajni, being the subject of town gossip is unnerving.

The oldest of four children, Rajni has lived a sheltered life. She was never allowed to attend local village fairs or the movie hall in Panipat, a nearby town.

Instead, she watched Hindi soap operas indoors. Rajni's father decided that after high school, she would be married off, hopefully to a well-to-do local boy who would bolster her family's social standing. His pretty daughter would fetch a fine husband.

Rajni, however, had other ideas.

She spied Sanjeev milking cows near her family's home and asked a friend to get his cell-phone number. After a few hushed conversations, Rajni's family confiscated her cell.

Sanjeev, whip-thin with a shy smile and short, wavy hair, bought her another one. One day while Rajni's father and brothers were busy attending to grazing cows, Sanjeev made his move, stealing into her bedroom. He stayed for 10 minutes, managing a kiss and the promise of another.

“He was different from other boys,” Rajni said, adjusting her saffron-coloured head scarf and fiddling with several dozen bangles. “I knew he wouldn't hit or slap me, or leave me.”

The couple said they weren't sure how long they would require the presence of a police constable, who sat dozing in a plastic lawn chair outside their home.

That's a problem. Some families have long memories when it comes to avenging their bruised honour.

On a hazy evening in late June, newspaper and TV reporters in New Delhi dashed to the northern suburb of Wazipur after police announced the city's latest honour-killing victims.

A 24-year-old woman named Monica and her 26-year-old husband, Kuldeep, had both been shot twice in the head. The attractive couple had been married four years and Monica was pregnant with their first child. Kuldeep had just landed a coveted job with a call centre.

Police say Monica's brother and a cousin committed the murders because Monica's family belongs to the Gujjar caste while Kuldeep was a Rajput, which is considered higher in the caste system.

“I remember the day of their wedding when Monica's family showed up at the courthouse very agitated and angry,” said Kuldeep's father Ajeet Singh, sitting in his home and holding a portrait of his son and daughter-in-law. “They were very rough and tried to intimidate them so they wouldn't get married. It didn't work on that day so they just waited.”

Even after their arrest, some locals in Wazirpur remain nonchalant over the gruesome crime.

“The boys had a rush of blood to the head,” shrugged Monica's uncle Chowdhary Ram Palsingh, playing cards with friends and lounging on a bamboo charpoy.

Several activist and aid agencies are working in India to eliminate caste discrimination. After the 2004 tsunami, some victims refused to stay in tents in makeshift relief camps alongside lower-caste families. And this month, at least 1,000 students belonging to upper castes in Uttar Pradesh switched schools so they wouldn't have to eat mid-day lunches prepared by cooks who were members of the Dalit, or “untouchable” caste.

“These are not easy times,” said Sanjeev, sitting next to his wife in their tiny home. “But if my wife can leave her entire family for me, I can go through this. And if they come for us and kill us, what can we do? We love each other.”

By Rick Westhead

New face of honour killings in Tamil Nadu

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Brutal killings by persons claiming to uphold the honour should be looked into by the Supreme Court

The gruesome manifestation of a patriarchic social order's “total intolerance” towards girls in their family marrying a life-partner of their choice and the resultant torture/ elimination of the boy or even the couples as seen in Northern States like Haryana, has crossed the Vindhyas, albeit in new manner.Sociologists and social activists in Tamil Nadu are now wrestling its reappearance in a chillingly different form, albeit in the name of “Jaati (caste)” or ‘Samoogam (community)”, as the shocking murder of a 24-year-old youth Sivakumar of Sivaganga district for daring to marry the girl he fell in love with, shows.

Sivakumar, an auto-driver of K Pudukkulam village in the district had been wooing 19-year-old Mekala of a nearby village Kattikulam for a year. As the tragic tale goes, pieced together from the victim’s testimony and police FIR, the girl's father Vijayan was dead set against their romance from the day one he heard of it. But this Romeo-Juliet of Sivaganga stood like rock.

In the normal course, given the social composition of the southern districts where the ‘Mukkulathors’ are a dominant caste, this couple ought to have been lucky as they both belonged to the same ‘Servai’ (a group of ‘Thevar’ community) caste, it turned a tragic lights out case.

On June 2 this year, Vijayan hastily got his daughter married off to 35-year-old Kalidas, much against her wishes. The forced matrimony lasted just 11 days as Mekala and Sivakumar took the greatest risk of their lives-- fleeing their village. They lived in

hiding at several places until a month later in July this year they set up their home in Pudukottai, some 200 km away.

The girl’s father Vijayan, coming to know of this, met the live-in couple at Pudukottai with some of his other relatives. Foxily talking peace, he persuaded them to return to their village, “promising to get them married”. The guileless couple followed the old man only for Sivakumar to be brutally hacked to death by Vijayan’s goons at Kattikulam. Mekala, a witness to this horror, was also brutally attacked, but survived. Though Vijayan was later arrested by police for Sivakumar’s murder, the village patriarch stooped to a new low “to save his family, village honour”.

“Such (dis)honour killings are quite common in the southern districts and the last two years have seen at least seven such murders,”says A Kadir, who heads “Evidence”, an NGO in Madurai, which has been tracking such extremely disturbing cases on the rise in recent years.

In the past, incidents were of ‘Dalit’ boys trying to win the hands of caste-Hindu girls meeting with such bloody fate-either the girl or the boy is mercilessly done away with as the price to be paid for daring the male hierarchy of the dominant community in a particular area. However, the latest ‘(dis)honour killing’ in Sivaganga district has broken fresh ground, explains Kadir.

As such brutal killings of tender souls masquerade as “upholding the honour of caste, family or the village neighbourhood,” this is all the more reason for the Supreme Court to look into such cases happening in Tamil Nadu also, Kadir told ‘Deccan Herald

Teacher beaten to death for filming porn with girl

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

A teacher was beaten to death mercilessly after a pornographic movie featuring him with a college student emerged.

The teacher, identified as Praloy Bhattacharjee, had been teaching college girls for 10-15 years. Police suspect that he was part of a nation-wide blue film racket and that he lured small-town girls promising them money and sold the movies in other cities, reported Times of India.

The porn CD that triggered off the mob justice is believed to have been made about a year ago but made it to the Burdwan market just a couple of days back.

On watching the video, the locals identified the girl, a final-year graduation student of a women's college, and all hell broke loose on her family and Bhattacharjee's, the newspaper reported on Thursday, Jul 29.

With this incident creating a storm in the town, police jumped to action and nabbed a video parlour owner, Krishna Ghosh and another suspect, Ujjal Saha. The film was allegedly edited and 'mixed' in Ghosh's video parlour while Saha is believed to be the one who distributed the video to other cities and towns. Source

Sikkimese girl sold for Rs. 50,000 at Haryana

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Within 24 hours of teenager Saraswati Biswakarma being brought back to her home after being rescued in from New Delhi from her exploiters, other case highlighting the tragic story of a minor girl from Lower Bardang, West Pandam being ‘sold’ in Haryana has come to light.

A complaint was lodged by the victim’s father, Chandra Bahadur Bhujel at Singtam police station today claming that his 15 years old daughter, Durgi had been allegedly sold off by one Anita Biswakarma to a person at Jarjar, Haryana.

The accused lady is from Temi, South Sikkim.

According to the victim’s father, Biswarkarma had taken Durgi to work in New Delhi on January 8 earlier this year promising a monthly salary of Rs. 5000. An advance sum of Rs. 2000 had also been handed over to the family by the lady.

Bhujel has alleged in his complaint that Biswakarma had handed over Durgi to her husband Rajendra Jaat at Delhi who then allegedly sold the minor girl to one person at Jharjar in Haryana for Rs. 50,000.

Somehow the minor girl managed to call a villager at Bardand informing about her plight.

The father then lodged a complaint with the Singtam police.

At the moment, the whereabouts of Durgi and what conditions she is in is unknown.

Following the complaint, Singtam police arrested Biswakarma and have started its investigations.

A case under section 5(c) of Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act 1956 has been registered against the accused lady.

Meanwhile, according to reports, the accused lady had also allegedly tried to sell 18 year old Rimseema Lohar from Pamfok, Namthang constituency in South Sikkim earlier this month.

Biswakarma had taken the girl to New Delhi on the same pretext of employment with Rs. 5000 monthly salary.

It is informed that Biswakarma had taken the girl directly to Jharjar and tried to sell her for Rs. 50,000.

However, Rimseema managed to alert her family members back in Pamfok about Biswakarma’s intentions.

The family members rushed to Haryana and with the help of Jharjar police, I was able to return back home safely, said Rimseema.

Khaps protest against bill opposing honour killing

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

New Delhi: Even as the Government contemplates laws to tackle the phenomenon of honour killings, khap panchayats remain defiant. Leaders from across North India came together in New Delhi on Monday to oppose same gotra marriages.

The meeting was a show of strength against the Government as nearly 250 khap panchayats from different parts of the country reiterated their demand to amend the Hindu Marriage Act and ensure inter-gotra marriages are made illegal.

"Government should not let brothers and sisters marry. We are all part of the same gotra which means the same blood line. We don't advocate killing anyone. But genetic problems arise due to inter-gotra marriage," said khap leader Shamsher Singh.

The meeting took place even as the Government set up a nine-member group of Ministers to find a solution to the increasing numbers of honour killings across the country. Khap leaders say they have no role to play in the killings cases but maintain that inter-gotra marriages should not be allowed

"The khaps are not involved in honour killing," said another khap leader Mangesh Singh.

It is not the first time that such a meeting was held to oppose same gotra marriages. But with theGovernment not willing to give into their demands as yet, the khap panchayats say they won't stop at this and will take their protest forward.

"We will block roads to register our protests if our demands are not met," said khap leaders.

Even as the Government promises to pass a strict law against honour killings in the monsoon session of Parliament, protest meets will continue and who will finally win the battle remains to be seen.

Show all

Source IBNLive

Brother strangulates sister in Punjab; honour killing suspected

noreply@blogger.com (Shafiqur rahman khan yusufzai ) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:16:55 PST

Hoshiarpur (Punjab): A 20-year-old youth allegedly strangulated her teenaged sister and threw her body in a canal in a suspected case of honour killing in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab.

During sustained interrogation, Mani Pratap Kaushal confessed he had strangulated his sister Kanchan with an electric wire as he doubted her character, SSP Rakesh Aggarwal told mediapersons in Hoshiarpur today.

Mani, a resident of village Kitna, told police he had killed his sister, aged 16, for having an affair which had incensed the family, Aggarwal said.

After strangulating her, the youth said he wrapped her body in a bedsheet and threw it in a canal, the SSP said.

Earlier, Surinder Singh, the father of the girl, had filed a report with Mahilpur police station that his daughter was missing since June 29.

After serving dinner to the family, she had left the house without informing anyone, the father said in the complaint, according to the SSP.

A few days later, a body was fished out from a canal in Kapurthala district and police called Surinder Singh's family to identify the body.

Mani went to the Rawalpindi police station but failed to identify the body.

However, during investigations Mani emerged as the main suspect and was arrested, the SSP said.

During interrogation, Mani revealed he had laced the dinner with intoxicants and went outside the house.

After consuming the dinner, the family members became unconscious and at around 1am, he strangulated Kanchan with an electric wire, he told his interrogators.

Later, he wrapped her body in a bedsheet and threw it in a canal near the village, the SSP said.

After Mani's confession, police registered a case under various sections of the IPC including 302 (murder) against him, the police officer said. (PTI)

Teen victim of honour killing

MURSHIDABAD: Her biggest fault was that she fell in love with a boy her parents didn't approve of. As a result, 16-year-old Maya Khan's throat was slit by her own cousin and her body flung away. On Saturday, police arrested her parents and the cousin for the murder.

The case of honour killing was reported from Talgram village in Murshidabad's Kandi block. Officers from Bharatpur police station had retrieved Maya's body on July 3 from the Maurakshi char. She was the daughter of Tajem Khan and Hanifa Bibi.

Investigations revealed that Tajem and Hanifa were trying to get their daughter married off to a groom of their choice. But Maya was having an affair with another local youth and despite repeated warnings she refused to break off the relationship. Her parents asked her cousin Mantu Sheikh to threaten her as well but she refused to pay heed.

It was then that the family decided that to protect their honour', the girl would have to be killed. On July 2, Mantu called Maya away from her home and took her to an abandoned house. There he slit her throat. At night, the body was dumped on the char. Police retrieved it the next day after some fishermen raised an alarm.

After hearing some eyewitness accounts, police first arrested Mantu on Friday evening. Interrogating him, police found that Mantu had murdered the girl at the behest of Maya's parents. He spilled the beans on them, saying that they could not tolerate her having an affair. Mantu also confessed to having killed his own sister after she had had an affair.

Police records showed that Mantu had been arrested in that case as well but was granted bail for lack of evidence.

On Saturday Tajem, a mason, his wife Hanifa and Mantu were produced before the Kandi ACJM and remanded in 14days' judicial custody. (TOI)