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In Balah, a village from district Karnal, a goddamned part of rural
Haryana, a family regained its
lost honor by killing their
daughter who had dared to elope with a guy
from her own village. The reason proffered by the family was that
marrying someone from the same village is as good as marrying one's
brother or sister.
Most of the villagers of Balla, Karnal have never heard of the national pledge (which has a funny line somewhere in between that goes 'All Indians are my brothers and sisters"), since in India every village is a nation in itself and has its own national pledge. But some educated villagers of Balah who have been exposed to our national pledge have adopted it, replacing the word Indians with Balahians. Being dedicated village patriots, unlike the rest of Indians who often get confused between national anthem, national pledge and national song, they follow seriously the dictum "All Balahians are my brothers and sisters" and don't take kindly to anyone from their village engaging in non-brotherly or non-sisterly activity with any member of the opposite sex of the village. Anyone daring to do so brings immediate dishonor to the entire family and needs to be immediately bumped off to restore back the lost honor. In order to carry out the dastardly deed, the brotherly/sisterly love that every Balahian feels for every other Balahian is temporarily forgotten. Once the dirty and violent deed of hacking to death the eloping couple is done, Balahians regain the brotherly/sisterly feelings for every other Balahian. And also the lost honor.
What does the word honor mean?
Honor as is universally understood represents respect, dignity, character of a person and a cocktail of many other things depending upon the geographical location where the person is achieving or losing his honor. Honor in most of the backward parts of India means a lot more than respect or esteem earned in society. In these parts, honor is the ultimate possession - more important than life itself. If you lose your honor, you either kill the person responsible for your lost honor or kill yourself.
Most of the villagers of Balla, Karnal have never heard of the national pledge (which has a funny line somewhere in between that goes 'All Indians are my brothers and sisters"), since in India every village is a nation in itself and has its own national pledge. But some educated villagers of Balah who have been exposed to our national pledge have adopted it, replacing the word Indians with Balahians. Being dedicated village patriots, unlike the rest of Indians who often get confused between national anthem, national pledge and national song, they follow seriously the dictum "All Balahians are my brothers and sisters" and don't take kindly to anyone from their village engaging in non-brotherly or non-sisterly activity with any member of the opposite sex of the village. Anyone daring to do so brings immediate dishonor to the entire family and needs to be immediately bumped off to restore back the lost honor. In order to carry out the dastardly deed, the brotherly/sisterly love that every Balahian feels for every other Balahian is temporarily forgotten. Once the dirty and violent deed of hacking to death the eloping couple is done, Balahians regain the brotherly/sisterly feelings for every other Balahian. And also the lost honor.
What does the word honor mean?
Honor as is universally understood represents respect, dignity, character of a person and a cocktail of many other things depending upon the geographical location where the person is achieving or losing his honor. Honor in most of the backward parts of India means a lot more than respect or esteem earned in society. In these parts, honor is the ultimate possession - more important than life itself. If you lose your honor, you either kill the person responsible for your lost honor or kill yourself.
Honor, as per backward India's definition is a mysterious possession which can be lost in the following cases:
- If your son or daughter marries or elopes outside of your caste, you lose it
- If your son or daughter marries or elopes outside of your religion, you lose it.
- If your son or daughter marries or elopes inside of your (gotra) sub-caste, you lose it
- If your son or daughter marries or elopes inside of your village, you lose it.
In all such cases, you can regain the lost honor by killing your son or
daughter along with the person with whom he or she has eloped.
But there are also situations where you lose honor because of your own misdeeds. For example, if you take a loan from your friendly, neighborhood shylock for purchasing seeds and fertilizers needed for planting a crop, but are unable to pay back the loan due to crop failure, then you lose your honor. In such case, you kill yourself rather than continue living dishonorably as a loan defaulter.
In India, lacs of small farmers routinely kill themselves every year after losing their honor due to their inability to pay back their debt to local shylocs. Their deaths are falsely misrepresented by media, government, rural activists and bleeding-hearts as suicides, when in reality they are just a different version of honor killings. To be more precise, honor self-killings. Only that can explain why the indebted farmers of India never chose any other option of escaping the loan sharks, like running away from their village and becoming anonymous, migrant laborers in big towns or declaring themselves as 'bankrupt' as indebted people from less backward parts of world do when they are left with no money to pay back their debts. Another option the 'dishonored' farmers rarely exercise is killing the shylock who is tormenting them before killing themselves. Preoccupation with matters relating to their honor prevents them from exercising saner, more rational ways of evading the grip of money-lenders or avenging their future death before honor self-killing.
If the government of India properly understood the nature of farmer suicides, it wouldn't need to grapple with the issue by ad-hoc measures such as waiving of farm loans. It can simply declare all farmers ending their lives as criminal offenders guilty of honor self-killing.
Conclusion:
Honor is a dangerous, a heinous, life-threatening conferment by society that should be avoided at all costs by every sane person. Since there is no clear-cut, acceptable-to-everyone definition of the word, what constitutes 'honor' often depends upon crazy whims and fancies of the society. If the society surrounding you is as mentally retarded as the society surrounding poor, dead Sunita and her equally dead lover, you will be totally doomed all your life walking on tight-ropes, ever in danger of falling and losing your honor. Hence its better to live without honor. Live your life lightly; live your life dishonorably.
But there are also situations where you lose honor because of your own misdeeds. For example, if you take a loan from your friendly, neighborhood shylock for purchasing seeds and fertilizers needed for planting a crop, but are unable to pay back the loan due to crop failure, then you lose your honor. In such case, you kill yourself rather than continue living dishonorably as a loan defaulter.
In India, lacs of small farmers routinely kill themselves every year after losing their honor due to their inability to pay back their debt to local shylocs. Their deaths are falsely misrepresented by media, government, rural activists and bleeding-hearts as suicides, when in reality they are just a different version of honor killings. To be more precise, honor self-killings. Only that can explain why the indebted farmers of India never chose any other option of escaping the loan sharks, like running away from their village and becoming anonymous, migrant laborers in big towns or declaring themselves as 'bankrupt' as indebted people from less backward parts of world do when they are left with no money to pay back their debts. Another option the 'dishonored' farmers rarely exercise is killing the shylock who is tormenting them before killing themselves. Preoccupation with matters relating to their honor prevents them from exercising saner, more rational ways of evading the grip of money-lenders or avenging their future death before honor self-killing.
If the government of India properly understood the nature of farmer suicides, it wouldn't need to grapple with the issue by ad-hoc measures such as waiving of farm loans. It can simply declare all farmers ending their lives as criminal offenders guilty of honor self-killing.
Conclusion:
Honor is a dangerous, a heinous, life-threatening conferment by society that should be avoided at all costs by every sane person. Since there is no clear-cut, acceptable-to-everyone definition of the word, what constitutes 'honor' often depends upon crazy whims and fancies of the society. If the society surrounding you is as mentally retarded as the society surrounding poor, dead Sunita and her equally dead lover, you will be totally doomed all your life walking on tight-ropes, ever in danger of falling and losing your honor. Hence its better to live without honor. Live your life lightly; live your life dishonorably.
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'Honor'-ably Hacked to Death
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
In Balah, a village from district Karnal, a goddamned part of rural Haryana, a family regained its lost honor by killing...
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
In Balah, a village from district Karnal, a goddamned part of rural Haryana, a family regained its lost honor by killing...
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Comments (3)
maverick58
said:
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 Close on the heels of the gruesome murder of Sunita and her lover Jasbir in Karnal’s Balla village, another Haryanvi father has killed his daughter to preserve his family “honour”. On Wednesday, Bhawana Ram strangled and killed his married daughter, Reshma, at Laloda village near Fatehabad. His sons, Lala Ram and Suche Ram, allegedly stood by and egged their father on as he set upon the unsuspecting young woman in her sleep. Bhawana Ram was con vinced that Reshma, married for the past 12 years, was carrying on an illicit love affair with her own brother-in-law (sister’s husband). The victim’s husband, who was away on Thursday night, told the police that he returned home to find his wife unconscious inside her room. He rushed her to get medical help at Tohana town, but Reshma was already dead when she was wheeled into the hospital. The Haryana police has registered a case of murder against Bhawana Ram and his two sons and has taken them into custody at Fatehabad. |
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maverick58
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 A committee formed to decide the future course of action in connection with the "honour killing" of a pregnant housewife and her lover in a Haryana village, on Tuesday postponed its meeting by a week so that rituals of the deceased are completed. "The meeting of the committee will now take place after a week as the families of Jasbir and Sunita still have to complete some rituals," Balah village sarpanch, Ranbir Singh Mann, said over phone from Karnal. Sunita and Jasbir, both from Jat community having different 'gotras', were murdered on Thursday. Jasbir's parents had appeared in the Panchayat and said they will abide by its decision. Sunita, a divorcee, had eloped with Jasbir and was six months pregnant at the time of death.  |
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maverick58
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BHIWANI: Not even a week back, a young pair was brutally murdered in the name of family honour in Ballah village in Karnal, and on Monday, another couple survived an attack on their lives in Bisalwass village in this district. Had they not managed to escape the bid, this episode too would have met a gory end. 19-year-old Sonia, who had shown the audacity to marry man of her choice outside her caste, saw death on Monday when over two dozen of her relatives descended on the village to kill the couple. But as the luck would have it, both Sonia and Pramod (23) escaped unhurt. The couple that had tied the knot on March 18, this year in a Delhi temple, has sought police protection. Sonia's mother, Rajwanti, was witness to the wedding, but she didn't reveal the truth to her family initially as Sonia also came back to her native village, Sutana in Panipat district, after the ceremony. But hell broke loose once the news was broken to Sonia's father, Mangal Sain, who hatched a conspiracy to eliminate her. But as Rajwanti got to know about this, she ran away with her daughter to Pramod's house. According to Sonia's complaint, around two dozen people came to the village with a motive to kill the couple as well as her mother, but they somehow managed to escape the attack by hiding at a safe place. The couple met DSP Ravinder Bhardwaj seeking police protection. They also showed him their marriage certificate. The DSP, when contacted, informed that he called members of the panchayat and told them to safeguard the lives of the young couple, till the time they are in the village. He, however, added that Sonia's father Mangal Sain too has lodged an FIR with the Panipat police accusing his wife and daughter to have left the house with his granddaughter and Rs 1 lakh. He said a police official from Panipat visited the village and went back after Sonia and Pramod recorded their statements before the magistrate confirming their marriage. |
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