“Boys and girls should be married by the time they turn 16,so that they do not stray... this will decrease the incidents of rape,” khaprepresentative Sube Singh said, again in early October last year.
"We have decided to ban alcohol as it is the mainreason behind rapes. We have also banned jeans and T-shirts for girl studentsas it is not a proper dress,” sarpanch Shamsher Singh of Khedar villagepanchayat in Hisar said on January 8.
These are but just three gems from khap panchayat leaders inrecent times. They trigger two emotions in most reasonably sensible people:mirth followed by rage, and rage followed by mirth. On Monday, the SupremeCourt spoke on the legal end of it, observing that khap panchayats’ diktat on adress code for women, and asking them not to carry mobile phones, is unlawful.An apex court bench of justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai said suchdiktats are against the fundamental right to life and asked khap panchayats tofile their replies on the issue. “It (such diktat) also violates the law. Howcan someone ask others not to carry mobile?” the bench asked when the Centretold the court that such orders are being passed by khaps against women.
The bigger question is, do the khaps themselves have anylocus standi?
And the even bigger one is, how can one ignorepronouncements made by social organisations with obviously such largefollowings that most political parties shudder to take on directly?
Significantly, even the police brass of some districts inHaryana and Uttar Pradesh, some of the areas with most khap diktats announcedover the years, tried to justify the “general advisories” in court. So much sothat the bench was irritated enough to ask them how the cops could give a“clean chit” to these organizations.
With the officers not finding anything wrong in ordersbanning mobile phones for girls, the court retorted, “The officers seem to beanxious to give a clean chit to the khaps. You are trying to over-simplify theissue.”
While the Supreme Court has delivered its verdict on justone issue that reached a logical conclusion, how the society at large,including political, socio-cultural leaders and activists, ensure suchregressive diktats are not issued in future is precisely where the game begins.
For India’s political parties, this is a quandary close tobeing just as big as external and internal aggression ” this is uber-internal,or mental, aggression ” and for other social, civil and other organisations itis a problem pretty high on the priority list to brainstorm over.
The problem, now more than ever, is to confront the devil atits doorstep, stop the rot from plaguing the social fabric further, andchecking the beast from taking a monstrous shape where the only option left forreason to stand up to unreason is recoil.
The issue is enormous, and it begs to be dealt with. Now.
In association of Governance Now
