Friday, June 25, 2010

Khap Panchayats dictate your choice of life partner. Beware!


Are you married? Or are you planning to marry? Did you know your girlfriend just might be your sister?! Yes, if the Khap Panchayats are to be believed then an astonishing number of married couples have figured in their list of an unnatural marriage between a brother and sister.

Background

A little background, before we get into it: The Khap Panchayats were formed in ancient times as an administration system. To simplify things villages around one geographical area became one Khap. It was like a democratic electorate that tried to resolve problems and provide constructive ideas for the development of their people.

In today’s times however things have deteriorated. The Khap Panchayat is now a self-proclaimed justice system, with a set of ‘rules’ and ‘acceptable behavioural norms’ based on certain people’s perception/ interpretation of tradition and the morally just. It now decides who can be given their personal version of a ‘fatwa’ and killed in the name of religion and morals.



What’s Gotra?

The main issue is the ‘gotra’ – which is essentially lineage defined usually by tracing the male line of descent.

One interpretation on the web, which talks of the gotra as part of the Vedic period is: “In general, gotra denotes all persons who trace descent in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor. Panini defines gotra for grammatical purposes as ' apatyam pautraprabhrti gotram' (IV. 1. 162), which means 'the word gotra denotes the progeny beginning with the son's son. When a person says ' I am Kashypasa-gotra' he means that he traces his descent from the ancient sage Kashyapa by unbroken male descent.” Source: http://www.vedah.net/manasanskriti/Brahmins.html.

Just to clarify, the concept of gotra does not apply only to Brahmins; this meaning is for your understanding of the concept of gotra / lineage.



So, the issue is?

So, now if you have a couple that can trace back their lineage to same fore-father, then by that concept the Khap Panchayat makes you siblings. Marriage, they say, will be a violation of societal norms. And, if you go against them, they will have your life taken! These are “socially justifiable” ‘Honour Killings’. (for god knows whose honour!)

Now the issue is, the gotra started in the Rig Veda era, which means a gazzilion years ago, and to be honest we are all descendents of a few humans who started life on the Earth. The Bible calls them Adam and Eve. So yeah, by that standard we are all related! Of course, we do not know, or care. If we did, one we wouldn’t have multiplied at this amazing rate and second, we pretty much wouldn’t be warring and bombing our own siblings. Ok, digressing here. But you get the picture.



What logic, boss!

The concept of now murdering innocent loved ones is stupid. And what is worse is that many a time, the parents, brothers and other family members are involved in the actual act of violence! Then they come on the news at nine and proudly say, “Poor us, we had to kill them. We cannot expose our future generation to such morally vicious acts committed in the name of love.” Yes guys, but telling your kids that murder is ok in the name of religion, is perfectly fine. Yes, yes, sir such amazing logic! Why did we not think of this earlier? Bush Junior could have used that excuse, instead of lying about invisible WMDs (weapons of mass destruction)!



The fact is that the Khap Panchayat has disrespected even the Supreme Court’s recent guilty verdict on the murder of a young couple ordered by these ‘vigilantes’. They say the Constitution needs to change to accommodate their views: Change the Hindu Marriage Act, and add the gotra bit to make a million marriages impossble. Kill love. Yahoo!

It is shocking their logic has influenced people in a modern city like Delhi, India, to commit such crimes. What has happened to the law? We can’t seem to give justice to anyone. Not to the Bhopalis, not to the 26/11 victims, not to the innocent couples…. GOI needs to declare the organisation illegal and not only arrest, but punish the offenders. Enough of this buffoonery.



Further reading

Just for further reading this is National Human Rights Commission’s take on the subject from their website http://nhrc.nic.in/dispArchive.asp?fno=2064:

NHRC's statement on the alleged diktats of Khap Panchayats



New Delhi, May 13th, 2010



The National Human Rights Commission has taken note of media reports alleging that the Khap (Caste) Panchayats in Haryana are indulging in acts of violence against the Hindu couples marrying in the same gotra. It has also taken note of their alleged demand of an amendment in the Hindu Marriage Act, banning the marriages in the same gotra on the ground that such marriages will amount to marriage between a brother and a sister unacceptable among Hindus as per tradition.



The Commission is of the view that no one has the right to take law in his hand by violating an individual's right to life in the name of tradition.



The Commission has issued notices to the public authorities wherein complaints or media reports have alleged violence against the couples married in the same gotra or inter-caste in parts of Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, and has asked them to take action against those responsible for such acts violating the human rights of the people.



It has also asked the concerned State Authorities in Uttar Pradesh in a particular case of this nature to inform the Commission about the steps taken by them to deal with such issues for preventing interference by the Khap Panchayat in the Criminal Justice System (Case No. 16755/24/2005-06-WC).



The issue of amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act, banning same gotra marriages is a subject matter of wider debate keeping in view the national perspective on the social, cultural and traditional aspects, as well as an individual's right to liberty as enshrined in the Constitution.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Movie Review: Raavan

This was a South-Indian movie remade for the Hindi-speaking audience. The great director, Mr. Mani Ratnam fielded this one to the public.

The story is about this confused and angry man, Beera. He has many shades to his character – 10 shades actually, representing symbolically the 10 heads of Raavan. He kidnaps ‘Sita’ of this Ramyana, which is played by Aishwarya Rai to bring the ‘Ram’ of the film to him. Ram/ or Dev (Lord) as he is called is angry and beside himself. He will bring Beera to justice. However, his character departs from Ram now. Dev is now a regular mean policeman, who can go to any length to bring back his wife.

Beera is shown as a good man who due to his circumstances of life has gone bad. His isolation from reality, makes him act weird and make odd noises. He wants to strike fear in everyone’s heart. But the jungles and the people in the village are his family. It is now very Veerapan style khichdi. The village people want to protect their saviour, who protects them, feeds them and in general is a hero to the local village folk.

Anyway, so Madam is now trying to escape and act all bold, but she is slowly seeing the other side of the picture. She learns why she was kidnapped and is horrified. The circumstances change and predictably we have our Raavan falling hard for our damsel in distress.

The ending shows how deceitful the modern day Ram / Dev is, and how he uses his suspicion for his wife to his advantage.

Raavan as a film that looks good. It has beautiful shots of the jungle, a beautiful Aishwarya Rai, and breathtaking shots of steep cliffs. The unfortunate part is that it is a bit disjointed. It seems like a lot of reel was edited to make it slick. The effect was a film with abrupt scenes, and one too many songs for no apparent reason.

If there is one good thing to watch for is for Govinda. Yes, he is in the film!



Raavan movie cast and crew details

Star cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Govinda, Vikram, Bipasha Basu, Ravi Kissan, Suhasini and Tejaswini Kolhapure

Director and Story: Mani Ratnam

Banner: Big Pictures

Producer: Sharda

Music: A.R. Rehman

Lyricist: Gulzar

Presented by: Madras Talkies

Raavan movie Release date: 18th June 2010

Star: *** (that was one extra star just for the cinematography)

Monday, June 21, 2010

Bhopal - This isn't over yet

Bhopal – a city in Madhya Pradesh, India. Also, a city that has been scarred both physically and emotionally.


In Dec, 1984, something inside the Union Carbide malfunctioned. It led to the release of a lethal gas – a mixture of MIC, when mixed with water.

This lethal chemical was being produced and stored by the plant in the heart of the city with thousands of people living in close quarters. People who were not aware that elsewhere in the world such close proximity would not have been permitted legally.

It was a failure of the company, crew, municipal authorities and more. Cost cutting measures had been started by the parent company sitting outside India. Maintenance workers had been cut down to half, despite various incidents reports coming much before the 1984 tragedy. Faulty equipment was not replaced, safety processes were lax and the motive was purely capitalistic.

The tragedy is that it killed thousands of people then – and it STILL kills and harms people today. There are ill formed children born each day. Some have tumours for eyes, some have twisted limbs, many have ‘broken’ smiles… And no one really cares.

There were court orders; in fact criminal proceedings have been on since the last 25 years. It hasn’t helped – nor did the paltry sums that were initially given by Union Carbide as compensation. In fact, much of it hasn’t been released even now!

In fact TOI story states, “The compensation amount — Rs 713 crore, paid by Union Carbide — was meant for about 1 lakh persons but has been distributed among nearly 6 lakh people. Of the Rs 713 crores, Rs 113 crores was for loss of livestock and property. The balance Rs 600 crore distributed among 5.74 lakh persons works out to about Rs 12,410 per victim on average. In contrast, in the Uphaar tragedy in Delhi, families of those who died got between Rs 15 lakh to Rs 18 lakh each, while injured persons got Rs 1 lakh each. In addition, they got interest at the rate of 9% per annum for the roughly six years that the legal proceedings took.” Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bhopal-Gas-Tragedy-Endless-nightmare/articleshow/5294330.cms

What do we want – simple, justice. Two years isn’t exactly the type of jail term that can be handed out for killing, even on a highly conservative estimate, 10,000 people in 1984 and the thousands more born with defects since then. Our liability laws need to know how to deal with such tragedies and how to penalize companies that operate within the Indian territory. Look at BP’s penalty case…what would have happened if the oil spill was in the Indian Ocean. (Read: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/bhopal%5Cs-ongoing-tragedy/397369/)

Life is to be valued and respected. You cannot ever completely compensate, but there needs to be a sincere attempt. Today the tanks still leak toxins, the water table is contaminated, even breast milk now is toxic and so many people still struggle to receive access to basic amenities.

Just because they are poor, does not mean they have no friends and can be forgotten. As long as we care, they will not be forgotten – not in 10 years, 25 years or 100 years.

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