As far the definition goes, honour killings are the act of vengeance, usually death, committed by male family members against female family members, who are held to have brought dishonour upon the family. It is the homicide of a member of family by its other member.
But is this problem only limited to the content of its definition or do we need to look beyond? Well, in my view, it would be immensely unjust to term it merely as a ‘homicide’. In fact, it is like a social illness, a contagious stigma for our society, engulfing innocent lives on baseless and meaningless grounds. What defines ‘honour’? These are the unsearched questions lingering in our society. But ironically, the ineffective answers of these questions prevail in our society. Love marriage or mere falling in love with someone outside your caste, community or religion still means shame for most families. Widow remarriage, homosexuality, being a rape victim, girls pursuing higher education, dressing according to one’s choice, refusing to celibacy are seen as a ‘threat’ in our so called well-mannered and respected society, and honour killing its ultimate solution. In recent years, even after the spread of education to remotest parts of our country these orthodox beliefs exist. What adds to this awful surprise of mine is that even many of the educated ones entertain such irrational practices. The plight of honour killing is not just contained within the states of Haryana and Punjab but spreads to every corner of the country. The fact is that thousands of honour killing cases either go unreported, burnt, buried alive, love pairs beaten up to death, rape victims feared to discard the society or even killed by the society or just massacred by any other means. Does marrying beyond your caste and class lines or even being homosexual or widow remarriage really mean that you are bringing shame your family and community? Are the people doing so a stigma for the society? Well, no, not at all! This simply means that you are enjoying your birth rights- your freedom. This means that someone has tried to think above the orthodox irrational beliefs and these people need to be honoured, not killed. Just because someone has tried to be bold enough to defy the irrational principles and laws of the society doesn’t necessarily mean that they are wrong. These are the people who have tried to set the laws of morality disregarding the so-called ‘society’ laws. The issue of honour killing needs to be solved urgently. Killing people because of such adamant beliefs is an insensible act. The society needs to examine its laws and principles and change it for the better. The perspective towards class, caste, religion and community needs to be changed. We, on our personal approach, need to introspect. A place where brothers and father brutally murder their sisters and daughters is not an honourable but a ‘shameful’ society. There is no honour in honour killing! - Shreya Shandilya
2 Comments
ammy
8/6/2015 03:23:29 am
Amazingly written about such a grevious prob of the society .. Gud 1 👌
Reply
shreya
8/7/2015 11:59:42 pm
Thnxx alot ammyy....!! My aim of raising this issue will accomplish only wen ppl try to understand it unbiasdly!!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorAditya Nayak Archives
February 2017
Categories
All
|