CHANDIGARH: The controversy over Haryana’s khap panchayats has deepened, with the women’s wing of the Sarv Jatia Sarv Khap Panchayat backing the Naugama Khap’s decision to bar couples from living in 21 villages if they marry against its traditional social norms, including a ban on same-village love marriages.
After Gen Z from Haryana flooded Instagram with posts expressing their anger against Khaps and held them responsible for the condition of Haryanvi society, with a skewed sex ratio and the condition of women, Santosh Dahiya, president of the women’s wing of the Sarv Jatia Sarv Khap Panchayat, maintained that khaps were not opposed to love marriages per se.
She said the women’s wing had decided to constitute a 30-member committee to visit villages and form 11-member committees in each village. These committees would approach young women in schools and colleges and hold dialogues with them on social norms and customs related to marriage.
When questioned about the decision taken at the khap meeting and why no one opposed the view, Dahiya said young women from universities had been invited, but everybody favoured the decisions of the khap panchayats.
She said marriages were prohibited where couples belonged to the same village, villages considered part of the same bhaichara or gohaand, or the same gotra, as these relationships were viewed as akin to brotherhood or common ancestry.
A video posted by a young lady on social media on this issue has gone viral. “Haryana’s aged people have decided that they will not make amends in their old habits. They cherish making comments about women in ‘ghunghat’ but think that phones are spoiling girls in Haryana. Since educated women are not relenting to their wishes of marrying their school dropout boys, they have decided to impose restrictions on girls on the pretext of phones and love marriages. Now educated girls are choosing their partners as per their standards, where they enjoy equal status in the family and lives, and not like what happened in Haryana till now.”
“Women would marry according to their own wishes. Why doesn’t the government take action against such people?” she questioned.
While a Khap member stood up at a panchayat meeting in Jind and said daughters should not sit astride a motorcycle behind their fathers, with one leg on each side, the way sons do. “If a girl will not put her phone down, take it from her and smash it.”
Dahiya said letters had been sent to the President, Prime Minister, Union Law Minister and Leader of Opposition, seeking criminalisation of live-in relationships. “We have also sought meetings with them to discuss this issue,” she said.
She added that Chahal and Satrol khaps had relaxed some norms, particularly regarding gohaand villages, owing to difficulties in finding matches for boys. However, she said the Naugama Khap had taken no such decision.
On August 1, the Naugama Khap, in its meeting at Ramrai village, decided that couples marrying in violation of its prevailing social norms would not be allowed to live in the 21 villages under its influence. It had also opposed live-in relationships and demanded their criminalisation.
With an overall sex ratio of 879 girls per 1,000 boys and a child sex ratio (0 to 6 years) of 834 girls per 1,000 boys, Haryana was placed at the bottom in the country in the 2011 Census. The state is infamous for bringing Molki Bahus, or brides procured for money from far-off states like Assam, Bihar and Jharkhand.
