A Socio-Legal Study on Honour Killing: Manslaughter in Name of Family’S Honour
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MyLawman Socio Legal Review • Inaugural Issue A Socio-Legal Study on Honour Killing: Manslaughter in Name of Family’s Honour Shruti Singh Chauhan Published on: Nov 27, 2020 License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0) MyLawman Socio Legal Review • Inaugural Issue A Socio-Legal Study on Honour Killing: Manslaughter in Name of Family’s Honour ABSTRACT India is a multicultural society with pluralism. Indian culture is based on a different set of values, beliefs, faiths, and ideologies of spiritual holy books like Gita, Mahabharata, Bible, and Kuran. It is deep-rooted in its patriarchal culture which exists in Indian society since time immemorial and in patriarchal society, women are considered torchbearers of family honor. This honor is of utmost importance for indian families. India being the largest democracy of the world still here in some parts of the country womens dont have right to express their choice of marriage they don’t have the right to choose the dress they wear; they cannot do anything of their choice against the community interest and customs of culture. If they do so they are countered by the members of family in the name of honour and this gives rise to a new crime of honour killing i.e. killing in the name of honour to regain the honour and esteem of the family. Honour killing or cultural killing are customary practice where a member of family is killed by other other due to belief of perpetrators that this person has brought dishonour to the family by any act. The term “HONOUR ”in honour killing is misnomer as there is no honour in killing someone by quashing their freedom of choice and expression in the name of family’s honour. There are no specific laws for such a heinous crime and due to this various cases remain unreported and unnoticed. This paper aims to analyze and investigate socio-legal perspective of honour killing in indian society , factors responsible for such killings, constitutional provisions, legal provisions related to it and what remedies can be sort of to get rid of such evil which is prevailing in the society. Keywords: honor killing , custom, cultural killing, legislation, khap panchayat INTRODUCTION In a pluralistic society like India which has faced major problems due to many existing evil in the society but prevalent of them is the caste system. It is one of the prior and rigid institutions in Indian society where people are governed by some set of conduct that society has set differently for different castes. These codes of conduct are binding on a particular set of caste and people follow them blindly without questioning its validity.In Hindu caste system we have Brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya, shudras. These are 4 sets of caste known as varna system. Brahmin is supposed to be superior ones then come kshatriya , vaishya and lowest group known as shudras.Here I have nothing to deal with study of Varna system but I am elaborating the caste system just because it is one of the leading contribution that gave rise to honorless crime called honor killing. Next what is to be stated here is Existing dominant Patriarchy system in India. Our Beautiful mother nation is still facing the dominant culture imposed by Bharat Mata’s Sons on the earth. They make females still feel low to them and this all is just because of Patriarchal root setup of the society.It is considered that females are torch bearers of family Honor and respect. So, they have to program their behavior , actions, feelings, thoughts and 2 MyLawman Socio Legal Review • Inaugural Issue A Socio-Legal Study on Honour Killing: Manslaughter in Name of Family’s Honour duties as per the demand of the Patriarchal system.Basically society has set up boundaries for womens in every corner of the society. Today in the present scenario not everywhere this problem exists but still there are many corners of the nation where women function as puppets of their family and societal norms. Whenever a girl falls in love and wishes to marry whether with the same caste or with another caste, Unfortunately their choice to choose their life partners is also snatched at that moment because their feelings for someone gives them an end result in the form of Death by their own family members or Clan councils popularly known as Khap panchayat. A woman who is continuously being ill-treated by husband when she raises the voice her voice is stabbed and she falls prey to prevailing customary killing on the grounds that she has breached Patriarchal norms and raised a voice against Husband who is considered superior to her. There are many such reasons which this paper aims to address in which womens fall prey to such customary Killings. In such cases it is believed that the victim has brought dishonor to family by her acts and is killed in the name of honor. Men’s also fall prey to such killing by women's family with whom he is found to be in inappropriate relationship.Indian law has no such provision which provides direct shade to victims and due this very reasons such crimes goes unreported. There is no honor in such killings and the name is just a misnomer. This paper aims to mainly discuss socio -legal perspective of such killings, its legal as well as constitutional provisions and provides remedies to fight this existing unreported evil in the society. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Sneha Singh (2017) in an article written by her dealt with honour killing or customary killing and the author has put light on the origin of this social evil in India and various case studies which show the grave nature of such killings. The author has discussed about the need for enacting a specific law in India and about the steps taken by the Government and various commissions to deal with such honour crimes. Keerthana.R.Shenoi & Dr .S. Pandiaraj(2018) have explained in thier research paper about the various reasons for the honor killing in India and also explained if there is existing need of codified law dealing with honor killing in India.They have explained in thier research paper about the role of patriarchal society in honor killings and laid down its reason. Dr. Kavita Dhull (2017) has discussed the legal and constitutional provisions related to honor killings and also discussed various societal impacts of such customary killings taking place and also presented the role of caste panchayat in it.she has stated that Honour Killing have been defined as patterns of conduct cutting across Communities, cultures, religions and nations and manifested in a range of forms of violence directed in the majority of cases, against women including murder (Honour Killing) and forced marriages, Honour Killing is considered to be a crime that threatens the unity and harmony 3 MyLawman Socio Legal Review • Inaugural Issue A Socio-Legal Study on Honour Killing: Manslaughter in Name of Family’s Honour of the community and it acts as a brief preventing women from progressing in their lives. Honour Killing and punishment have been documented over centuries among a wide variety of ethnic and religious groups throughout the world. Vipin Kumar Singhal in this paper has recommended the need of codified law for Honor killings in india and explained how gender discrimination takes place in society and this becomes rot cause of honor killings.He has explained that caste is basic institution which is the cause of evil in the society and these caste are working within thier codified rules of conduct where no one can act outside the aid conduct and when they move out of it they are boycotted from the society. R.Preethi & Dr.A.Sreelatha (2018) have laid down the basic idea behind honor killings and explained about honour killing and to bring out the seriousness of the crime and to educate the society about its effects and to analyze the triggers of honour killing in India and what can be done to improve the situation in the society and she has explained that Honour killing is seen as a dirty behaviour by the member of the family thinking to bring purity to the family. It is an act of murder by the family on the family members to bring honour to the family to eradicate the shame and dishonour brought by the family member. The male member of the family kills the female member who has violated the wishes and honour of the family. This is a kind of pre-planned murder by the members of the family against the member who had bought shame to the family. Mostly these acts are caused due to triggers done by the relatives, society, neighbours by whom the accused feels dishonoured and gets provoked. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES This papers aims to cover following objectiveS- To study socio-legal perspective of Honor Killings in India Factors responsible for Honor killings in India To study constitutional provisions related to Honor killings To study legal provisions To provide remedies for getting rid of Honor Killings MEANING OF HONOR KILLING Honor killings which is also called as Customary Killing means murder of a family member or member of clan council by family member or clan council itself on the grounds that they believe that particular person who falls victim to honor killing has brought dishonor to family and made them fell down in the society. It is not only the females who fall prey to such killings but Mens are also victims for such crimes. These crimes have beliefs originated from customs, caste beliefs and religious practices.The male status is superior to females and when women try to overreach her boundaries, chooses to marry someone, or many more acts done against the wish of family she falls victim to such honor killings.It 4 MyLawman Socio Legal Review • Inaugural Issue A Socio-Legal Study on Honour Killing: Manslaughter in Name of Family’s Honour was estimated by united Nation PopulationFund that around 5000 are killed for reasons of Honor Killing on an Annual basis1.