“Hundreds of young people die because they love someone or marry outside caste.” – Chief Justice of India
“Shame killing,” which is very commonly known as “Honour killing,” is the murder of an individual, often by the victim’s family members, in order to protect the “dignity” and “honour” of the family when it involves inter-caste, inter-religious marriages or relationships. In most cases, the victim is a woman, although in several cases, a man or boy is also targeted, and in some cases, the victims are from the LGBTQ+ community.
[Honour killing] Hundreds of young people die because they love someone or marry outside caste: CJI DY Chandrachud
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) December 17, 2022
report by @NarsiBenwal #CJIChandrachud #CJI https://t.co/gj5HiuLYie
Moreover, in most cases, you will also find that the individuals who are believed to be victims of honour killings were found with restraints like a woman’s father or a brother booked for honour killing, a father killing a daughter in a suspected case of honour killing and so on. When you do a quick search related to honour killing, you will find that several cases being reported almost daily are from India’s rural pockets.
Although Honour killing cases are more prevalent in a few North Indian states, like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana, Jharkhand, and Punjab, there has been an increase of cases in the South too, including Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The New Indian Express said on X, ”In a suspected case of honour killing a man allegedly killed his 20-year-old daughter who was in love with a man from a lower caste in Karnataka’s Bidaluru village.”
In a suspected case of #HonourKilling, a man allegedly killed his 20-year-old daughter who was in love with a man from a lower caste in Karnataka's Bidaluru village. https://t.co/5XVF2RQkW1
— The New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) October 13, 2023
The Bengaluru Killing, October 2023
The recent purported honour killing of a young couple in Bangalore has once again drawn attention to the cruelty perpetuated by traditional social norms in both rural and urban regions. A 20-year-old girl was killed by her father after he learned that she was involved in a relationship with a boy from another caste, police said on Thursday. According to the police, Kavana, a college student residing in Bidaluru village near Devanahalli, was warned by her father, Manjunath to end her relationship with the boy. However, Kavana refused to pay heed.
On Wednesday night, a heated argument erupted between Manjunath [the victim’s father] and Kavana over the matter. In a fit of rage, Manjunath took a knife, slashed Kavana’s throat, and stabbed her in the legs and hands multiple times.
According to Bengaluru Rural Superintendent of Police [SP] Purshottam, Manjunath committed the murder, possibly due to “malicious gossip” about his family. “During the conversation, we discovered that Kavana was in a relationship with a boy from another community. Even her younger sister was in a relationship with a boy. Unfortunately, the people in the village have been engaging in malicious gossip about the victim’s family. This appears to have driven the accused to commit the murder,” the SP said.
According to a report by The New Indian Express, there are many honour killing cases in India, but if we take the case of South India, especially in Karnataka’s Mandya, Kolar, Tumakuru, and parts of North Karnataka, from October 2022 at least seven horrendous cases have been reported. A senior advocate at KBK Swamy says honour killing in Karnataka is not new; it goes back to the 12th century, to the time of social reformer Basavanna, when inter-caste marriage or relationships invited a punishment called ‘Yele Hoote’, which involved tying those engaging in inter-caste relationships [mostly marrying men from castes lower than their own] to an elephant’s leg and making the elephant roam around town, killing the helpless victims. According to the latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau [NCRB], the number of honour killings reported in India was 25 each in 2019 and 2020 and 33 in 2021. But Evidence, an NGO, revealed in November 2019 that as many as 195 known cases were reported from Tamil Nadu alone in the past five years. The data is not enough to corroborate the actual number of honour killings that take place every year. We will have a look at a few brutal killings in the recent past that are just a scratch on the surface.
Tirupati Honour killings, February 2023
In February, a father in Alamuru village in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, killed his daughter, beheaded her, and disposed of her body parts in an alleged honour killing. 21-year-old Prasanna Reddy had fallen in love with a local of a different caste from her village. Disapproved by her family, Prasanna was married to a relative and sent off to stay in another village. However, during one of her visits to her native village, Prasanna never returned to her in-laws, raising suspicion among her family members. Further, the talk about her love affair angered her father, who thought that she was disgracing the family, according to a report by the Times of India.
Karnataka Honour Killing, June 2023
A farmer from Karnatka’s Tumkur was arrested for allegedly killing his 17-year-old daughter in a suspected case of honour killing on June 9. The victim was the only daughter of Parashuram among three children. Parashuram is among the three children. Parashuram, who belonged to a Schedule Tribe [ST] community, was a local leader with a hold in the community. According to the police investigation, the person who went to a public university was in a relationship with a boy from the Schedule Castes. Upon learning about her relationship, the family of the victim stopped her education and got her engaged to another man. However, she ran away from her home, was later found, and brought back on June 8. Furious for bringing disrespect to the family, they tried to force-feed her pesticide to make it look like a suicide.
Tamil Nadu Honor Killing, July 2023
A 19-year-old Dalit youth was murdered by a group of three men on July 23, 2023, in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district, according to the police. The body of the boy, identified as Muthiah, was found with injuries on Sunday near Thisayanvilai village. His family alleged that it was an honour killing incident as Muthuiah was in a relationship with a girl from a dominant caste.
Cases of honour Killing are not new in our country; they can be traced back to the time of the partition of our country when several women were forcefully killed so that their honour could be preserved. Honour crimes violate Articles 14, 15, 19, 21, and 39 of the Indian Constitution. The increase in the number of honour killings is also because formal governance has failed to reach rural areas, and as a result, this practice continues. Moreover, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as adopted in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly, recognizes that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, but due to the Brahmanical moral and social code that Indian society follows, a caste-based stratification is created that assigns unequal status to people based on their caste and gender identity at birth.
India continues to grapple with the enduring issue of honour killings. A robust and comprehensive legal framework is urgently needed to address this problem, safeguarding the fundamental right to choose one’s life partner, as stipulated in Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, and allowing individuals to exercise this right without the burden of fear.
