Dying for Love: The Shame of Modern India

Tejbir Singh, 29, the son of a farmer, had been in love with 28-year-old Meena for two years. She was the daughter of his maternal uncle’s brother-in-law, so not related by blood, but still taboo for marriage in Haryana.

When the families did not accept the relationship, Tejbir and Meena decided to elope. They were married at the Arya Samaj Temple in Ghaziabad on April 22. Meena’s family was so angry that they threatened to kill them both. The frightened couple moved to a police safe house in Hisar, where they lived from May 1 to May 4.

According to the police complaint filed by Mahtab Singh, Tejbir’s father, attempts at reconciliation with Meena’s family failed, but Mahtab Singh accepted the marriage and the couple subsequently moved from the safe house to the family home in Badala village.

At 8:15 am on June 24, the couple set off for Delhi on Tejbir’s motorcycle. Two hours later, Mahtab Singh received the news: his son and daughter-in-law had been shot dead. Their bodies were lying in Lala Hukam Chand Jain Park. Tejbir was neatly dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers. Meena still wore the traditional red bangles of a newlywed bride. She wore red.

On a hot and humid day, it would be difficult to find any trace of the gruesome crime committed just days before. Apart from a few isolated Malis, only a couple can be seen slowly making their rounds on the sidewalk. The man wears a handkerchief on his head to protect himself from the sun. I wonder who they are and what plans they are making.

Just outside the gazebo where the bodies were found, there is a small discolored patch on the grass where Tejbir fell. Meena was just a few meters away and was probably killed while trying to escape. The grass where she fell is smooth and green.

Two people have been arrested so far: Meena’s younger brother Sachin and her cousin Rahul are both 21 years old, have completed 12th grade and are both unemployed. Rahul has a previous conviction for a shooting. Apparently it was he who contacted Meena on Instagram and tried to persuade her to return home. But in the park where they met, they came with guns and were ready to kill.

There is no honor in this murder

Maqsood Ahmed, the police chief of Hansi, says this is the first honour killing in his career. “Killing is not honour,” he stresses.

What shocked Ahmed most, he says, was the “lack of remorse” shown by the two arrested boys. “They don’t believe they did anything wrong,” he said.

In Haryana, the combination of patriarchy, which ties the “honour” of the family and community to a woman’s sexual choices, and the caste system has had devastating consequences. In the past month alone, three more cases have been reported in the state.

In Sirsa, Jagdish Singh was arrested on June 17 for allegedly strangling his 27-year-old daughter for talking on the phone with her boyfriend. The family initially tried to portray her death as a “heart attack” and buried her in the family yard. After his arrest, the father confessed to the murder.

On June 18, a 17-year-old boy shot dead his newly married sister in Kaithal. Minutes later, he confessed on Instagram: “Anyone who takes a Gujjar daughter will meet the same fate.” He then went and surrendered at the police station. The brother was reportedly angry because his sister had married a Dalit man four months ago.

On June 9, a woman from Dholera village in Narnaul district eloped with a man from the neighbouring village of Bigopur. Residents of Dholera are furious – a man from the neighbouring village is considered a “brother” – and have reportedly blocked access to Bigopur until the marriage is annulled by the panchayat.

There are many prohibitions on marriage, from inter-faith marriage to inter-caste marriage to marrying someone from the next village.

When I mention to a policewoman that Tejbir and Meena are not really related, she rolls her eyes. “To the people of Haryana, he was,” she says.

“Young people just rush off to get married without asking their parents and without thinking about the consequences,” she told me.

The problem, says Deepender Deswal, a correspondent for The Tribune, is the lack of mentality change in rural Haryana, where unemployment is high and young people have “too much time on their hands”.

mob rule

In the villages of Haryana, the all-male khap panchayats, or social clans (not to be confused with the gram panchayats, which are responsible for village administration), continue to exert a disproportionate influence on social life.

In a development unrelated to Hansi’s murder, Khap Panchayats met last week to demand a central law that makes parental consent mandatory in all love marriages. They also demanded a ban on cohabitation and lowering the marriage age for women from 18 to 16. These measures, they claim, will reduce the number of honour killings.

“We have no problem with love marriages or civil marriages, but for formal marriages, parents’ permission must be obtained,” said a Khap Panchayat spokesman.

Honour killings are not only a problem in Haryana, but are also widespread in western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. In the recent past, cases have been reported from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Kerala.

According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, India recorded 25 such murders in 2019 and 2020, and another 33 in 2021. These numbers are likely to be much higher as families are collectively trying to suppress the facts, activists say.

Conviction rates are low, says Maqsood Ahmed, because witnesses become hostile in court and families and even communities stick together to protect the accused.

Attempts to pass a separate law against honour killings have failed. In 2012, the Law Commission drafted a bill, but it was not even put up for discussion in Parliament.

This week, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin made it clear that he had no interest in introducing his own bill on honour killings after a CPI(M) office was raided on June 13 after an inter-caste couple sought refuge there.

So far, only Rajasthan has a law dealing with honour killings.

Back in Hisar, the bodies of Tejbir and Meena were handed over to Mahtab Singh. The two were cremated on a common pyre. Their family was not present.

Reading list:

Sagrika Kissu’s report in The Print on the fight against love marriages in rural Haryana

Law Commission of India: Prevention of interference with freedom of marital unions (in the name of honour and tradition). A proposed legal framework, also known as the ‘Honor Crimes Act’

Shakti Vahini v Union of India

Dalit Human Rights Defenders Network, Honor Crimes: A National Shame (name and email required for download link)

The following article is an excerpt from this week’s HT Mind the Gap. Subscribe here.