Last week in Uttar Pradesh, a man killed his daughter and paraded her severed head around the village after finding her in a “compromising position” with a man. The brutal incident caused the years-old social evil of honour crimes to rear its gruesome head once more.
According to the Human Rights Watch, honour crimes are “acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members who are perceived to have brought dishonour upon the family.” These are often the consequence of marriages and sexual relations between a woman and a man outside the bounds of her caste, class, or religion. The most recent event in Uttar Pradesh precipitated a renewed call for legal reform on honour crimes, with many emphasising on the need for a specialised law on the matter. However, is this really necessary, or is the existing legal framework sufficient to deal with honour crimes?
Currently, crimes committed in the name of “honour” continue to be guided by the penalties imposed by Indian criminal laws on assault, murder, and criminal conspiracy. In addition, the courts have also recognised such crimes as violations of critical fundamental rights, such as the right to equality and right to life and liberty, which are enshrined in the Indian constitution. Numerous instances of such crimes have been brought before India’s courts, and all of them have recognised the gravity of the issue and condemned its continued practice. However, while honour crimes are subsumed within the existing Indian legal framework, there are several obstacles that will continue to hamper efforts to successfully curb this social evil unless there is a specialised law on the matter.
To begin with, the lack of legal recognition of the crime has led to severe gaps in data. This is evidenced by several inconsistencies in the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data when compared with data published by non-governmental organisations (NGO) or news reports. For example, the NCRB publication in 2018 reported no cases of “honour killings” in Tamil Nadu. However, a research study by Evidence, an NGO that studies minority rights in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, reported at least 195 such incidents in the same year.
These inconsistencies exist primarily because the official criminal records in India, which are published by the NCRB, report the data for the corresponding section in the Indian Penal Code as per the police records. Since honour crimes are not specifically mentioned in Indian criminal laws, they do not find a special feature in data records, meaning that the police record such crimes under more all-encompassing penal codes that don’t sufficiently specify the nature of the crime. That being said, years of relentless campaigning by gender rights’ groups in the country have led to “honour killing” being recognised as an intention for murder in NCRB reports since 2014. Following this change, the data collection for honour killings increased by 297%.
However, this shift merely covers honour killings and not honour crimes, which include a wider range of offenses, including rape, assault, and intimidation. Moreover, there is currently no legal definition of what constitutes an honour crime. Therefore, even the data on honour killings is not exhaustive, as several incidents go unrecognised or unaddressed due to a lack of clarity about the exact elements that characterise the crime. For example, in Jharkhand, after a female student was killed for wishing to marry a Dalit boy, the erstwhile Chairperson of the Indian National Commission of Women said that the incident would not be considered as an “honour killing” because such crimes were only specific to regions in northern India. This inconsistent understanding of what defines an honour crime has resulted in Indian authorities being disabled from gauging the actual severity of the issue. Therefore, any law on the issue must not only set up a mechanism to ensure that they are reported systematically, thereby enabling accurate data compilation, but should also have elaborate definitions to guide the authorities in recognising these crimes.
Hypothetically, the gaps in data collection could be bridged by amending the existing criminal laws and including a provision for honour crimes, with its definition and penalties laid out, thereby giving it special recognition in the NCRB records. However, this change would be largely cosmetic and would continue to ignore several other elements and intricacies of such crimes.
For example, such amendments may overlook the influence of “khap panchayats”, which are informal courts set up by village elders who act as self-proclaimed protectors of religious norms and traditions. These elders have often been involved in instigating and legitimising murders, assaults, and rapes in the name of “honour”. While these kangaroo courts have been delegitimised and even shunned by the Supreme Court, along with other lower courts (see here, here, and here), they continue to operate freely and enjoy the trust of village locals.
The sense of impunity enjoyed by these informal courts is attributed to the fact that they are only penalised as accessories to honour crimes that are physically executed by other members of the community. However, a specific law on honour crimes would recognise the role of khap panchayats as the orchestrators and the true executors of the crimes and not just as co-conspirators.
Furthermore, a specific law on the issue will also be more equipped to deal with the interplay of caste and gender. Crimes in the name of honour are generally perpetrated against couples who are marrying outside the bounds of their caste or community. Simultaneously, 97% of the victims of “honour killings” are women, with 70% of such women being members of upper castes who have had sexual relations with or intend to marry men from a lower caste. However, despite the prevailing casteist and sexist undertones to these crimes, they do not enjoy the same kind of legal protection as other forms of caste-based or gender-based violence. The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act acknowledges the skewed social dynamic and reverses the burden of proof. While in general criminal law the prosecution has the burden to prove the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt, under this act, if an act of violence is committed in the name of caste, the burden to prove their innocence will be on the accused. However, because the victims of honour crimes are generally upper-caste women, they do not enjoy this protection, despite the obvious casteist nature of the crime. Similarly, the burden of proof has also been reversed in numerous gender-based crimes, such as dowry deaths and sexual harassment. Again, because honour crimes are not legally recognised as crimes specifically targetting women, once again this legal protection is rendered inaccessible.
In light of these challenges, the implementation of a specific law that deals with honour crimes and takes into account causal factors like khap panchayats, caste, and gender will be invaluable in not only gathering data on the pervasiveness of honour crimes but also in persecuting this practice. However, this approach must be complemented with measures to provide protection to victims and awareness campaigns about honour crimes and caste and gender rights.
The issue that remains is the lack of political will to act against honour crimes, in large part due to the political influence enjoyed by the khap panchayats, who are the strongest advocates for this practice. For example, several political leaders in Haryana, including Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Naveen Jindal, have refrained from speaking out against the khap panchayats and have even highlighted their benefits in allegedly enforcing the rule of law on the ground level. This is primarily because of the ability of these institutions to influence votes and impact election results. Hence, while in principle no political leaders will hesitate to speak out against honour crimes and their casteist and sexist connotations, it is improbable that any political party will go as far as spearheading legal reforms on it at the risk of endangering their political ambitions. Therefore, despite the gravity and brutality of these incidents, they are unlikely to receive the legal recognition that they ought to.
A Specialised Law on “Honour Crimes” is the Need of the Hour
Crimes committed in the name of “honour” continue to be governed by the general Indian criminal and constitutional laws, which fail to recognise several intricacies of the crime.
March 11, 2021
SOURCE: LAW CORNER