HYDERABAD: A 68-year-old woman who had just undergone cataract surgery was forced to travel more than 266 kilometres for roughly five hours, from Hyderabad to Warangal in Warangal district, after being summoned by village elders. There, surrounded by the elders, Mallamma had to return three grams of gold jewellery gifted to her by her mother at the time of her marriage. The accusation: She had failed to take care of her 96-year-old ailing mother.
More than 13 years after the Supreme Court ruled that community-based parallel courts were unconstitutional, "ooru (village) panchayats” much like khap panchayats, run by community elders, are still prevalent in Telangana, particularly in the interiors of rural Warangal. Villages are still under the control of panchayats, whose unconstitutional decrees regularly strike fear in the people.
Mallamma was admitted to the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital in Mehdipatnam on January 27, for cataract surgery as part of the government's eye health initiative Kanti Velugu, on the same day her 96-year-old mother was hospitalised in Velbelly village due to age-related ailments.
Later that day, she received a phone call from her brothers telling her that their mother had been admitted to a hospital and that she needed to take care of her.
After the surgery, Mallamma was discharged on January 31, and the medical staff recommended that she avoid travel or moving heavy objects. Her vision began to improve, but her joy was short-lived when she received a repeat phone call from her five brothers and nephews informing her that she needed to be present at a panchayat in her village for not attending to her ailing mother.
The point of dispute was the three grams of gold that Mallamma had received as a gift from her mother, and her brothers wanted her to return it for not attending to her mother. The panchayat issued a decree requiring her to return the gold or face a boycott by the community. Mallamma had little recourse but to return the gold, but not before posing a query concerning the land received by the five brothers from her ailing mother.
"I was unable to care for her while I was in the hospital for eye surgery. My brothers, who inherited two acres of property from my mother, reside in the village and could have cared for her. I believe this was a unilateral decision pushed on me by the village elders at the behest of my brothers, whose primary want was gold," Mallamma told this correspondent.
Although these "ooru panchayats", which are made up of 10 to 15 local elders, lack a constitutional basis and are not legitimate courts, villagers congregate around them to obtain quick, unchallenged judgments on a variety of issues, including family disputes, land matters, matrimonial discord and property rights, among others.
These extrajudicial and regressive edicts, according to Mallamma, are frequently granted in favour of persons who lure them with money, liquor, chicken and meat.
With little access to the legal system, the impoverished and illiterate people in these villages are more often at the mercy of the elders, fearing expulsion from the community. No political party wants to take on the village elders because they have large support base and use hegemonic edicts to control the masses.
