JUST SPAMMING | At Last, A Law To Prevent ‘Honour Killing’

Finally, a specific law aimed at punishing those committing what is popularly known as ‘honour killing’ is on the anvil in Tamil Nadu. Chief Minister M K Stalin proclaimed it in the State legislature on the last day of the winter session by lamenting the continued prevalence of the practice in a land known for social justice, education and development. Is it coming a bit late in the day, some may ask. But it is always better late than never, looking at the way Tamil society now treats love and caste. In fact the Tamil phrase ‘Aanava Kolai’ used to describe the killing of young people who fall in love and get married is more appropriate then the English term ‘honour killing.’

Aanavam in Tamil means arrogance or self-conceit and that is precisely what has been driving people brimming with caste pride to commit the crime of murder without impunity. Such diabolical people have come on Tamil television reality shows and spewed venom against youngsters making their own choices when it comes to marriage. Of course it is intriguing as to why such people, some of them with menacing demeanor and gestures, are given such television space and a platform to express their views, which, apart from being retrograde, also demean the existing laws of the land.

If it is to increase viewership – they call it TRP rating – the channels that called in people, justifying the killing of youth caring two hoots about caste while tying the knot, to their shows should have been hauled up before the law for abetting or instigating ‘honour killing.’ But we only saw the audiences of those shows going gung ho over the spiels of the retrograde people. Now that the Chief Minister has appointed a panel to make recommendations for framing the law to put an end to the practice, which has seemingly been normalized by many people though killing anyone for whatever reason remains a crime punishable with even death sentence, will the committee restrict the television media from unwittingly abetting a crime is a question.

Talking about the use of a ‘sword and shield’ approach to curb the evil practice, the Chief Minister stressed on the need to create an awareness on the issue through a campaign, apart from envisaging the stringent punishment under the law for the perpetrators of crime. While it is a welcome move that the government has now initiated action to deal sternly with the menace of ‘honour killing’, looking back at the various murders committed in recent times in the pretext of caste pride or with a view to controlling the personal choices of young people, it looks that the awareness campaign could be redundant.

When a community or a family or the parents decide to eliminate their own children because they just breached the code of conduct they had laid down for them, no awareness campaign will drive any sense into their heads. The real deterrents for the crime could be the stringent punishment that the new law might prescribe and, more importantly, the plugging of the loopholes through which many accused of honour killings in the past had escaped the long arm of the law.

While modern criminal proceedings, as the Chief Minister himself mentioned in his speech in the Assembly, on honour killing cases always aimed at getting maximum punishment for the accused and even involved invocation of the draconian Goondas Act in most of the cases, many persons coolly return to society after serving short or truncated jail terms, only to remove the fear from the minds of those planning to commit the same crime. A mortal fear could be instilled in the minds of perverts, who think that marrying across castes and against the wishes of the parents is an offense and that they are entitled to hand out the punishment for it outside established law, only if the law enforcers turn conscientious about their role in fighting the menace.

But history reveals that the law enforcers rarely raise above caste consciousness. In the 2003 diabolic killing of Kannagi and Murugesan at Puthukooraippettai village in Cuddalore district, the case was transferred to the CBI for investigation as the local police was botching it up and finally among those convicted were two police personnel, whose active compliance in the crime was established. The police kept quiet when a group of people forced the inter-caste couple to drink poison and then burnt their bodies. Similarly in the recent murder of engineer C Kavin Selvaganesh by the brother of the girl he was in love with in Tirunelveli district, the parents of the accused were both sub-inspectors of police.

So, even if the new committee frames a stringent law against ‘honour killing,’ implementing it could pose a problem unless the enforcing authorities are conscientious about it. But most of the time, as it has been revealed in many cases relating to other caste atrocities, too, that the police side with ppressive casteists mainly due to their own caste prejudice. As the Chief Minister lamented in the Assembly, despite the State seeing a series of social movements bringing in reformations, inter-caste marriage remains unacceptable to many people with some even going to the extent of killing their children when they are defied. So it remains to be seen how a social campaign and a new law prescribing harsh punishment changes the people.