India: A home-grown Taliban for Hindus
Few outsiders realize that India has its own, Hindu version of the Taliban, said Neha Dixit in Tehelka.
Neha Dixit
Tehelka
Few outsiders realize that India has its own, Hindu version of the Taliban, said Neha Dixit. Extremist Hindu authorities known as khap panchayats act like parliaments unto themselves, enforcing Hindu orthodoxy through “honor killings” and other barbaric punishments. Their decree that every woman must bear at least two sons is behind much of the selective abortion and female infanticide in India. But “a twisted notion of tradition ensures the murders are never reported to the police or the media.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Khaps have existed in northwestern India for centuries; each is a group of 84 villages of the same caste, and a khap panchayat can control thousands of villages. Local governments in those areas are afraid of crossing the khaps, which are widely seen as having greater moral authority than the government that emerged out of British colonialism.
That means millions of Indians are governed by “a barbaric system that glorifies murder and lynching in the name of honor.” Until the political will is found to abolish them, khap panchayats will “continue to brew a poisonous cocktail of crime, ignorance, and bigotry.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Why UK scientists are trying to dim the Sun
In The Spotlight The UK has funded controversial geoengineering techniques that could prove helpful in slowing climate change
By Abby Wilson
-
Gandhi arrests: Narendra Modi's 'vendetta' against India's opposition
The Explainer Another episode threatens to spark uproar in the Indian PM's long-running battle against the country's first family
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK
-
How the woke right gained power in the US
Under the radar The term has grown in prominence since Donald Trump returned to the White House
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK
-
Malaysia: Hiding something or just incompetent?
feature It is “painful to watch” how Malaysia has embarrassed itself before the world with its bungled response to the missing plane.
By The Week Staff
-
Tunisia: The only bloom of the Arab Spring
feature After years of “stormy discussions and intellectual tug-of-war,” Tunisia has emerged as a secular democracy.
By The Week Staff
-
Australia: It takes two to reconcile
feature To move beyond Australia’s colonialist past, we Aborigines must forgive.
By The Week Staff
-
Israel: Ariel Sharon’s ambiguous legacy
feature Ariel Sharon played a key role at every major crossroads Israel faced in his adult life.
By The Week Staff
-
South Africa: Trying to live up to Mandela
feature That South Africa was prepared for the death of Nelson Mandela is one of his greatest legacies.
By The Week Staff
-
China: Staking a claim to the air and the sea
feature China has declared an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea that includes a set of islands claimed by Japan.
By The Week Staff
-
China: Is our aid to the Philippines too meager?
feature China donated $100,000 to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan, but later increased the amount to $1.6 million.
By The Week Staff
-
Philippines: A calamitous response to calamity
feature “Where is the food, where is the water? Where are the military collecting the dead?”
By The Week Staff