India: A home-grown Taliban for Hindus

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.”

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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.”