India's Own Conservative Incest Story

Incest Story In Haryana

Just a few days back India gloriously celebrated its 64th Independence Day but the oxymoron of Indian freedom runs in Indian villages. Nowadays one of the most noted sarcasms is quite in style in national news channels. The noise is quite audible, and annoyance level is also comfortably high. The subject is the most tempting one to mankind – sex.

Haryana, a state in India known for flourishing industrialism and affluent farmers, seems living in the medieval period. The self-proclaimed Haryana’s Khaps are the sham ‘kings’ of the villages. Their “moral judgments” can even make shy to the epitomes of immorality. They do all sort of things – to solve personal problems of family, to give judgment of any conflict, and above all their profound knowledge in ancient gotras, caste system etc. is mind-boggling. A recent example is about a law graduate and resident of Karora village Seema whose brother had been killed for marrying a woman from the same gotra. This is not a new development, but the inside story is more overwhelming. The brave girl revealed another shameful reality of Haryana villages – incest.

"Khaps should look into their homes before passing fatwas on lovers and crying hoarse about honor. Incest is rampant in the state and virtually every home is affected. Where is the honor anyway?" she screamed.

A recent tragedy was about a pregnant girl who brutally murdered by her parents and dumped outskirt of village. Her crime – she had an affair with her brother-in-law.

There are other embarrassing cases found in papers but many lost in oblivion of conservative village shell. The freedom of moral judgment by people is running into license. In yet another gruesome incident that had created much noise in local and national newspapers occurred in Sonepat where two minor girls (12 and 14 years) were murdered for having an “illicit affair” with their cousin. Their bodies flung in a canal by their uncles and grandmother. In Yamunagar, a girl lodged in local police station that her father-in-law had raped her.

The examples of embarrassing incidents and courageous lawlessness go on. In the Kaital district a farmer was alleged for having a sexual relation with his 30 year old daughter-in-law. When the matter went into the ears of village panchayat, they ordered them to separate immediately.

These are not isolated incidents: incest is reportedly a real part of life in rural Haryana.

"It's a menace nobody wants to talk about. Even the elders are setting a bad example, “says D R Chaudhary, member of the Haryana Administrative Reforms Commission.

Some believed that incest is a traditional practice and quite a conditioned phenomenon in rural as well as urban society. However, nowadays due to influence of communication and media nosiness in personal affairs, skeletons are plummeting out of family cupboards. Sociologists, in turn, say that the ethnic history of the region is full of such instances.

There are several factors that make the problem murkier. The skewed sex ratio; 860 girls for 1,000 boys, the conservative society where boys and girls are not meant to speak openly in public, the homeliness of women and social stigma to love marriages are a few of the factors that cause the problem rampant.

As it seems Khap Panchayat keep shifting from the real problem and are more focused on love marriages, or marriages within gotras and villages. A marriage out of choice is not a crime, but incest can be a problem in the society. Khap Panchyat should be more concentrated on incest rather than bullying people who are in love.