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GIAN SINGH
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CONTENTS
Sn.
Chapter
Page
Introductory Note 1. 2. 3. The Strange World Of Myths The Adversary Note Rural India : A Different Landscape Rural-Urban Divide Cultural Divide A Story in History Myths Analysed
4. 5. 6. 7.
Khap
Introductory Note
Rural India is facing a tragedy of sorts at present. First it used to be an object of pity; for its hard labour and poverty from the urban high-brow. None cared to tell about the level of expropriation rural economy went through. Now it is under siege unmistakably for all the absurd reasons along with Khap, as its way of collective thought and action. The tragic aspect is that urban educated class, which directly or indirectly benefitted from this loot in Indian history, has come to be the pall-bearer of this cultural assault on this population that is simple and straight in conduct but harbours a good sense of self dignity born of honest labour. May not be mistaken; it is the education, manipulated and designed basically by the British colonialists, which has bred this hostility to keep the system of expropriation going. Urban-rural divide is a boiling pot now. The attack on the very values of village life is done on one pretext or the other and the media, bred and tutored on British traditions, is on seventh sky for the achievements gained so far. None can describe better the absurdity of pretexts than an Englishman of letters like George Bernard Shaw who spoke of such souls of virtues, as he did about his own countrymen. Let us hear him: There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishman doing it; but you will never find Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principles: he fights you on patriotic principles, he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles, but he bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles and cuts off his kings head on republican principles. i
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To summarise in few words, with past experience of the elite class of independent India it is safe to say we are truly following English tradition in this respect too as past rulers desired us to do. What this class has been doing with our own rural population for over past six decades so laboriously, it is being done on one puerile principle or the other and is proud enough to do it with little mind to its victims. Nothing surprising about the fine tradition this class is proud of; it is the grammar of exploitation unlimited. Educated and trained on British traditions, Indian hunters are as past-masters in the game of greed and deceit to overpower adversaries. The siege is undertaken, despite egalitarian principle in the promise book; development as the swan song in this case. At the threshold of independence India was promised the bliss, but now stands betrayed for wrong reasons with motives that are not honourable. None could have predicted it in 1949 when Constitution took shape though few souls were worried over how events went. Events though went by design. Country was led on the rocky path of ruin by pushing rural economy, mostly dependent on traditional agriculture, to a death-trap. It makes a tragic story of manipulation and deceit. Now final blows are planned for its phased strangulation. The current campaign against Khap is meant to facilitate this clearance operation as per script to the benefit of money bags; Khap because of its standing in rural life. It is a well recognised principle in Political Thought that self-management of their life by the people is the best form of governance. No benevolent ruler or welfare state can beat self-governance by the people themselves in satisfaction the ultimate litmus test of any good management universally. Khap practice or its like provided that level of satisfaction and gave cohesive stability to the village community in its long history of survival which no ruler at top, elected or hereditary, could provide in India. ii
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questions of social life are crying for attention. Khap was ridiculed for a period. However, when the concept of Bhaichara got a flogging, the contours of the campaign emerged in clear terms and the response became imperative. To give substance to the attack on the mores of rural life, charge is made that Khaps kill, or incite to kill young lovers who go for their own choice. A new term honour killing was invented to depict it more atrocious than a murder as something rural barbarity of Stone Age. A fictitious documentary by that name was sought to provide colour for this jihad. The whole rural population stood charged for harbouring age-old prejudices on matters Gotra and sticking to its conservative past that have the potentiality to frighten FDI which is so essential now to come here for rapid development. This charge, however, made the object of the tirade amply transparent and its real target too bare and stark to ignore. With this picture emerging, response could not be delayed. We are constrained to keep it as sharp. We watched. Media first dutifully manufactured the requisite opinion before real directors of the campaign came on stage out of dark corners ready for the hunt and start throwing tantrums in concert against the rustics to go out of way. Starting from the blue-eyed boy of corporate world, Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, with National Commission for Women to the Law Commission and stalwarts from opposition parties like Marxist duo Vrinda, Prakash Karat, socialist Sharad Yadav to luminaries like J. S. Verma and many other smaller sundries duly supplemented by NGOs sector that cried foul to demand heads in tandem on the strength of this contrived opinion forgetting all pretences about their democratic faith. The snaring cat was out in the field immediately with its sharp paws ready. The whole campaign against Khap and village life in the country is based on the philosophy of Individualism the life saviour of capitalist mode, dutifully fortified by its iv
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club of rich with such traits of a wild beast has developed a hunger to go globalised for imperial interests in cooperation with foreign corporate capital. The chain of events ever since that year does testify unmistakeably to such a scenario that has gripped the nation. The attack on rural way of life and its practices have come in this context to give it a specific meaning after consolidation of its own ground. Apart from turning rural India upside down - socially, culturally, economically and morally into this cesspool of consumerism with alcoholism and care-free individualism of existential pedigree, capturing its vast resources, including agriculture is the coveted agenda now of this globalised corporate capital both native and foreign. The current campaign of a concerted attack on Khap and bhaichara is not entirely against an extra-constitutional growth emitting foul smell all of a sudden, but is part of the larger plan. There is another dimension to this campaign. The immediate target of the current tirade may be to demolish Khap or at least turn it to a useless position, but the corporate capital - both Indian and foreign has in fact grown uneasy with the institution of family, its biradari / bhaichara and neighbourhood community for a wider kill and Khap is viewed as its saviour. So, the immediate attack on it. Corporate capital knows well that rural India survives till the institution of family and its community remain vibrant. For them Khap is the first target currently all because it is a system of support for rural India to pulsate. It is like its umbrella in need; use it when required and place it folded in a corner when climate is normal. If umbrella is gone, the inimical forces will find the real target closer to shoot. Such is the logic of these hunters by profession. In course of long haul in history, peasants and their other compatriots had evolved this practice to assemble, discuss, hear and decide issues of common interests, later vI
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that media, with its perceived freedom, is being used as a convenient tool to serve sectarian interests rather than remain honest to public purpose. This media is taking its own views on this issue final as gospel truth in search of modernity of dubious nature while making it convenient for the administration to act in the service of corporate capital. The exercise made it explicit. Now, going through the charge-sheet from these jehadis against rural India in general and its Khap practice in particular, as aired by the corporate media one strong feeling has emerged: what Macaulay intended to achieve out of his proposals on colonial aim of education policy for the British regime, more so in the aftermath of 1857, the mindset of the urbanite highbrow in India even after six decades of transfer of power to native hands remains deeply embedded for neo-colonial pursuits; highly ingrained as it is with aspirations and cultural mores, patterned on the western way of thought and its economic structures for brutal expropriation of others for self. Finding our rulers too of the same pedigree, we may feel pained over this signal achievement of Mr. Macaulay, but are least surprised. British colonialists were meticulous in planning and execution, we know. Despite over sixty years of native rule, the colonialist pattern is pervading all over in thought and action to the cruel disadvantage of majority that reels under its rule. Commanding high degree of resources, let us remember, the media first served its master well in conditioning society by projecting female sex as central to human thought and action on Freudian teachings without any mind to social reality and is now bent upon projecting the contrived right of choice as the final bliss for a happy life, taking for granted that sex is an object of entertainment in human society and make quite a normal right for the rich what ever be the cost to dignity of women. viii
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time when the formal institutions of state have lost steam losing confidence of the people and almost gone bust to maintain social equilibrium. State is not now the instrument of justice, neither neutral body to govern. It is only its coercive power that is keeping it float amidst chaos when it has aligned completely with corporate capital to serve. In its zeal to hit, this campaign is virulent in temper, but totally unmindful of bare facts in the case, even while the difference between khap and Gotra/community Khap is easily ignored to have an easy prey. It is difficult to digest that know-all intelligentsia engaged in this tirade is unaware of the difference so vital in debate on the subject. Another notable feature of this campaign is the attitude of our entire political establishment. This sweating exercise has been lapped up dutifully by the leadership at all levels that matters for political, administrative, judicial and legal measures against the errant Khap system in their zeal for modernity they are keen to thrust upon unsuspecting people. The campaign is well designed and orchestrated on command. Home Minister and the Law Minister of the country chipping in at appropriate moments to declare khap unconstitutional was a spectacle never seen before as if everything else is constitutional on earth and merely their announcement can make or mar anything legal and legitimate. They presume to be masters of social life as well. One could see the strange or not so strange coincidence: Law Commission on its part submits a report damning the Khaps on honour killings at bidding of the Home Minister suggesting a frame of law dutifully to curb this practice, while simultaneously an NGO, claiming to work in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs, approaches Supreme Court with a PIL seeking directions to implement Law Commission report and mobilises political class accordingly. While this process is under way to mature, a x
xi
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strong reactions among adherents of this customary practice in rural belt. Media is justifying each and every case of family defiance by youngsters as a new standard for social conduct, inviting in bargain a serious accusation that it is encouraging and abetting anti-social behaviour for some ulterior motives. The media carried ill-informed reports and expressed views that were biased and hostile. Most of the time in zeal, it is completely carried over by one track arguments of its own against the institutions of family, community and Khaps, denting its credibility to a new low. The activist role of media as preacher, on behalf of urbanite arrogance towards rural uncouth is sharp with no mind for to its own principles. This campaign has left unattached readers gasping, when they wish media to remain impartial courier of news, while enjoying freedom on its behalf. For pushing vested interest, no bar perhaps! However, by using such terms as above in denouncing the age-old rural practice of self-management as Khap on issues of marriage and dispute resolution left nothing ambiguous. It also was clear that almost all political parties from right to left and centrists were one in denouncing rural way of life on this account virtually pleading for an atomised society in bargain that so brilliantly suites a thoroughly exploitative regime in place of a communitarian mode. V Of late, more specifically since 1991, there are again concerted efforts bulldozing the country of accepted diversity in creed, traditions and customs for forging it into a nation of conformity according to the political concept of Hindutva of Brahmanical order. For example: whenever there is resistance from scheduled areas against encroachment on their lands and resources, shrill voices start clamouring for bringing those (Adivasies) to the mainstream by introducing reforms of choice or converting them to rituals of Sanatan Dharma and forcibly industrialise their areas. xii
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The subtle message of this present campaign is Brahmanical conformity on mores and culture. They want to deny the right of diversity to the peasant communities. When the Law Commission in its report on honour killings suggested for counselling these communities through elected representative to explain that sagotra marriages are not opposed to law, religion, sadachar or medical science intention is clear how efforts are afoot to turn Indian society to conformity with this Brahmanical order by law. Let us recollect that in the early phase of independence, these elements in power were very keen to forge this type of conformity. It is no coincidence that many laws were enacted in tearing hurry on marriage affairs inserting practises for pan India application with little mind for diverse mores prevalent in the country and so early after the new Constitution came into effect; some even before it. Speaking in the Provisional Parliament on Hindu Code Bill one member from Haryana region complained about the imposition of this Hindu Code Bill from the backdoor upon those people in this country who were free from it till now, as an act of abuse of power. Name any person from Punjab may be a Hindu or a Sikh or a Muslim who has raised his voice that their customary law should be abolished and in place they should have the law of Manu or Yajnavalkya or of anybody else ...it should apply to those only who wanted to be governed by it Even in such time when such Brahmanical rule ...were being enforced rigidly the Jats did not yield to the Brahmanical rules and it has not done so even now. We have never been governed by the Hindu Code and I doubt that you can govern by the backdoor policy those whom you could not enslave mentally. ( CA Proceedings, 22 Sept. 1951, p. 3142-3150) Thereafter, one of such law came as the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 that opens gate for sagotra marriage. It remained dormant since and did not force sagotra marriages in peasant xiv
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conditioned by Freudian concept through Macaulay script of education, on matters so close to the family code of conduct as sex, love and marriage having deep bearing on its social standing and obligation to community behaviour has put it on turmoil, resulting in many violent incidents. Nonetheless, the real abettors of incidents accuse the victims for murders for honour to cunningly shift the blame that is atrocious and amusing too. Media on its part, regularly sensationalise such crimes as honour killing by Khap on hearsay without verification and investigation and editorially takes a position to continuously ham rural India. Whenever and wherever the project to extinguish Khaps materialises as per design, the family will stand to loose its support mechanism and remain dependent at the sole mercy of a thoroughly corrupt formal structure under the state patronage. This will lead to break up of social institutions into atomised individuals a sure way undoubtedly for industrial culture to flourish and urbanise India with no one to regret for the vanquished! A sure tragedy of sorts. India is in virtual turmoil. And, literally. Efforts are on to turn it upside down in the interest of few. There is nothing wrong in change if the future is reassuring though. However, trappings are foreboding. And it disturbs the conscience. The Supreme Court on lesbian relationship and the central Home Minister on Khap recently pose the problem in sharp contrast as to the objective that is intended to fulfil. It surprised many what made the Supreme Court to interpret law that sanctifies lesbian and free sex with a legal system that professes otherwise. When nearly sixty years after the country is free from British slavery, the Supreme Court of India found it necessary to interpret law on homosexuality and live-in relationship afresh as a basic right of citizens to act anarchist and when the Home Minister P. Chidambaram simultaneously chooses xvi
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characteristics and then evaluate things de nova to take the society ahead from the present moss. This presentation is intended to treat the issue in a bit more detail systematically and pin down the falsehood. Previously, a booklet on similar lines had appeared in Hindi. Later it appeared in English. It was not a translation from Hindi version. The present one is the revised 2nd edition. Hope this exercise will be of use to dispel many cobwebs and clarify issues concerning our rural society. Please bear repetition of some formulations that appear in different contexts to maintain continuity of logic for better clarity. Many friends and adversaries both have contributed in concretising the issues. Gratitude to all of them. Gian Singh
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India lives in its villages where still 70% of the countrys population resides for subsistence and a compatible culture based on affinity. The rest are urban centred who by now dominate the scene. At the dawn of freedom the country had a choice to go agrarian or industrialised. The new elites opted in deceit for industrial-commercial mode for its future. Rural India lost the race. Once it was bubbling with creative energy and grit to live with nature. But it stands now at the edge of a precipice after half a century of lost hope without knowing the contours of a rising tide against it since independence. Now the adverse forces are on offence for a final battle to conquer. The reason basically is economic behind the operation and the timing chosen with care. The story begins at the start of our new journey in 1947. India had little to rely upon when it took initial steps for regeneration; self reliance was the option left. It had to import food grains under PL 480 from America initially to feed its population and embarked to refurbish agriculture in the First Five Year Plan. Second World War had left the countries in all continents gasping. Britain had lost the energy to keep its empire. America planned to replace Britain to lead the imperialist world but had to face its rival in Soviet Union which was pushing a different dream, while India choose to remain non-aligned with any of these rivals in the circumstances to take advantage from both, though it had opted for individualism at its philosophy in the Constitution. America rightly sensed the situation and felt the danger for future if India developed its potentiality in agriculture; advised it to concentrate first on industrialisation instead, laying the trap for it. Indian leadership fell to the bait. (1)
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It was a decisive shift too soon. America punished it for its non-alignment but kept her for itself in future if industrialisation continues. Industrial spree will bind India to the world of capital and constant loans for which America will ultimately be the master in the game. Scheme worked to the plan and America had the last laugh. Over six decades of its journey and the future projection make the story for India depressing and virtually painful. Rural India stands robbed of its resources and culture. Its future is in jeopardy and makes a distressing reading. Industrial spree for development in the country had assured capitalisation which produced a strong class of money bags who are harbingers of urban culture and a ticket of death for the village life. Currently an assault on rural economy and the Khap is in full steam as part of the game. Country side is facing virtually a barrage of accusations and ground is being prepared for the final kick. It is interesting to read the list of charges against rural folks in the tirade and the grounds these are based upon. There is a chain of myths that are craftily built around to make the charges look reasonable and cultivated with care. Myths and Myths all Around As usual with all manipulators and those who live by dishonest means, the campaign against rural way of life too, including the functioning of Khap practice is based upon certain well cultivated myths to make it palatable to the gullible. Rulers of all hues in history are known to have survived by this intelligent strategy more than by direct armtwisting. After closely watching the recent tirade on Khaps on incidents of honour killings, it became evident that a set of myths form the basis of this propaganda blitz to hoodwink the public consciousness. These need to be patiently analysed for their worth and give a blow to the falsehood that underline this tirade against rural India. (2)
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As a corollary it is held that female sex is a source of entertainment in human society with the result that males and females both are being led to a life of self-seeking and indiscriminate promiscuity with no mind of its cost to social stability and peace. Slogans coined by feminist enthusiasts like freedom from controlled sexuality, woman is the master of her body, freedom of choice to fight patriarchy have virtually made this entertainment concept easy. The most devastating premise of this feminist philosophy so created to demolish family as a stabilising institution for social harmony was devised to tell woman to be free from dependence syndrome in relation to the family and made a litmus test of her liberation from despised patriarchy, no matter what wage slavery does to her. The rising graph of sex crime is symbolic of a competitive world as money related crimes are in the market economy, characteristically different from earlier crime of this category; common people were not taken over by this virus earlier of present scale. Capital and sex entertainment are two most mischievous creations of those men who love to live by sin and make the society sick of this incurable disease to the revelry of vultures.. The Second cultivated myth views rural India as a cesspool of caste prejudices, conservatism, ignorance, feudal arrogance and pathetic love for poverty. It is a land of rustics and uncouth. Third myth takes Khap as an organisation and an anachronism to Constitution of India, defiling rule of Law, though it sanctifies right of association. Anything associated with Khap is feudal, evil and not worth appreciation. Fourth myth about Khap says that it is caste organisation of Jats and limited to Jat heartland of Haryana, Punjab, West UP, Rajasthan states of North India. The myth takes agriculture, ipso facto, feudal and Jats as conservative. (4)
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sexuality with semi-nude or nude postures to attract eyeballs as a liberating force is taken as higher form of culture, while rural India is supposed to be deep in moral morass where women decay because they hide their bodies. Again, it is claimed that rural folks are an uncouth lot, who flex their muscle power over reason with an in-built mode of caste prejudice whereas the urbanites are symbols of equity, justice, living in virtue and surviving on honest labour! And watch! When the Prime Minister sets a date for converting rural India into a flourishing urban paradise, the presumption turns truth beyond doubting question. The media immediately is hilarious about the target. The world of myths is a strange world. It survives on faith and blind faith is created on false logic where irrationality rules supreme with an air of sublime superiority and selfsame righteousness. When the time was ripe for the elite to strike, myths so assiduously built from day one of the plan were resurrected from the stables to assert with force. This is the spectacle curiously presented with vehemence now about rural India and its practice like Khap. Myths are myths and these may need not work according to the script. That is its flimsy side.
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It is a curious world of charges based on such built up myths that rural people are facing. The disdain against these rustics is infectious and vituperative. In fact, the Khap system is maligned without opportunity to explain and rebut. Despite superior mass support, communities that practise Khap stand disarmed. The balance is heavily tilted at present with help from rulers in favour of the pampered minority.
Let us see the catalogue of lies: It is alleged that rural India is a drag on the economy of the country and that it enjoys disproportionate weight due to its numbers and not for its economic strength; numbers give undue electoral advantage to villages while national economy is facing a dead end due to a sickly body of mass that is being groomed up by an entirely unconstitutional institution of Khaps. The first major allegation is that Khap as a caste organisation enjoys disproportionate mass support and for reasons of vote bank politics commands undue backing from the political establishment. Being a Jat institution confined to north India, Khap is a political instrument of feudal rich to lord over lower castes for keeping its power structure intact. Another allegation says Khap to be conservative whereas world has moved on to embrace liberation on matters sexuality and freedom of choice, that rural India is too slow to change and a drag on onward march of history. And if the country is made to miss the present golden opportunity by opening to West, train will move on, without (7)
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India riding the wagon. This will entail a heavy toll in trail with no option of survival in this world of competition. First Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is projected as sine quo non for development and then country is asked to change to suit the tastes of rich foreigners. The rural sector of economy is sluggish enough and it needs overhauling from A to Z. Khaps violate human rights of the individual, more so of woman to live her own life. It is also made out, such as; (i) Khap Panchayats function illegally when there are official Gram Panchayats functioning legally. They are parallel bodies to these and have no business to exist. (ii) Khap Panchayat is invariably conservative, casteist, exclusive, communal and feudal-patriarchal in character and behaviour. (iii) Being a Jat institution, Khap system is confined to Rajasthan, few districts of Haryana, Delhi Dehat, Punjab and U.P carries no big risk to manage. (iv) Khap system has no history; it is a tell-tale of make-belief; but now resurrected by Jats for domination over other castes, more so women and scheduled castes. (v) Khaps are arbitrary in operation and anachronism on the body polity of a fast moving India with high potentiality in growth. (vi) Khap Panchayat is anti-national and a pack of brutes having murderous propensity as a past-time. Conceding though lately in the day, elites club have accepted that the raison d etre (reason for the existence of a thing or concept) of Khap in rural India is the concept of Bhaichara (brotherhood). They are fearful of their Bhaichara. This is today what rural India is faced to. (8)
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the abode of honest labour with a strong sense of oneness, working through bhaichara wherein principle of equality predominates, despite inroads of alien features it is lately infected due to a process assiduously released here since the new Constitution became operational in the year 1950. These characteristics of rural economy are not due to some inherent goodness of a ruralite, but because of its principal avocation of a settled life. Subsistence agriculture cannot do without these. Its active social life contains features that go to make the mode of existence special as its way to live. Mutual dependence, cooperation and sense of sharing trials and tribulations of daily shores here make agriculture, animal husbandry and other allied occupations reasonably workable to sustain in a difficult terrain and hostile system around with uncertain climate to bear. It is different from those professions of easy gain in urban and semi-urban centres of money which flourish on expropriation, manipulations, cheating, black-marketing/hoarding and adultery, where money begets money and cooperation/ dependence goes by selfish ends to garner maximum profit in a cut-throat market. So is its culture. The basic unit of a village is the family as an organic whole with common economic interests, pursuits and resources to share collectively, consisting of individuals as its essential limbs in relationship with a sense of relative equity, collective way of life and aspirations. Likewise, family is simultaneously the basic unit also of a community with common interest and culture residing in a particular habitat at a time and beyond with affinity of bhaichara. The urban family is a conglomeration of individual interests and tastes to pursue largely on ones own labour/talent. The difference between these two is largely due to the nature of professions in different environments around. Community/biradari in a rural setting is lineal neighbourhood, with common culture, traditions and customs (10)
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developed here with such restrictions and never endowed with absolute authority getting 1/6 of the produce for its expenses like other services, while Western history saw state authority as divinely ordained and absolute as colonial India had to experience a defining difference between the two. It is beyond Indian ethos to take authority of state in absolute terms. To assemble and interact between themselves is a natural right with the people all over, requiring no recognition from anyone ever except themselves. This autonomy is sacred and Khap symbolises this truth. It is unjust to force an alien concept of state authority on the unwilling masses in rural India particularly. The colonial vestige must go for good reasons. Corporate India, relying on the support of pliant State and a middle class of constantly fluctuating philosophy of life, is not prepared however to concede this right to this section of people lest their economic interests suffer. The Indian State on its part is keen to the level of desperation to intrude and invade the hearth and homes, including the private lives of the people more than British did. It is ever keen to preside over even the relations between parents and their siblings. It loves to keep the colonial traditions of state intact to serve the corporate world, while denying this natural right to citizens on the spacious plea of safeguarding freedom of individual from family attachments, though once freedom of individual was deemed against the state. Historically speaking, the state has usurped this right without any tangible mandate from its citizens. This situation is a net result of not challenging the principle of eminent domain which British rulers here had propounded first to consolidate their hold on the economic loot and later Indian Constitution adopted it, despite opposition, for pursuing a beaten path of grabbibg natural resources in the name of development. This played havoc with the life of Indian people and must be repudiated if (12)
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wider circle of cultural oneness. Cardinals of rural society The rural life may not be ideal today but still five essential and basic characteristics of its own lace it to make it work and pull to new horizons on way to progress infinite. One is functional Bhaichara laced with a strong sense o f equality. Second, strong sense of oneness, cohesiveness or Samuhik way of existence. Third, cooperation or Sehbhagita. Fourth, tolerance ( sahensheelta ) or accommodation and fifth, openness in dealings. With any one of these essentials missing, village life looses substance to its detriment. The whole formation of village life revolves around on these basics in the web of relationships. Bhaichara is central to rural life, why Yes, raison d etre, the very basis of rural life is Bhaichara (Brotherhood). It is the very strength of its life. Bhaichara is a creation of its socio-economic life and is bound to remain relevant till the traditional Kisani persists. It did surprise many why Bhaichara became such a red rag all of a sudden with the current jihad against Khap. There is a reason for the corporate world to be uneasy with the concept of bhaichara with village life. It is a big roadblock to its present ambition of subduing rural sector in accordance with its intent to go for the kill as propounded by Government of India through its New Agriculture Policy floated in the year 2000 on spurious pleas and contrived concepts. Finding bhaichara as antithetic to individualism, the protagonists of market economy are annoyed too that this concept still goes on to regulate village life; perhaps finding this concept as an insurmountable hurdle in exercising freedom of choice in matters of sexual extravaganza and more. As the masters of state have a declared agenda to dispense with traditional agriculture to make way for corporate agriculture in India ostensibly to feed teeming (14)
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of wilderness without its support system like an umbrella for a man/woman in need. If one does not want to disarm rural society completely, Khap system is indispensible for any sensible person to support and support strongly. That is the reason why there is so much angry reaction from rural India when Khap is made the target of attack by the elites; they feel and rightly that rural population is being forcefully disarmed to wild forces of greed and disharmony. Individualism is a curse The significant difference between two contending cultures associated with agriculture along with its allied occupations on the one hand and the industrial-commercial complex on the other side lies between collective way of life and individualism respectively. Individualism is the lifeline of production and distribution mode which has essentially the individual as it labour-unit with selfish ends in front, while agriculture mode rests on family-labour as its unit of production and consumption keeping interest of the collectivity in focus. This lays the philosophical base of both and underlines respective values of life and thought to essentially shape mode of existence for each. The choice lies for one to select the set. Admixture of both will produce cocktail in sin largely due to the vicious nature of money. Individualism since necessarily breeds clash of interests at the cost of cohesion in social relations, it is as philosophy a curse for rural way of life and cannot but remain harmful to its social mores and values. It is bound to break family and community relations to the advantage of capital-centred mode of existence and to the detriment of subsistence agriculture based on family labour. It is the law. Unfortunately, the insidious influence of individualism has made serious inroads in the rural sector and is being injected assiduously of late by an invading culture sponsored by industrial-commercial combine to win, though the defining character of rural life is its habitual faith in collective (16)
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instead is duly infectious and magnetic in effect. The past and the present provide ample instances to have confidence on collective way of life. To ascribe human progress on individual interest as a defining element is to belie history. In recent cases of disputes, including some with fall out of honour killings it sharply came out that among Jats, which is a farming community largely with deep characteristics of its profession in its culture, mode and mores of life, a change is visible of a wrong variety; it is afflicted with some of the worst characteristics essentially associated with the industrial cum- commercial mode that are eroding deeply its original traits with irreparable damage to its future as a dynamic community. The afflictions coming from different professions may signal conversion to a new type but it necessarily may not always mean a better option either to choose from cultural point of view. Let it be remembered that property mind, jealousy and fierce cut-throat race for grabbing at the cost of others that this commercial culture breeds every moment, every hour without fail, are some such symptoms of a different profession than agriculture, which constantly go to erode community life and feelings of oneness with each other. To reconcile with this transformation on the basis of the myth that it represents progress to modernity is not always a happy choice. Read on....
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Rural-Urban Divide
Before proceeding on subject of this study let it be made clear what India stands for and what it is passing through presently. India is a country with vast natural and human resources who had had a dream; with a potentiality when British rulers left its shores in 1947 after a pitched battle to stay on. They left reluctantly and with vengeance. In vengeance of a trader with a long experience of the ruler too, they bled it and did what they could to sow seeds of distrust among different sections of its population fanning division of various kinds with a legacy of legal web. At the same time, they were cunning enough to extract assurances from inheritors of Raj for safe-guarding their economic interests in the changed equations with new dispensation. Though history stood against the colonialists, they could play upon the aspirations of the new rulers. They could not stay any longer, but ensured whispering influence with them. People here, however, were up for their natural right to manage its own affairs. Enough was enough; they had suffered too long. British colonialists had given a bloody nose and ravaged this nation without mercy and with no sense of regret for sins to its history. Indians were not prepared to bear further. The day came. And it was the midnight hour of 14-15th. August 1947. Amidst agony, they rejoiced to win freedom at last. They remembered their valiant ancestors of 1857-58 with tears of joy. It was a day to remember with no regret for the failures the nation had suffered on the way to freedom after a long journey of sacrifices. The nation paid tributes to the fallen soldiers of the long struggle for emancipation. (19)
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It is a country of vast land mass, endowed with rich forest and mineral wealth and varied climatic zones to enjoy where a laborious but simple hearted labouring force has sufficient grit to live and live with dignity that many others wish to possess. With such a legacy behind its dreams of hope, India arose from the ashes virtually in 1947. India and Pakistan were born on the day as two independent nations out of one, much due to the machinations of a colonial master deeply wounded for loosing possession of the precious gem despite all tricks to confuse and confound. It was a newly born nation in India that had cultivated a sense of bright sunrise on that midnight hour to look to the future. It had inherited nothing substantial from the old regime to rely upon for its onward journey on that hour of hope and despair but a steely structure, which knew only to rule. The grit of its population was the asset. But again, history seems to have played truant to its future and cheated this nation for not being vigilant of its crafty leaders. By 1991 they could muster enough courage to declare this nation again open to all those who had ravaged its past and blinded the future to loot and share. The pace is astounding this time and the dissent not tolerated. The rush to obtain peculiar uniformity during these six decades is both unprecedented and ruthless at the same time. It debased the morale and mores more than anything else this time by contrived consent. The level of the divide between rural and urban India is astounding. Rural India is under complete siege it experienced so acutely never before. Urban India now represents a new face on this land mass. It is rich and arrogant. It is malicious towards its working population, its future, its dream of peace and prosperity with justice to all. The urban dream is to dominate the world as East India Company once did it to India with ruthlessness and cunningness where need arise. It is out to take over rural India for its resources. (20)
Khap
None could have bargained for this fate when the mandarins had defined development for them in 1991 in their eloquence best. It was done all in the name of a paradise. The future of young generation was placed virtually at stake, despite a few getting into the bandwagon of the new masters. Remember, many had chance likewise to ride the British wagon too during slavery period. Same unmistakeable reality stares now in the eyes to every ones despair. Situation, however, is much despairing and complex for redemption. Countrymen stand much more divided and divided crosswise than what they were in pre-independence period due to crafty machinations of the native rulers. The growth rate of cities was 10.07 % during 1991-01 and it has increased to 53.75 % in the current decade of 200111. It is not for nothing. One senior journalist has succinctly put it: From late 1990s, as the agrarian crisis began to bite, communities started to migrate. The crisis however was contrived and without mandate, describing the hollowness of our democratic pretentions. Let us watch the growth: Rural Urban Rural Urban increase increase increase over previous overprevious minus 1901 238.4 212.5 25.9 1911 252.1 226.2 13.7 25.9 0.0 13.7 1921 251.3 223.2 -3.0 28.1 2.2 -5.2 1931 279.0 245.5 22.3 33.5 5.4 16.9 1941 318.7 274.5 29.0 44.2 10.7 18.4 1951 361.1 298.6 24.1 62.4 18.3 5.8 1961 439.2 360.3 61.7 78. 16.5 45.2 1971 548.2 439.0 18.7 109.1 30.2 48.5 1981 683.3 523.9 84.8 159.5 50.3 34.5 1991 846.3 628.7 104.8 217.6 58.1 46.7 2001 1028.7 742.5 113.8 286.1 68.5 45.3 2011 1210.2 833.1 90.6 377.1 91.0 -0.4 (Figures rounded off and in millions) (22) Year Total Rural
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Earlier, forces wishing demise for rural India were weak and consolidating. By 1991 they had grown bold enough. Now, they feel empowered to take over. The ground is prepared meticulously for final plunge. The results are there to see and feel. The pauperised multitude is at its knee in obedience and walk out. The scheme has worked to the script. By the year 1991 Indian establishment found the situation much congenial for the kill. The collapse by then of the Soviet bloc had paved the way for the American bloc to lay down ground rules and dictate economic prescriptions in international relations. New agreements were charted for trade and tariff taking agriculture in its ambit under WTO. The outright robbery committed against the agricultural economy in India is unprecedented during these decades. The only other example perhaps is found in America of late nineteenth and early twentieth century when Red Indians and later, the settler peasants were uprooted and vanquished. The expropriation of Indian peasantry, however, is truly tragic in scale and depth. Last two decades wrecked it. Land and minerals are open for grab. Nowhere the ever optimist peasant by profession is put to a situation of such desperation when suicide remains the only option to him, except in independent India. Survival is closed as an option. This crusade on behalf of super rich - both native and foreign in India has left nearly 3 lakh desperate peasants committing suicides in its trail, besides making rural sector as a whole pauper and begging. A minuscule minority has come up as the beneficiary like the British did, to act as shock absorbers to sustain the system and maintain status quo in their own interest. This is the current story. The entire political establishment in the country is in good celebration. It is gaga. The shinning trophy is a prize to be proud of. It is bold enough now to announce and declare the grand future opening for it, with no rival to contend and fear. Rural India is a vast territory as a prized possession for it. (24)
Cultural Divide
The rural-urban divide is not a chasm confined between two economic narratives. The very basis of existence of both is different. While urban life is centred around capital and the rural life is based on honest labour. The wage-labour in trade and industries is tied with the interest of these professions despite antagonism between masters and their servants in terms of wages, while the free family labour is the unit in rural sector. Trade-commerce and industry form the firm foundation of urban life when agriculture-animal husbandry along with allied avocations is the principal mode of production for rural India. Urban centres represent capital, while villages broadly are centres of labour. Despite efforts in convergence, this is a clear division between the two. And this makes a lot of difference. All because of their respective avocations, city life reverberates with sparkling individualism, while villages are for collective way of life. This is how both sectors of economy operate to give substance to their respective social-cultural life. India is a country largely of settled life, despite pockets of migrant labour in seasons who keep rooted to their parental places with ethnic pride intact. Still this migrant labour is the carrier of cocktail cultural as per rule. With rising pace of industrial and commercial enterprises this section of migrants in population loose slowly but surely the quality of a settled life and is a dangerous mix. Thus these pivots, the fulcrums in both cases are two different categories that provide cultural frames quite different to each other. (25)
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Before the issue of culture is taken up for this study, firstly, let one point be clear that India is faced with two types of cultures that are in contest for supremacy at this time for reasons of two sets of avocations; largely one centred in cities and the other in villages. While family is the basic unit in rural sector while individual is the unit in city life, though one may live with families apparently. For family, one point may be clear that it is not a collection of few individuals living together to fell apart; neither it is a fiefdom of any patriarchal figure to rule over. It is not uncommon where there is a mother figure that leads the family and its cohesion. The relationship is the mode of existence of the family as an institution of organic growth with interests in common. It is a collectivity of relationships that shapes it to a living organism with a common way of life with common object and harbouring no individual interest, with its own specific history in an ambit of a neighbourhood community. Likewise, the web of relationships is the mode of existence of a given community; it is not a collection of persons or families; it is a collectivity of relationships, having a common habitat and common way of life born out of and centring around common activities in general for sustenance. Presently, rural India is grappling with a peculiar situation that has been thrust upon it. It is facing a war like situation in every rural family between two sets of cultures for dominance since the day globalisation of its national economy was made the central agenda and hectic efforts were made to overturn its social as well as juridical texture, tagging its future with American dream of imperial aspirations having a corresponding culture that flowers only within the ambit of market forces in command, laced with acidic propensities of periodic convulsions. The native culture based on mores of a neighbourhood community (26)
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had grown with the settled communities in its past having cultivation as an occupation for subsistence living in a common habitat in India, called villages. The question assumes significance since Indian elites, including the ruling upper class have come to see everything American as panacea to fulfil its own global aspirations of an emerging imperialist country today while around 68 per cent of its population is facing a future of ruin, if agriculture with all natural resources like land, forest, mines and water shift to corporate sector and this population is turned to serve the new masters sitting at their feet in wage-slavery for survival, which it now feverishly seeks to convert with the help of state power and money. Indian corporate capital finds itself in a dominating position to achieve what it aspires. It has the strength for a leap; six decades of unchallenged pursuit to come up in age with the requisite agility coupled with gathered mass has given it that confidence after managing state establishment to serve it. In a changed situation after the collapse of its strong ally, the Soviet camp, in pursuit of the base to takeoff and cherishing an imperialist object after gaining sufficient maturity in the earlier phase of so-called socialistic pattern, Indian corporate capital immediately took a turn and decided in 1991 to tag itself to American imperialists for further consolidation, like China did at the close of Mao period and take a leap. It is doing now since 1991. In this connection, there should remain no illusion by now about the neutral position of the Indian state between contending interests of masters and servants; it has assumed the role of an armed wing of Indian corporate capital in pursuit of global aspirations with the grace of and in the photo copy of American ruling corporate giants. There is hardly any difference of opinion that the scheme of economic structure needs a corresponding cultural (28)
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character changed to suit the requirements of commercialindustrial enterprises on American model. The NGO sector in India is vigorously engaged to do the same here now. Immigrants are a rootless lot always, having no ground of their own to stand firmly upon and no neighbourhood community to care about. Survival of the individual becomes the law that governs relations with adjustments here and there to iron out patently divisive edges. Cooperation between them is like those of marketeers, governed by the rule of convenience of merchants to the command of money power. Man and woman are slaves to the rule of moneywage with little or no emotional relationship in between. Every one is for self. Self interest guides their relationship with others. Freedom is to be free for sale and/or purchase of their capabilities as per rule of market or dictation of the powerful master. Other fringe apps are decoration pieces to make living a bit easy in the midst of frenzy. Immigrants, unless they are given chance to settle for taking roots for a community to emerge, are a difficult lot to assimilate and are generally not permitted universally to mix with regular settlements. But in America, economy took over rapidly giving no chance for them to emerge as settled communities with a web of relationships, grow into defined neighbourhood communities and consequently the culture also took a different course which now defines an altogether different category with its fangs to fear. The culture, likewise, in a settled neighbourhood community corresponds to its way of subsistence that is characteristic of agriculture, duly supported by a well groomed web of relationships. India is still largely a nation of villages with such settled communities having family-labour based subsistence agriculture and allied occupations that gave it a culture of its own, as distinct to immigrants culture. It is different from (30)
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attachment to any other institution other than his master in the enterprise and the wage that is the firm ground for giving rise to individualism as a philosophy of life at the cost of social relations and its culture. In larger part, like Haryana, western UP, Rajasthan, Punjab, Delhi Dehat, MP, villages are mostly settlements of kinsmen forming a neighbourhood community of relationships. Large number of them developed as habitat of blood or fostered relations. This relationship never dies with age. One cannot renounce it at will. It is sustained through mutual dependence. Take an example: If one member goes out to as a sanyasi with no connection for years thereafter and opts to return, say fifty years, the doors of the family are not closed on him. He resumes his relationship. The force in relationship in a settled community is not transitory, adopted for fancy and to be changed with the fall of a hat. The foster mother or sister remains so and does not change at sweet will, if it is not fake or deceptive in intent. Such relationship remains as good as between biologically valid relationships, provided it is not set in mischief. The culture so developed is ingrained with customs and traditions that act like code of conduct for smooth functioning between families having distinct traits of their ancestors. Villages are thus clusters of kinsmen with a web of relationships that cannot be wished away at will. If disturbed forcefully it will invite uncalled for disaster in trail. Agriculture being their mainstay, villages in India in general and northern zone in particular have been free from Brahmanical order to the annoyance of protagonists from sanatanist mythology. This area has been nurturing a way of life which is more secular and mundane with its own customs and traditions to regulate the social life. For some period, a sort of truce worked that made this area fiercely independent in self governance; interference in community, (32)
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the rules and regulations which you are enacting in respect of marriage and divorce without caring for the prevailing customs. You can differentiate between the mode of life in a town and that of a village and see how much difference is there between them but still you want to enact a common law for both. Having such a vast difference between their social customs at hand, to enact a law which will be against their customs and usages, would be a great injustice to them, he had cautioned (emphasis added). The rulers did not care. In the present controversy developing around honour killings, if someone or some group of people happens to ask for change in such Hindu Marriage laws cannot be a sin, unless one is prejudiced that the demand has come from some people of Jat community, though such killings are not confined to any one caste or community. Laws cannot be made sacrosanct at the cost of social cohesion. There are few pockets of immigrants here or forcefully displaced persons who are also taking cultural shift akin to immigrants. The rapid urbanisation is giving rise to a class of people who feel easy more with culture of immigrants, though Indian towns and cities in general, barring few metropolitan urban centres, had enjoyed community settlements which now are threatened to an alien atmosphere more akin to immigrants. The question then arises: what are the reasons this change in the mode of subsistence and culture of a settled way of life is being sought to that of a vagabond life for these rural folks? Why freedom of sex, sexuality and marriage are touted so forcefully these days and who stands to gain from such nefarious change? Why this time is selected for such issues by this campaign and who stands to loose by this choice i.e. what are the motives behind this tirade
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at a time of choosing by its adversary. So, it has to be studied in this context to know its strength and weakness. One thing needs to be stressed in the beginning: the so-called history of Khap so far dished out is a misleading treasure to believe in, whether available on internet or provided by the print media, including many academic exercises so far done mostly from conditioned perceptions drawn from education bequeathed by colonial mindset. At best, these surmises in the name of khap history are estimates of individuals mainly guided by the very same education system to look upon India as ordained by British Macaulay with a colonial object that unfortunately is shaping still largely the very thinking faculty of independent India. The drawback with such type of research lies in the stereotype pattern that is habitually followed giving no scope for understanding the problem freely, with reason to its specific context. The prescriptions from authorities, designed as these are to kill freshness in thought, have added nothing to objective history. This method cannot elicit credibility. The written accounts then in different periods by different people of variant viewpoints can at best be taken as mere scholarly exercises. The logical reading of human history of its development compels us to be unconventional. To keep the interests of a moving society ahead, the results of such narratives have to be taken with precaution, since these may or may not be a guide to the future. (35)
Khap
To know Khaps from Harsh Wardhan times alone or from ancient written scriptures is merely a leaf from the history that is so far so good. May be, it is named as such at that time. But it cannot be reduced to this span of community life. It has a much wider connotation. For objectivity, Khap thus first has to be explained, defined and understood in its perspective. It needs to be remembered first that Khap is not an institution but a community practice with the people. Being a regulated practice through conventions that had emerged through a long process of experience and generalisation it is given a name but called differently in different areas and regional zones throughout the country and even beyond. What Khap signifies The community practice, later called Khap or Khap Panchayat in one zone and named differently in other, is a system of self-management having no hierarchy and no exclusion within its jurisdiction. The concept of equality is fiercely in practice, so there is no concept of regular/ permanent office bearers in authority or structure. It is the best form of direct democracy, so it does not have standing representatives. It has no fixed or permanent structure. Khap is informal in style and content, so there is no constitution; a universal practice throughout. Through centuries of practice it has certain conventions, traditions and customs to go by. Panchayat word here means assembly and not a body of Panches which is the meaning given to the sarkari Panchayat. One of its defining features is exceptional: it rejects the very concept of Authority in the sense what F. Engels described essential for orderly conduct of affairs in society. Khap belies the inevitability of authority since its inception with success. It is a marvellous innovation in the history of self-governance and democracy that assures a vista opening for a healthy practice in social management and a (36)
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In our country, what is known as Gram Sabha was once called Little Republics or say Village Assembly to underline its essence of an effective method of self-governance under direct democracy of its own make and characteristics, as distinct from the representative form of political democracy devised under the constitutional frame for industrialcommercial dispensation to serve the minority in power. Khap consists of more than one village in immediate Bhaichara area with common cultural affinity linked with others of similar traditions and customs, totally informal but fiercely independent in operation. British for the first time had sensed the strength of Khaps during the mass rebellion against their rule in 1857-58 and took concerted administrative/legal steps for demolishing its strength to avert any future disaster to their exploitative rule. The correspondence from Bahadurshah Zaffar to Haryana Sarvkhap with headquarter at Sauram in Muzaffarnagar district of UP during the events of 1857 had in fact alerted British rulers about its functioning and were quite alarmed about its resilience. They cunningly turned it into a formal institution of local-self administration under direct official supervision and dictation by enacting Panchayat laws. This is still the practice with all the governments at the Centre and states thereafter. Sufficient official reports, including that of an investigating commission, concerning this turbulent period testify to this alarm and the way they later designed to face it. The universal term, Panchayat was hijacked and utilised for the official structure. In common parlance, it is called sarkari (official) Panchayat in place of Bhaichara Panchayat and Khap Panchayat that enjoy voluntary support. Community spans two formats. One bhaichara is denoted in extended Kutumbh. It is also called Biradari (caste Khap for the media) may be living apart and at different places (with no proximate word for both Kutumbh and (38)
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mechanism for self-governance. It is designed to work informally, guided by customary principles of democratic norms and with a solid belief in collective. As a matter of practice, the assembly after hearing views propose ukasa of few to go for in-depth deliberation before proposal is announced in the open assembly by them for approval. Such elders of repute and respect, normally emerging by consent and confidence of all present in the assembly, including the confidants of parties to the dispute are chosen. This assures just discharge of the job. After discharging the assigned duty group dissolves as easily as the assembly concludes and there remains no claim to leadership. Another assuring feature with Khap is its inherent tendency for self-correction, having communitarian wisdom to keep itself fresh and clean with a jealous eye against stagnation every moment like flowing stream of water. Otherwise, no such practice can continue for centuries with vigour and vitality that Khap system represents. Khap: not a pack of brutes When charges are levied that honour killings are common where Khaps are prevalent, some facts of history are set aside. First, it is wrong to assert that honour killings are confined only to areas where the system prevails by the name of Khap. So-called honour killings are as common against deviants in human history as wars are for greed or possession. In both cases, solution lies with removing the cause. Mere idealistic appeals, sermons or threats of stringent laws do not solve either. It has never. Find a country where both evils do not exist. Honour killings do occur in other countries where formal structures prevail. Simply to lay the blame for honour killings on Khaps or enraged family members will not vanish this violence in thin air. Sexual crimes are associated since the times when human sexuality was converted into an object for enjoyment (40)
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Principle of Ha, Maa, Dhik The principle can be defined thus: for the first violation, the community expresses its disapproval i.e. Ha . If the transgression is repeated second time, the community collectively notifies its disgust against the failure in Maa. Only on grave violation repeatedly, the community denounces i.e. Dhik rules its disassociation with the culprit, always with option to join ranks on reform. Killing is no option in this doctrine and scheme of code. This is the principle for khaps to follow, while dealing deviants. Dynamism unsurpassed Khap is as dynamic a system as any intelligent society can have with its functions and operations. It should not be allowed to be usurped by any one and used for fulfilling selfish purposes. Unfortunately, danger for such efforts is greater when politics has taken to only one principle in front; disbelieve the people, believe the system. Let us not ignore the fact of its history that Khap could survive despite the parallel state structure that the British colonialists enacted to make the population docile by inaugurating legal Panchayats with a provision that only official Panchayats would exist in a village. In addition, they tried to tighten their grip by enacting Registration of Societies Act in 1860 (remember within just three years of 1857) with British craftiness at its best. In rural India, the people do have faith more on their own practice than what a legal or official structure offers them to depend upon in times of need. This tells volumes about what and why Khap is so dear to the masses than what elite club describes it to be. But why today elites so vehemently are out to banish Khap like the colonial master did? This closeness with the people that elites fear most. The strength of Khap lies in its informal character with no fixtures to chain the future, where everything goes public (42)
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been wars, but none has described these as honour wars. By any logic honour killing cannot be a different category of murder than what it is. In the present case, tirade in fact aims to rouse hatred among unsuspecting people against Khap truly to the age old saying: give a bad name to the dog and kill it. Since Khap today does not suit a certain hidden agenda to be fulfilled so efforts are to have a nice kill. It is no better than a game of urban high-brow being played with rural people. Simply because its adversaries decry, this community practice in rural areas, called Khap does not loose importance. The charges by this elite group are motivated and have distinct mala fide as are analysed henceforth in following pages of this treatise. One thing is sure, rural India has a role to play in the life of this nation and if delivered of its ills, it can open a new vista for it. Go on......
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7
The
Myths Analysed
problem of fighting myths in a wider field of peoples life is of much more importance than relating merely to Khap. Myths blind the society but help again to build more myths to serve sectarian interests to the disadvantage of saner elements. It creates a vicious circle of sin. Constitutional Test The myth about Constitution of India as the litmus test of fidelity for anything and everything must be analysed for what it is worth first, as also its biblical nature that seems to be the intent of creating it when representative democracy in practice stands bust world over, without exception . Khap is asked to clear the constitutional test in free India for the first time after over 65 years of independence! It was a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice M. Katju that expressed such an opinion when Khap was not the issue before the Bench, without examination and going beyond the due process and without hearing Khap that it is unconstitutional and illegal, merely on hearsay from the corporate media or personal predilection. The opinion cannot have any legal force, unless legislature enacts. Later, when the Home Minister choose to repeat it, as media does, ad nauseam question will arise: was it ever conceived that Constitution has to record everything to be legitimate? The right to assemble is duly part of that very Constitution to which reference is made by such pundits on hire to denounce Khap only to hit rural India. It does not lie with the Home Minister to interpret (45)
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Constitution neither with the media. They are not the arbiter of Indian nation either; legitimately only the people of India are. These derogators are simply arrogating to themselves what is not their right to do. True, khap and family/ community, like so many other things do not find any place in the Indian Constitution. These are pre-constitution creations. Their existence is not subject to Constitution; neither can it extinguish their presence. Only certain socialeconomic processes may do the job surreptitiously. Philosophically, the term constitution refers to the idea that a government should be legally limited in its powers and that its authority or legitimacy depends on it observing such limitations. Constitution or the state cannot limit the society to which it is answerable. It is amusing to watch one variety among crusaders who once were hyper active denouncing Indian Constitution as a bourgeois document in content and openly used to declare their intent to sabotage it from within to bring about a social change of their liking. Now these gentlemen have grown more loyal than the king himself by making it a litmus test of fidelity for others! It is their ideological fantasy or sheer opportunism in politics, one does not know for sure. By now, both the state and its system of representative democracy, as institutions of governance, have come to be associated with a philosophy which has the individual as its corner-stone, debunking family and its community as worthless in matters governance; and not without reason. The basic unit of governance in Indian Constitution is the individual while in Khap it is the family/ community. This core feature of conflict between the two permeates their respective field of operation. It gives to much of the conflict at times. Constitution of India is powerful for its coercive nature, while Khap has voluntary support system with the people for its strength, designed to protect these social practices. (46)
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Since Indian rural economy largely represents labour power and industrial-commercial sector located in urban centres, the state establishment has the agenda to takeover rural sector completely in the interest of corporate capital. Legal and Constitutional frame makes it easy. This gives a reason for the corporate sector going ecstasy over it and through corporate lovely media sings songs and asks others to follow about the biblical image of the Constitution whenever it has to win any battle for it. This happened also when it was to strike hard at Khap. It is true that a concerted effort was made to eulogise Indian Constitution as a document of governance like something sacred just after the day it was signed to make it operational; though before its adoption the talk was different. The nation was assured that the Constitution that was adopted in hurry will be improved upon to accommodate rural India later. The need had arisen for ruling establishment to offset in fact the side effect of a stinging criticism that the draft had encountered from a good number of members and create a sense of faith on its health. This was the position in the Constituent Assembly when leadership of free India had embarked upon its journey in 1947 . The virtual masters of Indian Constitution on their part knew what is required of them by the forces that were to become their main pillars of strength. And they did their best to satisfy the future requirements of these forces in a legal frame. They also knew that the Constitution cannot outlaw everything this class does not like. They did, like the British, to make these institutions of the people irrelevant with disuse or legally taming them despite Gandhis litmus test on the subject; they however could not declare these as illegal entities. They tried but on stiff opposition in Constituent Assembly wriggled out with slight concessions and promises galore. Neither, Khap practice was declared as illegal and unconstitutional concept despite their common dislike for everything rural except the votes in the elections.
(See CA proceedings for details)
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One member wryly commented on the resolution thus: M.R. Masani (Bombay: General) I welcome this Resolution in spite of the fact that neither the word Democracy nor the word Socialist finds place in its Preamble. It is perhaps just as well that those words have been avoided because as one of us here put it in his Presidential Address at the Meerut Congress, terms like socialism or democracy can be made to cover a multitude of sins. The fog of words often covers realities.(ibid. page 92) Mohammed Sheriff warned: after 150 years of turmoil, after 150 years of sacrifices undergone by the people of India ..we have uprooted British imperialism.. let not imperialism be perpetuated in another form.(ibid, p.69-70) These veterans, who had happened to preside over the destiny of a free nation and who sat down to craft the Indian Constitution, were not a homogenous lot. In fact they were of three distinct categories: One was the ruling section in a hurry. Remember the day a draft was introduced in the Constituent Assembly by the Law Minister on behalf of the Cabinet for approval and adoption. The day was 4th. November, 1948 and what he said was categorical in one respect while narrating the salient features of his draft. There is a fine quote: I hold that these village republics have been the ruination of India. I am, therefore, surprised that those who condemn provincialism and communalism should come forward as champions of the village. What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow mindedness and communalism? I am glad that the Draft Constitution has discarded the village and adopts the individual as its unit..(CA Debates, Book No. 2, Vol. No.VII
4 Nov. 1948, Fifth Reprint, 2009, LS Sect. New Delhi, page39) (emphasis added)
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for freedom reached the villages and it was because of the villages and because of their might that India became free. I want to ask whether there is any mention of the villages and any place for them in the structure of this great Constitution. No, nowhere, he replied himself.. had there been such autonomous republics, neither the question of linguistic provinces nor of communal majorities or minorities or of backward classes would have arisen.. (Draft) is not in harmony with our present conditions, our culture and our customs. (ibid, page 212 dated 5th Nov.1948) Shri H.V. Kamath (CPB, Gen.) corrected the Law Minister by saying that the pathetic faith in village communities was not due to any Metcalfe, but our faith in the village republics and our rural communities has grown and we have cherished it with all our heart. His (law minister) attitude yesterday was typical of the urban highbrow; and if that is going to be our attitude towards our rural folks, I can only say, God save us.... Perhaps the fault lies with the composition of the Drafting Committee, among the members of which no one, with the exception of Sri Munshi, has taken any active part in the struggle for our countrys freedom... We learn how our polity in ancient times was securely built on village communities which were autonomous and self-contained; and that is why our civilisation has survived through all these ages. He went on The entire ethos of the proposed system was different from what was expected by the people We demanded the music of Veena or Sitar, but here we have the music of an English Band. That was because our Constitution makers were educated that way. I do not blame them rather, I would blame those people, or those of us, who entrusted them with this kind of work. (ibid, p.219) Dr. P.S. Deshmukh said that I do not share the view that the past or our ancient civilisation is not worth utilising for the future building up of the Indian nation.(ibid, p252) (52)
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Shri Mahabir Tyagi said What Gandhi ji thought about Swaraj? It must not be forgotten that Constituent Assembly is the fruit of the labour of those who worked day and night for about thirty years in their attempt to win freedom. ...it is they who should have given us this Constitution. They alone are competent to draw up the Constitution. ...but since this Assembly was constituted by the British, we cannot think of the other possibilities....But again we should see to it that the Gandhian outlook does not vanish from the country so soon after his death (ibid, p.360) B N Rau as Advisor and main architect of the drafting committee came out in defence and stated that it was too late to make any attempt to change the basis of the Constitution which has gone so far. Bowing to sharp criticism, official side took to the only known stratagem available to them that there is no time left to redraft Constitution in light of the criticism from the members voicing opinion of the freedom struggle and promised a heaven in future. For the present, Article 40 was inserted to mollify the raised tempers. Jawahar lal Nehru said that there is no permanence in constitutions, it will grow and appealed to pass it (ibid, 322-23)! There was a another category that did not bite the bait: One of them Seth Damodar Swarup castigated it, saying that this Constitution may even be the Magna Charta for capitalists of India, but so far as the poor and the tens of millions of toiling, starving and naked masses of India are concerned, there is nothing in it for them. He quoted another member from Congress Shankarrao Deo to say that this Constitution is bound to be rejected, if a referendum is taken. The framers of this constitution at best represent 14 per cent of the Indian masses. This is the bitter fact. (We) have failed to fulfil our duty for which we had assembled here due to various reasons and causes such as party politics this (54)
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On the promise that in future Constitution will grow to the desired goal of decentralised polity a member declared that the dynamics of what is laid down may not allow the hope to materialise and argued that the wish for a healthy growth of the Constitution is misplaced. The dynamics of what has been released with the adoption of its philosophy will ultimately assert against the wish. The official view, however, prevailed in the CA on the intervention of leadership of the time, as was summed up by the advisor, BN Rau. By now, however, it is clear that the undertaking on behalf of the leadership proved to be a poor consolation. Mr. Deo proved prophetic and correct: the dynamics of what was released by the adoption of Constitution in 1949 asserted. One aspect of the promise, however, did materialise; the Constitution of India did grow but in the opposite direction of what was desired then by the leaders of the ruling coalition. It did keep pace with the direction the Constitution virtually had laid and the members opposed; it debunked the majority of the people for whom members then pleaded. The danger inherent in providing a philosophical basis for individualism in the Constitution was not foreseen by anyone so seriously and hence not contested. B. The Great Debate: CENTRALISED POLITY V/S NON-CENTRALISED POLITY: What was at stake in the long debate? Let us examine. Stake was relevant and important for the very future of the nation. Once these basic questions were decided in favour of the super rich, people were dumped again in the dustbin of history uncared for with the state structure strengthened to care for the chosen ward. The people stood disinherited and dishonoured. (56)
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their own potential and engender a milieu behoving the human society with family and its neighbouring community as its strength to stand by. The concept of Little Republic endured the spirit and inspired them to fight against a centralised system of governance which the British had thrust upon India to serve its colonial agenda. One of its stalwarts had reminded that India lives in its villages. By saying this then he was stating an obvious truth and nonetheless important to remind the nation for its future to rely upon. Keeping fingers on pulse of the common man, Gandhi appreciated another truth of its social life, while the left leaders failed, about Village Republics as a living organism and effective model true to the spirit of Indian ethos for selfgovernance and dispute resolution. In the centralised society of today one bomb on the power plant is enough to extinguish all lights and there is no single lamp to light up darkness. But where many lamps burn with little oil in tiny mud pots, there will not be flood of light that dazzles but there will never be darkness said Shankarrao Deo from Congress benches in the CA (ibid Vol. X p. 694). But this was not to happen. There was regret, there was anguish on the point as to how and why that most vital community practice was not in place where it ought to have been in that so-called document of destiny, the Constitution. The community practice had significance not only in the limited frame of life in Indian nation. It was the symbol of other alternative which could salvage the human civilisation in peril, when corporate capital is out to strangle it with resolve to rely on centralised state power. When it was stated by Manmohan Das that unless and until our village people are educated, unless and until they become politically conscious...the village Panchayat system will do more harm than good.. and local influential classes will absorb to themselves all powers and privileges (Vol. (58)
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the Constituent Assembly. It was difficult for the leadership to face the logic and shrewdly relied upon the advice of Mr. B N Rau instead to adopt the faulty Draft Constitution with a promise in future. It proved fatal. Tragedy struck. There is another aspect of Constitution that is relevant to the subject of scrutiny which the President of CA, Dr. Rajender Prasad tried to make while appealing members to adopt the draft. He said: Whatever the Constitution may or may not provide, the welfare of the country will depend upon the way in which the country is administered. That will depend upon the men who administer it. If the people who are elected, are capable and men of character and integrity, they would be able to make the best even of a defective Constitution. If they are lacking in these, the Constitution cannot help the country. After all, a Constitution like a machine is a lifeless thing. It acquires life because of the men who control it and operate it. 7 One of the few leaders at the top who mattered in shaping the future roadmap for the country Dr. Prasad was emphasising the nature of the constitution they were producing while consoling for the faith they had in the personal qualities of the leaders to run it, though now the effort seems to make the same document as something iconic. One thing is sure: the Constitution was viewed as nothing perfect and sacrosanct by its framers as it is made out to be by this new class of mandarins, including the wise men of corporate media and academia. Now, the protagonists of individual freedom are citing the same imperfect document to be so sacrosanct as to decry the Khaps on this very account! This is at least a very shallow basis to argue their case for demolishing the valuable institution like Khap. The truth about rule of law is more ludicrous to argue against rural community practices. (60)
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little republics. Panchayats, even after finding place in the scheme of Article 243 under Part IX of the Constitution are not more than the lowest unit of administration. Similarly, when provisions of panchayats under this part were extended for tribal areas in 1996 it remained a passive piece of legislation. The provisions under Schedule V and VI to the Constitution are yet to be translated to the disadvantage of the tribals and none cares. Then, who is playing with the law of the land; rural India or those elites who are controlling commanding heights of the structure? Not the people by any means indeed. Such is the sanctity of law with them. The dictum in jurisprudence that everything legal may not be legitimate and everything legitimate may not be legal is conveniently forgotten. It is the society which has to intervene on behalf of legitimacy to take it ahead from morass of the state. But at the time when rural India is the target all such fine principles are left to the dustbin. They are called upon to prove their fidelity at the alter of partisan laws. Such is the honesty of purpose with these gentlemen. Theory teaches In conditions at present, the basic question of political science is to define nature of relation between society and the state. It is agreed in general that society takes precedence over the institution of state. In fact, it is understood that state is the servant and not the master of society. This is theory. In practice, however, the state is the monster that has assumed the role of master of society with repressive power at its core, supplemented by an elaborate system of mental slavery, as organ of governance for obedience. Its education system is designed to serve accordingly. Educated class mostly has been acting to advance this cause blindly and faithfully as ordained by state. This is nothing less than perversity of theory as also cheating morality of principles. The state, as its own creation has overtaken the society (62)
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women issues of whatever worth and are gleefully used by anyone and everyone who is out to show off his progressive credentials, howsoever week and a supporter of feminist movement whatever it may denote in the country today. One of two is feudal in the world of capitalist relations that presently permeates every walk of life dominated by money power. The other is patriarchy that is used more to denounce man in relation to woman when virtually both have been reduced to the status of slave to the highly organised corporate capital for mere survival, barring a small number. This is the condition even of those who stretch their necks out with relatively small amount of capital in their pockets and dream to be independent in profession. Credit goes to Indian leftists to popularise these terms, feudal and patriarchy in political discourse for such negative features of gone by era dubbed as regressive in relation to industrial-commercial mode with capital in command holding agriculture synonimous to feudalism. These words are standard epithets for abuse also by leftists to denounce opponents, if no other argument works. Situation has come to a pass that feudal is the word of easy choice to use by any Tom, Dick and Harry who happens to describe any family head in rural India on any account. In relation to Khap, feudal is the word of choice while patriarchy works magically, if the issue relates to woman. It seeks a rift artificially between male and female of 80% composite families on the bidding of foreign and native financiers and raking up secondary issue of contest to shut out the main issue of their lives to save a wretched system! In both cases, the need to analyse the issue objectively vanishes at ease. Such is the level of prejudice; a big achievement for the leftist movement in India indeed but to serve capital, not labour. It is doubtful if the practitioners of this terminology really understand the essence that is attached to it in political economy. Political economy teaches that these terms denote (64)
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art with common man, however, remained tied to his/her objects in nature instead. Break up of family with males and females apart will make hell of it. Does not anarchy will prevail then on its ruin? Again, one must answer whom this crash individualism benefits in present day world? Patriarchy is the epithet which is very popular these days with all shallow supporters of feminism. It has a dual intent to depict the society into male-female divide firstly to induct an alien cultural mode in India and demolish the family institution for a specific purpose to fulfil. It is curious that these critics do not plead for matriarchy either to replace it. They champion individualism instead citing human/ fundamental rights of individual against males in the family. The landlord versus serf relationship of feudal variety has been replaced by master-servant relationship of capitalist mode almost in every field of human activity and money has replaced human values at the centre of relations by this march of events. To find patriarchy between a capitalist husband and a capitalist wife is creativity in mischief. By the way, what is feudal and serf relationship in the practice of Khap? None has come out to detail the accusation on this account. Merely epithets go wild to prejudice the mind of commoners. During the whole debate in media nothing of the type ever was specified. D. Conventions, Traditions and Customs The accusation of an allergic mode from crusaders given expression by corporate media in current campaign for over five years by now against Khap for following conventions, traditions and customs that bind rural way of life as a code sounds more biased that is steeped in prejudice than logic. To present customs and traditions, ipso fact, good or bad is mischievously flogging a wrong horse. Each category of (66)
The most intriguing aspect of this campaign against Khaps and Gotra Khaps is the ridicule these elites heap on the concept of Bhaichara. A myth is flaunted around that Bhaichara is a worthless concept for a modern world of their belief. They seem to be contented with money relationship instead. For them the concept is totally irrelevant, alien and dispensable with no regret to the social cost. Bhaichara is a relationship, like any other, defined and practised as a natural right in villages. It is as it should be. None other can define it and thrust it on them that would rob it of its natural content. At present, Bhaichara is in contest with another type of relationship in master-servant. Bhaichara (67)
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is in rural setting with a definite connotation that has become a red rag with those forces who are spearheading a crusade to make capitalist relationship of master-servant irretrievably dominating for the triumph of their mode of production and distribution in the society. While equality is the soul of Bhaichara, subordination is the essence with master-servant relationship where money rules. Yes, Bhaichara is irrelevant and dispensable for a world having money/capital as its first God to live by. There is nothing unexpected in this abnormal situation where India is involved in a desperate contest between one culture of family-labour based agriculture mainly represented by rural India and individual-labour based industrial culture of immigrants and urban India for dominance. While industrial culture loves leg-pulling and cut-throat market instincts, rural life survives on Bhaichara, co-sharing and cooperation! Two are incompatibles. This is the truth of the situation. Is it open for urbanite elite to use state power and force their way of life and values on the rural folks? Perhaps, they are suffering from arrogance par excellence on this aspect. They can have no such claim of righteousness either. Rural India lives its own life on honest labour as a birth right. This non-negotiable right Bhaichara is not endowed by anyone who can exercise prerogative to abolish it at wish. If change is required, it is for them to evolve it in answer to the call. In nutshell, the present crusade against society is a war between these two distinct cultures that feverishly contest for supremacy in India. It is a war not of choice with rural society but thrust upon it by the evil forces of industrial culture out to dominate the sky. Let analysis continue...
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Charges Examined
It is by now clear that rural way of life and its Khap system are under severe attack for wrong reasons and for unworthy cause to serve. It is also known that the current tirade came in the backdrop of so-called honour killings that is the effect of a definite but sponsored culture to serve a sinister cause . You cannot punish the effect leaving out perpetrators of the cause intact. It would be instructive if the cause that led to the effect in honour killings is examined dispassionately and honestly in the interest of society and its future to eliminate the crime as well as the real hands that feed it. If abetment to a killing is a penal offence, all those who have caused this crime to occur at a scale unknown in past history are to answer the charge of culpability today or tomorrow without fail. Those who are sponsoring revolt against parents for freedom to have sex free from encumbrances, except payment in cash or kind, freedom of choice in selecting partner in sex, love marriage and the like by the immature youngsters and adolescents to commit crime like elopement are also then liable for abetment and conspiracy in the first instance in matters of honour killings. However, the abettors themselves are posing themselves as champions against honour killings by calling Khaps killers instead and subtly shifting the blame on Khap as self defence mechanism! Let it be understood that to kill siblings or kin by parents and/or guardians is not a normal human fad or so easy a task in normal circumstances. Parents are not brutes to their children, unless or otherwise abnormality of highest order (69)
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prevails. Let it be clear that Gotra Khaps are extended guardians, otherwise community or biradari loses its meaning to assemble at call. They are not the cause for such killings; such killings are the result of a cause abetted by vested interests to push events and serve their economic gains. Honour Killing or Defensive Reaction By now, the evil seed has bloomed into a jungle of weeds. It has taken the rural families in its grip for a fatal plunge. Almost every family is in war with itself where its young, more so educated one, are out to pull rag for the worst and those who had ventured in this project with the seed are happy over their diligent efforts. Killing of siblings and parents as adversaries has taken the form of an unending strife putting village life in turmoil. For the media, these were honour killings or retribution for a perceived right for free sex. For parents it is a case of loosening family cohesion forever while simultaneously betraying community mores by the concerned family, giving a fatal blow to the system of relationships that provides life sustaining conditions for them. For the family the happening was like death for loosing its rightful place in the comity of common interests in relationship where it felt threatened for its existence, cutting at the roots of social behaviour that had invited this exceptional punishment in despair to their own daughter and son against deliberate defiance so that others in line may not suffer for generations. In consequence, they court for themselves the prescribed sentence for a criminal act of murders happily, since they know well that such mores provide sustenance for the family every moment as important as free air living in a web of relationships with neighbourhood community. For the westernised intellectuals, these murders are gross violations of a right to life of adult individuals, while for parents the violators of community mores were under (70)
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The uneasiness over this bid in rural area of the country was not difficult to feel, but when the elite hit at the raw nerve on a matter of such sensitivity, tremor is the result. The motive was apparent when the elites started hitting at the very concept of Bhaichara prevalent in rural society. There was no ambiguity left on their part what they want to achieve in this campaign for possession. The allegation that rural population is wary of change has a sinister connotation; it not only belies Indian history but virtually requires to make sex available on demand and is stubbornly sticking to an outworn concept of shame and honour over such affairs, finding expression in Khap. When urban India can flourish without this concept of Bhaichara, where is the necessity for rural folks to cling to it and loose the race for easy riches, this elite club asks in rage. Again, why they are so keen for rural folks to earn easy money out of sin, when they have expropriated rural India to the bones during last six decades with the active connivance of state establishment? There is No answer. The logic is perverse and deceitful. It is a bad counsel; worth a dustbin. The logic has come to justify the concept of freedom of choice, more particularly in context of sexual depravity which they are sponsoring, without any sense of shame or remorse and are asking rural India also to change for this sinful living in dancing bars, night clubs without hesitation and be modern like them. Finding support from Supreme Court, the Executive and Law commission on Khap, these jehadist elements are bold enough now to demand the head, heart and soul as also its will to live in dignity from rural India. The alignment of forces is clear to the bare eye. Khap system is sought to be extinguished to avert any worthwhile challenge to a rule of capitalist dispensation in this land of promise without contest for which free sex is being utilised as a weapon to demolish a civilisation that (72)
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conservative and caste prejudices with instinct not to change. The charge is being repeated ad nauseam, since November, 1948 by all and sundry with glee. But to whose benefit? This aspect of the question is as important as the original one lest vested interests go scot free of the loop. History belies this charge. Peasantry has proved its grit for innovations to improve its mode of operation. Nonetheless, the question may again be looked into afresh. Yes, rural India must change as others are changing. There is no point in marking times; if one marks time unnecessarily, time will consume him/her in course. Marking time is important sometimes for a leap though. The pointless wait also is no option for any one in hope for a bright future. Agreed, and without reservations. However, one point of clarity must prevail. What change? Without clarity about the nature of change, plunge for it sounds a deliberate trap for sure disaster. The country once stood cheated previously at a crucial point in its modern history when a similar ambiguity was used. Gandhi ji was reluctant to answer straight a query from Bhagat Singh and his friends about the course country will take after independence under his leadership. It was side tracked by saying that the question is untimely. Events later proved that apprehension of Bhagat Singh was genuine. The country was taken over by exploiters and people stood cheated as he had apprehended for good reason. So, caution is necessary on question of change. On a premise that villages are cesspool of ignorance representing dark ages of history, averse to change and Khaps are its bulwark of conservative forces, not allowing it to modernise, a question nags. Change in whose interest? It would benefit to remember that this allegation against rural sector is not new; the campaign started well in the beginning of the new innings. It was levelled in 1948. It is again there on the table. A reasonable explanation is required. (74)
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The question about the nature of change is more relevant when the Indian economy is made to advance with zero growth in employment and easy takeover of its natural resources in land, forests, water and mines with the peasantry to serve the rich of posh colonies, turning this vast section as pauper fit for Jhuggies in these urban centres of sin. Rural India is now asked to accept the fresh position of a facilitating server in the streets while its able-bodied daughters to serve the frayed nerves in entertainment industry at command, enjoying five-star comfort for a change in a rugged and dreary life! It is out to advise rural population for accepting this change peacefully, under its benign law and order to bet, expressing faith in a Constitution that makes it possible in a free country and where freedom of choice for sex relations is the new mantra as a sure path for fame and riches, with of course hazards of a profession to bear. If such conditions are acceptable, riches go aplenty in the proposed dispensation of slavery of new type that the slogan of change implies. The only pre-requisite is to forget about the good old frame of human relations without any sense of loss and regret. Then enjoy as the other club members are doing. Here lies the choice, gentlemen. Grab it if it suits your taste and temper. With such a pre-decided frame from a hopeless but powerful minority to play hanka to hunt such a majority of its citizens with a natural right to exercise its will, the proposed change is no change but a retrograde prescription for slavery to the rich. To follow such a path of destruction is nothing but a blindness that leads to hell. Simply because this minority terms it as a change cannot be accepted. Any such change that props individualism and destroys family, community, neighbourhood Bhaichara with resourceless existence is bound to affect the future of this country, destroying its rhythm irretrievably. No sensible person can support such a path to ruin and degradation unbound. (76)
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Constitution is flouted more by protagonists The same state structure that the British had devised to rule over Indians for greed, has worked the same way after 1947 with little change despite the new Constitution! Members after members in the Constituent Assembly were critical for wrong prescriptions. See again, to be brief, what the Article 38, 39 and 40 of Indian Constitution said: Article 38 directed that: (1) The state shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all institutions of the national life. (2) The state shall, in particular, strive to minimise the inequalities in income and endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities, not only amongst individuals but also amongst groups of people residing in different areas or engaged in different avocations. Article 39 stipulates that: The state shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing (a) that the citizens, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood (b) that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good; (c) that the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment; (d) ...... that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited strength to age or strength (f) that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment. (78)
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rich started playing their game unchecked. It is the market that teaches man to be selfish, makes stealing and treachery as its art to excel. Present day world is what has been made to be. Market is no friend to man or woman. It dehumanises man, no less woman. The system too loses its sense of proportion and priority. At times, corruption can become an issue with it rather than the issue of farmers dying in lakhs. Remember, British Parliament was sensitive enough in nineteenth century when it took due notice of famines and deaths of Indian farmers, all because of its own policies; but now in 21st century the Parliament of independent India feels no obligation towards farmers killing themselves all because of its own policies of internal expropriation and foreign prescriptions that pauperised rural India. Moreover, presently it is not the market of Adam Smith or Ricardo period. Market is no free game now. It is controlled, contrived and manipulated by the super rich, world over. Those who openly declared their intention to go for market forces in 1991 in India knew this bare truth. Still, they marketed it without least care for the consequences to its citizens, barring a handful of super rich. There is another law. The market forces require capitalising everything in its reach, including human values and emotions. Commoditisation of anything and everything in human relations too for the benefit of super-profit is inherent in the game. Still it was opted deliberately, with little or no mind for the social deficit. The political elite have contributed hugely to bring the country to this stage when everyone is scared of its future. Poverty is a factor, and the state has used it to keep itself rich and the people poor. It gave Indians a delusion of being independent of state benevolence and good economics would minimize the role of bad politics. Moral corruption in policymaking and its ideology, (80)
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of the elites for which rural India is asked to bend in obedience and accept the future of this make. How is India Doing On the basis of the National Sample Survey data on calorie intake for 1999-2000, Professor Utsa Patnaik found that 70 per cent of the Indian population was at or below the poverty line fixed by the Planning Commission in 1979 having 2400 calories per person per day. She also calculated that an average family of five was consuming at least 200 kg of grain less each year than 50 years ago. Food grains are available, but the poor do not have the money to purchase their requirement. Such is the story of development for common man during these last 64 years of market benevolence from the stable of renound economist in power. The World Banks own estimate of poverty in 2007 has been radically revised by new cost of living data which draws the new poverty line at 1.25 dollars at 2005 purchasing power parity. On this basis 41.6 per cent of Indias population - or 456 million people live below the poverty line. This is about one third of worlds poor population. Even this World Bank data is an underestimate because it does not adequately cover the rural areas where the vast majority of poor live. The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector in its report, entitled Report on the Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector says that over 394.9 million workers (86 % of working population) belong to the unorganised sector and work under utterly deplorable conditions with extremely few livelihood options. The Commissions data is based on National Sample Survey (NSS) studies. Going by its statistics, it was found that while 235 million people are in a position to take care of themselves, an unbelievable 836 million people, or 77 per cent of the population, require assistance from state or any other social security network for mere survival. It is the picture after over six decades of (82)
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2013 is the latet eloquent testimony where Indian state is faced to the wrath of the poverty despite development while pushing ahead its policy of robbing poor to pay the rich under its commitments to WTO. The level of mental and physical servility can be gauged from the fact that Indian leadership had meekly accepted the advice to India from American representative at the conclave that met to finalise the agreement on WTO in 1994, to plan/work only for 20 % of real India. And media duly forgot to raise questions over such servility to American dictates that proved disastrous for Indian masses. Again, when Indian rulers had launched its march to liberalise economy for the benefit of corporate capital, the corporate media conveniently forgot to remind the leaders of Constitutional provisions, violation of which has ruined these 80% of population further in respect of the little chance they had to find an opportunity for a mere survival in the wild world of sharks. This is perhaps enough to recount about the respect the ruling establishment has about the Constitution of the land while it is extra vigilant in asking rural India to obey it on Khap, at the cost of their very life. The reason for this duplicity is not difficult to decipher though. Perhaps, dutifully, media is working to keep a lid on its masters deeds. Lies and damn lies (2) Media was eloquent and alleged that Khap is a Jat institution. It did not tell the basis of the charge. Let us examine: To gain control of the situation and succeed, the current crusade against Khaps is crude enough to sow seeds of discord and disruption in the rural camp, since it fears unity of the adversary most. Quite understandable. But it surprised many in the profession when all of a sudden a powerful section of media, disregarding its own code not to help flaring up caste, regional and religious divide, so (84)
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community cohesion because of deliberate policy of neutralising these social institutions by state under its economic commitments, political parties resorted to strike bargain with social engineering for electoral gain. This paved way for caste polarisation as a matter of survival for distraught mass of the Indian people. The adversaries of Khap knew well that the practice is common to all communities for resolving their issues amicably since ages here and any attack on it may invite serious challenge from all. They also knew that the level of caste animosity against each other is hyperactive in India due to a planned polarisation. By projecting this campaign against Jats, the media apparently sought to frighten down expected protests from other communities for supporting Khap practice and leaving Jats alone to fight the onslaught. It was the divide and win strategy, well thought out and planned to details. So, the arguments and vehemence in the media as well as the political establishment, including NGO sector reflected a remarkable similarity. When entertainment industry, especially film industry entered the campaign to supplement it, cat was out of bag literally. Unfortunately for rural India, the other communities tolerated the present crusade against Jats as such and kept themselves aloof from the protest. They could not grasp the common danger inherent in the campaign. In consequence, the establishment found new zeal to interfere in life of the communities, which both the law of the land and practice so far do not allow it to do. Law Commission was harnessed to propose curtailment and suppression of natural rights of communities/citizens in the name of taming Khaps with no protest from any other quarter than Jats. The monster however worked to plan and to their entire satisfaction! A known strategy of all the crooked to beat the victims to blue, indeed worked for a while to its advantage. It was also alleged that the problem of khap is confined (86)
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they want to trade Indian females for riches? Who needs such development at the cost of dignity? It is a shameless advocacy for prostitution. Do these gentlemen want to say that globalisation of economy means this change too? The only relevance of this charge in context of the present controversy on honour killings on questions of love, marriage and sex means conversely that khap should not oppose free sex and the right to freedom of choice in such matters to allow industries flourish on the strength of male and female sexuality. Why khap or for that matter anybody should support such a demand for a sinful profession to prosper at the cost of social cohesion, is the question. This charge can be true only if it is conceded that by modernity they mean industrial-commercial culture where it is money, and not human relations, to dominate when one does not need fellow members of the family and community but the money alone to regulate relations from economic to social, cultural and sexual, if sexuality is taken as an asset on sale and purchase overtly or covertly, to bet. It has nothing to do with love as a human trait with emotional value of much higher level than craze to exploit sex. Liberating Elements : Dignity of Woman or Her Sexuality In this campaign against Khap practice, so-called honour killing is the mascot with the right of choice as a central piece of faith with a raging debate on matters sex, sexuality and marriage of late in public domain and the effort seems to keep the subject boiling by all the leading media centres. NGO sector and the feminists groups particularly, wittingly or unwittingly are putting hard labour on these questions seizing upon any opportunity to do it. Sometimes it appears that few vested interests are behind this tirade like fashion industry, mobile and ready made garment firms.
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the man or the child. It also needs to be underlined that these aspects of social life are not questions relating only to women, unless the approach is sectarian for some underhand purpose. In relation to the liberation of woman from any perceived or real oppression of any kind it is the question of her dignity more important than sex, sexuality and marriage, if her position in larger context has to be studied and deviation contested. This is the first point of difference with these protagonists of sexual anarchy. One noted historian academic from Haryana, who knows her region from urban settings, has in a recent piece surmises marriage of women as control of female sexuality and bestowal of this sexuality in marriage, meaning that a female has no control over her own self. This is the crux of feminist approach to women problems these days and an academic view of looking at things divorced from real touch. Here, sexual relation between husband and wife is surmised as control, but it is mutual control in a married life. Otherwise, saying this amounts to debunking monogamy. The marriage affair is taken as a subject of sole male (patriarch) decision, which in a family cannot and does not happen. It normally takes months/years together of wide consultations before a relationship is decided to be part of this web of relationships. She has not answered whether this control/ regulation of sexuality in marriage is a one sided affair. The whole edifice of feminism (as a distinct philosophy based on individualism) seems to rest upon this premise of looking at things partially and in a coloured fashion creating artificial fission between two compatible categories of human life. This is the reason why the heavy majority of female population does not care about such rants and raves from a sponsored campaign of the upper crust of society, except youngsters of raw and impressionable age where the danger to society lies. In simple terms, the attack is on the institution of marriage, leading to a plea for unregulated sex in adultry. (90)
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back door on a whole peasant community without their consent. Then, now after six decades to make an issue of this deceitful law to force inter-gotra and inter-village marriages giving death blow to the concept of brotherhood that sustain village life and sustenance agriculture is nothing short of brigandry and make such a legislative piece so sacrosanct as to sacrifice the social fabric. Such reverence to laws is unknown to jurisprudence even with the law makers. But the servility of so-called Marxists to this law to beat the peasantry white is astoundingly revealing to their open faith in capitalist order of the day. They cannot claim clemency for betrayal to the concept of revolutionary thought and practice, if sexual anarchism is not their new faith. As an academic she must know that no law should cross arbitrarily the limits of customary practices of a large section of society in pursuit of individual right at the cost of social/ political peace. But, perhaps social peace is not the agenda with the powers that be in order to keep the pot boiling for another agenda to gain ground instead. She admits that honour is a highly elusive and indefinable notion, still she goes on with the concept in usual usage. Perhaps her personal opinion is coloured by the feminist perceptions as normally such educated women carry this big baggage without much critical study these days- an education system that colours vision on a sponsored project as a legacy of colonial past with Macaulay in command still. To look at sex, sexuality and marriage from feminist perspective seems to be the problem when matters are twisted to propagate individualism with its narcissist implications to social movement. Marriage and sex are not ladders for career improvement which the newly educated class of careerists is out to turn it one of late. This is a general trend among them which goes in conflict with the previous concept prevalent in rural society that is breeding a conflict situation (92)
When someone propounds that sex is the pivot to human behaviour it goes beyond the realm of reality to plead for a fantasy that has catered to the cause of commercial interests, when organs of procreation so developed in nature are converted to be tools of joy by crafty minds. It is for nothing that corporate world has taken this premise to heart since then as an effective tool for its unaccounted riches. Let us go back a little and ask: what was the reason that society in general once had remained largely not infected by the sexual depravity of rulers in bygone period of lords; they remained objects of despise on this account from their subjects? Sex urge is a product of biological growth at a particular age of maturity to handle sensibly, unless someone ignites it artificially in his/her brain as is being done for some time past with definite agenda to fulfil. The current outburst of this urge among all sections of Indian society is a result of a relentless effort in conditioning society to this new found faith through a purposely designed campaign to involve human material in sex orgies like they do on drugs. It is a recent phenomenon. Pornography is a super-profit venture these days that also is serving to condition society in unregulated and perverted sex to drug the society dull. It is part of a big game. Watch out the events of last four or five decades and the criminal hands at the plot will tumble down from these stinking cupboards. The immediate target of this design is clear to the bare eye: (1) breaking the family, including its neighbourhood community relationships, (2) demolishing the social institution of marriage through a counter cultural revolution of sorts and (3) making subsistence agriculture, animal husbandry, handicraft etc bust, duly helped by legislations and the law courts for easy take over by capitalists. The concepts of gay-marriage and live-in relationships are few fresh inventions found in this direction through reinterpretation of the same old laws in India recently, perhaps (94)
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these are man-made. This is history. These can be then over turned, if both decide and divisive elements are isolated. Woman and man in natural growth have attained compatibility for perpetuating their race as one of their important task, if both will. Sexuality of both is a related feature to that end and marriage is a social sanction for this compatibility while certifying dignity of both in the web of social relations to keep order in a settled community. This is how harmonious relations have emerged to sustain harmony. With the advent of industrial-commercial mode of production and distribution, this element of entertainment in sex is the worst intervention one could do to woman and man relationship, more so to woman; she has virtually been turned into a commodity as also raw material that is now directly feeding industries in India, including modelling, cat walks (forgetting human walks) without adding anything worth to the wealth of nation, except the fictional GDP for easy illusions to work with. Rulers know it. Marriage is a socially regulated aspect of sex life between two compatibles, whereas forced sex is unproductive and criminal act to the detriment of social order. This sensibility underlines rural life in general. One aspect need be stressed in this debate on sex, sexuality and marriage: who needs uninhibited sex free from social taboos or sex at demand? Why a woman in dignity would like to be as a chattel at all for sex on demand? Clearly, reference here is about women, not overt or covert, lowly or high-heeled prostitutes of any gender by will. Sex, sexuality and marriage are questions of social interaction between human beings. If market forces start conducting this interaction, rather than on the basis of social mores the problem is bound to burst in the face, sooner or later. There is no escape from the tragedy. In fact it has already started unfolding with disastrous effects. (96)
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support to such forays without any guilt for a social betrayal. The newly propped up middle class with aspirations to catch the sky at the earliest is true to its flimsy character for grabbing the bait, without realising the social cost. The corporate world is happy over the kill; there is no call any longer against its policies. The demand for employment has yielded place to much more shrill a demand for freedom of choice instead by the youths with a right of exclusive ownership over their bodies to use as they like and their ire is redirected to their own elders along with other kith and kin. The stratagem has worked to the script and day is saved for the real culprits who destroyed the future of middle class youths in the first instance. Youth and Sexuality The first charge against those who have ruled India for as long as six decades, emerges that they have deliberately pushed the youth of this country to a brute and criminal life in matters of sex. They have to answer it first what made them to play with life of the nation thus. If one claims that such sex depravity is in the very nature of youth, let them answer as to why there were no cases of honour killings or rapes as rampant before 1947 as these are today when the country was considered much more povertystricken and less developed? If sexual surge is such a driving force coming naturally with youths - both boys and girls, as is made out to be by the vested interests day and night to justify any and every act of deviant behaviour, how to explain its lack of such depravity about sexual behaviour among the virtually naked aborigines roaming on this planet, including India even today? Sexual depravity is not by birth with humans. It is a sponsored game. In fact, the ruling establishment stands charged that the present edition of sexual urge now visible among the youths is the product of this effort to make the nation (98)
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sex, advancing the freedom of choice. It cannot be justified as a social necessity. It has no such public mandate either. The government first started posing FDI as an essential condition for development since 1991, throwing out selfreliance policy and now the argument goes to make a congenial atmosphere for these investors from Europe, with their culture of sex as a tool for recreation and making profit from such industries whose raw material is male/female sex. The corporate media in tow is busy to make India soft as a drum boy for this life style. The experience testifies that rural population is less caste and gender ridden than these modern and educated elites are. The recent census data corroborates that the prejudice against female births is more pronounced and span of married life is shortest in this section of population with a skewed mindset because of the education and economic status they have gained rather than the unlettered rural folks in India with no such privileges of a modern life! If these contentions are wrong, let one question be answered forthrightly: who has benefitted from this campaign of two decades for making sex as liberal as is available on demand in European markets? It has led to provide congenial or homely environment with humour tours, live-in relationship, homosexuality or contract marriages for big cats here on professional jaunts or just on a visit in search of low cost freewheeling, as a tool of entertainment and simultaneously boosted designer apparel industry, film industry, tourism and hotel industry, cosmetic industry, beauty and massage parlours, advertisement, fashion industry, and the like (more than twenty in number) where female and male sex or sexuality is the raw material. It is an incontrovertible fact that this market and the concerned industries cannot flourish until woman is liberated from homely sense of shame for selling sex. This (100)
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cost unless their hands are forced to stop in tracks. The task is urgent that needs immediate reaction for remedy. Traditions and customs: Another funny accusation against rural folks is about their blind adherence to traditions and customs, as if this is enough a crime to invite low grade citizenship, especially when questions of marriage and dispute resolution are under scrutiny; both aspects so close to their life style. If someone is averse to tradition or custom terming it feudal, the position will be ridiculous. Take a simple example to understand: there is tradition to treat the mother unlike a Bhabi or a wife in conduct and behaviour, which has come through ages. How this differential conduct is feudal on tradition and sufficient cause to leave it? Then what to replace with? The question cannot be answered by labelling it as moral policing. Britain goes by an unwritten Constitution, consisting mainly of traditions and customs! Is it logical to brand Britain of today then as a feudal state, which it is not by any old or new standard to judge, except fancy? Countries with written constitutions do go with traditions to follow dictations of its institutions. Where is the need then of a written constitution for a country and having courts to interpret it, if one has to go by day to day decisions? If rural India insists to follow its own traditions and customs, more so in relation to family affairs, no one can reasonably argue it otherwise. The present set of jurisprudence too does not exclude traditions and customs. Problem arises only when Brahmanical customs are sought to apply for all through law in a society of diversity.
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Having such tuning, the critics of Khaps/ Gotra Khaps among the intellectual community are mainly those who are themselves crusaders of existential freedom in the name of love and sex taking sex as love and giving the family and community mores a go by in pursuit of an elusive satisfaction within a world of dissatisfaction on failures at the hands of superior competitors in the market. Perhaps, who hold sex as entertainment made available freely, are out to take refuge in S. Freud as philosopher and smell danger in Khap to achieve sizeable company for comfort, after frayed nerves with a day of over-work in the service of masters in pampered city centres of night life! It is a breed differently crafted by a system of education for an exploitative mode. One or two illustration will do. Once a chance dialogue with a research scholar from MDU Rohtak it transpired that patriarchy is what she has learnt from the teachers. It was an admission after her relations with the father and husband were found exceptionally dotting with her own attachment to her small daughter like a deeply emotional mother. Still, the lady was a fully convinced subscriber to the feminist concept of freedom from dependence syndrome. The same University, in response to one query under RTI, claims that it feels no obligation to consult parents before utilising the service of students, beyond the scope of syllabus for which they are enrolled in the university, on the ground that one is adult and needs no such care, though the same institution gets signature of parents/ guardians before one is enrolled for studies. Technically, the authorities of the university are within the ambit of law though, but forget their obligation to the families of their wards and treat the students practically as an individual entity enjoying legal right as an individual free from supervision of the family. There started a search and the result was astounding. True to the ideals of individualism, it is contended that feminism be viewed as a mode of existence where woman is (104)
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Ignoble examples The elite club must be happy about what it has achieved already for its efforts. A recent incident is symbolic. It was a shameful scene for the common citizens to watch, when media persons were out recently on the roads of Mumbai to defend the interests of a slain colleague in media. He indulged in shameless sexual indulgence in course of his official position with a small time actress. She was out to trade her sex in search of a better space in glamour world to earn gold, be on page one or three of the media for a wider market opportunity in the entertainment industry and seek a place of honour or dishonour among super-rich. What freedom the duo was enjoying in defence of which trade union was keen to parade? The Bhanwari case of Rajasthan is another story of example where sex is traded shamelessly. There is another kind of success story of free love for the elite to be happy about, while it is sadly instructive for rural population more as a scary to worry about. Read on: On 19 September in 2009, in an incident first of its kind, two caring families were slated to be killed under a joint operation by the jilted sex-lovers of the same village nearby Rohtak in Haryana. On her part, the girl strangulated all the seven available members of her family, including the children to remain free, one by one while they laid unconscious by poison, the boy tricked and saved his family. Soon after the murders in the night, dead bodies lying around, both celebrated their love and freedom of choice to their hearts content. On arrest both were bold to be free. Heartless murders for sex right! Family members or any khap had issued no talibani fatwa against the two!! Simple fact is that both the mothers of the boy and girl were aware of what they were indulging in and silently working to avert the disaster by their own means. How come such a pass in a rural family having a tranquil past? Both the girl and boy were inspired by modern views on sex in the city nearby. (106)
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like in Kabulpur Garnauthi. Ostensibly, there was legalism in play RTI query in MDU to cover a wrong that is untenable on socially legitimate grounds in a society that cherishes familial relationship lifelong, while in case of other it was exercise in indoctrination of the same pedigree. It was perhaps a moment of satisfaction for these elites on this spectacular achievement of their efforts when sex is as saleable as a soap cake on the shelf without a wink of hesitation or shame, but a spectacle of grief for the families concerned and the country not to be proud of its education system over what it is teaching the new generation of impressionable age. But, the murders? Again, better no question asked. This is a small price for the cherished goal of freedom and GDP to soar to new heights! However, this leaves a tale no one will invite for his/ her siblings to visit, even if the family is banished for a sober thought. This is new times, but of a different variety than what was desired for a peaceful existence with dignity, if dignity itself is not synonymous with wealth. Keep looking around......
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Yes, there is flood of sexual depravity in relations at present. Men/women seem to have become victims to the plot. That was not their nature. Rural areas used to have a shield against any such natural inclination in the cultural mores, which are under severe attack now by those inimical forces who care less about social cohesion and more about individual rights, with no mind to social cost, since the days American government started dictating focus here on individual rights through a chain of paid NGOs.
It is also true that sexual depravation started spreading like a contagious disease during the period of LPG. Everybody seems to be worried about the emerging situation and suggesting ways to meet it according to his/her perceptions. However, there seems to be less effort to study its genesis for a way out. Depravity is not an outcome of any natural process that has gone wrong somewhere. The truth is that someone is benefitting out of this depravity and benefitting hugely. This is one aspect of the problem which is not in discourse at present. Is human evil by nature or has gone amuck suddenly? Is one prone to depravity? May be, one is soft to infection due to decrease in resistance capacity inside and for poor under- standing of the problem. But, it is difficult for anyone to claim that some super-natural force was happy previously and sent Bhagat Singh and the like on this soil but now on punishment all ill souls like Asaram are scattered around on Indian soil in abundance! It is absurd. (109)
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So far, however, it is held on authority that by nature human is humane. But, if infection is injected to a healthy body on purpose and then medicine, fake or half fake, is sold for money simultaneously telling the patient to be careful about the infection by his/her evil disposition without telling the source of depravity, one can understand the bill to the social deficit. Let the wise-men tell also the source of this depravity that lays somewhere and someone is reaping huge money out of it. This is the result of market forces that have been let off the hook purposely to make capitalist mare run amuck. Who has done it? Unfortunately for the commoners, all the organised political forces working in the country are party to it. For a reason: Let us recollect a bit of history. The modern political dispensation is the product of a resounding slogan that had once awakened people against autocracy in West. Equality, liberty, fraternity was a war cry of the rising bourgeoisie when it came out free from agriculture as an independent class of trade and manufacture. It had spurred industrial revolution against monarchy and autocracy and gave rise to democratic aspirations that were found quite dangerous to the rule of capital at a later stage of its march. With released mass energy out of this concept, newly emerging bourgeois class in power felt deeply threatened and devised a strategy to put jinn into the bottle back: it devised a concept of representative democracy, converted cunningly Liberty from autocratic rule of state into freedom from patriarchy and feudalism instead, thus saving the day for state violence. It robbed democracy of its core values and turn society into a collection of individuals and crafted a fresh instrument known as political parties as representatives, to checkmate the unwanted mass energy that may have told death-knell of this new rapacious monster in course of time. It is this instrument in political parties, which has shut the initiative and decision making power of people to a (110)
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it on pretext of Peoples Democracy and few more on the plank of Social or Socialist Democracy. Such deceptions are galore, to hide behind the facade of ideology while serving this charming progenitor -the capitalist class! It is an incontrovertible fact that Marxists or other variant of left parties in India have been following the above quotes to the letter and spirit with disastrous consequences for the agenda of social change that has gone bust so far, while they continue mouthing slogans of Inquilab Zindabad to befool the people at large. Following this, leaders like Bardhans, Karats, Surjits etc have been, overtly or covertly, helping the government to run in the centre smoothly with one pretext or the other so that it serves to consolidate the rapacious capitalist system without much challenge. The above quotes may help clear the deep mist of this treachery if told that these gems of wisdom are from none else than the great Lenin who had shaped the strategy and tactics of socialism in large part of twentieth century that has gone waste lastly. And, faith in Lenin or Mao is sacrosanct with them still, despite what happened to the experiment in Soviet camp and China or Vietnam! Leaders have been more faithful to these teachings than Marxism and its essence. The Indian Marxists of all hues and nomenclature are practically victims of the dynamics lying behind these quotes from Lenin and have been virtually acting diligently and faithfully for the growth and consolidation of capitalism since day one better than the outright bourgeoisie parties. This was also the tragedy that scripted the epitaph of the experiment in Soviet camp, Vietnam, China and others. It makes clear why adherents of the above quotes are so zealously virulent in denouncing Khap in India by declaring this practice as a remnant of feudal moss. They are so ready to strike at the roots of family and the marriage as institutions of social relevance. How family, community and regulated sex through institution of marriage are (112)
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social cohesion, breaking the families into atomised units instead with self interest dominating the scene, including instigation to a dark urge for sex gratification, which even animals do not indulge in. It fully corresponds to the task corporate capital has undertaken at this particular stage of its development to dissipate the youth energy for diversion and facilitate conditions when sex is available on demand without any familial inhibitions. So the slogan down with khaps, and long live women liberation movement makes a perfect combination of the twin objectives explicit that catches fancy equally of both. The slogan from progressive elements do make sense for the corporate capital to rejoice, while it is a foolish hope on part of day dreamers to think that it will one day pave way for the dictatorship of the proletariat to take possession of the scene and set right the wrong they are now helping to flourish. The corporate capital is not any longer worried about revolution from these friendly forces any more.. People need not be fooled around like this with double talk. A patently wrong understanding of historical materialism held mechanically with a flourish of ideological sweep from Lenin is the real reason behind a virulent hatred for rural way of life, including attachment to family relationship and practices like Khap from all such progressives of double faith in the name of fighting feudal remnants, while searching for a necessary progressive stage in capitalism, when at another place these parties have been debunking it as moribund. This is the ideological tragedy of Indian left in following old clichs without understanding the present. In fact, following precepts from Lenin as above, Indian Marxists of all hues have proved not better than minesweepers for a capitalist faith without caring a fig about the mounting miseries of the masses under the present system and practically delaying the dawn of liberating era. (114)
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in the centre while condition of existence of city life is the interests in contradiction with capital of gravity. That makes the difference of fundamental nature and Indian Marxists/ leftists seem to be blind to this truth today when they play with words like fighting feudalism to skirt this reality. They are not naive; their eagerness to find feudalism and patriarchy in rural families and the villages drives to only one explanation that the growth and consolidation of capitalism is their first love at the cost of peoples interest. Unfortunately, leftists in India are what they agitate on the Khap question! It does not surprise. Insiders know what this set of leaders are in fact. Apart from corporate media, Indian leftist leaders, more so the Marxists, are most vociferous on this account against rural India in general and Khap practice in particular for being tradition bound, feudal and conservative. They are bending their energy to the full for changing rural mores in their own image and wish these villagers transform according to their script. For this, they have come up to provide an ideological aura to this movement in search of centralised power for a modern state with none to challenge. The tragedy with India communists of all hues in fact is larger than what they have been saying on Khap. It goes deeper. When talking about Khap they are merely exhibiting their philosophical predilections, without putting mind on objective analysis to arrive at conclusions and then presenting cohesive opinions on issues involved into a practice rural India is so deeply attached with. Rhetoric apart, post-independence Indian communists/ socialists in fact have lived a political life of duality (different from dialectics!); they were found miserably short of communist thought rooted in Indian soil and remained busy throughout in fighting for the growth of capitalism basically, giving it a shining costume it does not deserve and doing everything they could to consolidate this system of (116)
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One can understand the non-left parties when these berate rural people for their emotional attachment to land they till, homes they adorn and love to regulate their own life. They are status quoits by faith. Nothing better is expected from the zealots of the coloured visions. They have squint in both eyes and are habitual to search gems out of barren pebble fields. But when these assumed leftists in general and the communists (Marxist) in particular too talk and act like status quoits, it may surprise many. Not us. We are insiders. The reality from inside is grim what principles and practices Indian communists do have. Before the collapse of Soviet experiment, many of us were also playing the same old tunes of theory and practice that delivered only the same stinking old capitalist garbage with much ferocity. Indian communists did it by frightening people with such fanciful words as semi-feudal, semi-colonial and imperialism, while cajoling the same forces in times of need to play power politics and enjoy as power-brokers. Industrial spree, with public or private capital, necessarily produces individualism on both accounts. And individualism, per force, produces all evils a capitalist system is endowed with, including the commoditisation of sexuality and giving rise to corruption for greasing the rough wheels of exploitation for a smooth push. This is the lesson of old Soviet experiment where communists worked on a flawed political economy on wrong premises and helped the growth of capitalism within former Soviet bloc despite state power being in the hands of communist party with all consequential ramifications to the disadvantage of working masses. Let us recollect that the traditional Indian left forces are responsible to popularise terms like feudal and patriarchy in Indian context after Independence to provide credibility to their fanciful theory that free Indian state is semi-feudal, semi-colonial in character meaning thereby that the primary task in the circumstance remains to clear this (118)
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in its over-zeal for a new bliss in sex industry, employing media to its benefit, as it had done in America with the help of women liberation movement [Women Lib] after two world wars in twentieth century to counter the effects of ruin hoping to tide over by utilising cheap female labour that this movement made it easily available on the streets, freeing women from families with such concepts as singular identity, dependence syndrome, freedom of choice etc. Indian lefts, including assumed communists are doing likewise here now putting females to the dens of vultures. The logic of fighting feudal remnants to strengthen capitalist growth as prelude to socialist movement in India of semi-feudal character proved a useful smoke screen for strengthening of capitalism and capitalist system to new cliffs of highly centralised state power coercive, legal, executive and judicial for the people to bear. To justify their wrong prognosis, the leftists have been inventing time and again feudal elements as false foes here and there to provide an ideological alibi for their support to capitalist growth instead. Experience so far of over six decades in India and over seven decades elsewhere tell eloquently that it is a thoroughly flawed philosophy of opportunism and deception. When Indian communists find feudal and conservative forces residing in every crevice of rural life including rural families, their community practices, their social and community institutions it sends a signal that these gentlemen are craving for a still higher centralisation of state power in the country to hit wrong targets, though all levers of action are apparently to remain in the hands of a state establishment that has merged its identity with the corporate capital working at the mesmerising instance of American rulers for a considerable period as these communist parties themselves are nowhere near the fence nor supposed to be in a foreseeable timeline for their own flawed practices. It is no communism. It cannot be so in 21st. century (120)
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The leadership of communist parties fancifully describe India as an under-developed semi-colonial and semi-feudal state ever since independence, while they are working with its superstructure that is working out to become a world power. These parties were seen advising the same state structure in Parliament and outside as how best to do the job! It is a mystery that despite their labours on this count during past six decades the position of semi-feudal remnants seems to have remained intact; the same formulation is ruling its activities since then, while the capitalist growth in the country has attained a globalised level of strength. By the way, who benefitted from this ideological muddle, except the corporate capital and the state that rule the country while communists/socialists stand marginalised? To become a world power today is nothing but to aspire for turning the country into an imperialist one for the sake of its corporate capital and capture as wide a market as possible, while grabbing resources in other countries for super profits, which the Indian state is facilitating for long. It cannot do it as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal state. Only a developed capitalist country after achieving a definite level of relative maturity can aspire to be one. What is progressive with the capitalist class today by the way? They are finding good tails in a bad creature. In fact, by raising the questions of female oppression Indian communists are taking the fight into families and by making sex and sexuality as issues of prime importance before the mass movements cunningly doing a grand job in the defence of capitalism by diverting the energies of the people from fighting their battle on real issues of life at a time when the present system stands exposed. Their attitude is distressingly similar to more like their Italians, French and American friends on questions of love, marriage and sex; full with madness that borders around (122)
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that sexual relations between brother and sister are progressive, unless one desires to impose your own definition of brother and sister in rural context of Haryana? If people start taking Marxist as followers of anarchic relationship in sex and marriage affairs, how wrong it will be? Peasantry has its own reasons to define the relationship between brothers and sisters for it. Some powerful forces back in 1955 forced their own definition on peasants through Hindu Marriage Act of that year. They took the peasantry by ears on this count. Despite this Act, peasantry in large part of the country, at least totally in north zone, never followed such a prescription. And no one charged them of flouting this Act on this account either. Now all of a sudden, when a war was declared on khap this provisions was made a litmus test of progressive conduct in affairs so close to the mind and heart of peasantry. Reaction was bound to be and it erupted with ferocity. It first surprised many that leftist parties started beating rural areas with this stick too. Soon it was clear that CPM leaders and cadres are out on this issue with an decadent ideology. This fringe among marxist faith is out to utilise state power of the bourgeoisie, including its legislative power, to force change in traditions and custom of agricultural communities, more so of Jats in Haryana, as is evident from its tirade against khap practice, with the hope that through this they will usher in industrial revolution of capitalist variety. It has its own ideological predilections for it, steeped into a totally wrong reading of history, but based on formulations by the leadership it swears by. They take agriculture as synonymous to bankruptcy in potentiality, despite the shattering experiences in the Soviet experiment in building socialism based on industrial spree at the cost of agriculture and dispersal of family and its neighbourhood communities. Left politics, perhaps, must have been more logical and rational than this irrationality on family question. (124)
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It promptly tagged headings like Unconstitutional Khap on 24th September, 2013 as if everything else on Indian soil is constitutional while Indoctrinated people and Silence of a land on 25th September, 2013 to its editorial pieces, followed by a full page kaleidoscope on 29th September, 2013 of highly biased reportage and carried an edit-page article by a known habitually khap-baiter on 30th September, 2013 followed by another piece of 11.10.2013 by a serving IPS officer from Haryana as part of its full-throated campaign which it is carrying religiously for a couple of years now. As if to give it an academic flavour, it carried on 03.10.2013 a piece on the concept of honour in honour killings by another historian carrying the baggage of feminism on her sleeve (though, epithet honour is given to such murders by the media who proves more creative in such matters for a purpose, not by any academic). Another Hindi paper from New Delhi followed it on oppression of patriarchy from a retired police officer of Haryana cadre having strong leftist views of radical variety on women slavery. The Garnauthi case was a plain case involving two murders of wayward youths, with no other party to it either in planning or execution as per details out so far. The ingenuity of these gentlemen lies in the fact that role of Khap has been invented here in this case also to curse the conservative attitude of village folks, though the torn shoe lies on their own wounded toes. Prejudice is so heavy and thick with them against village people that they foregot to apply mind for a rational analysis of events on purpose and with no regret. The strategy seems to be: invent Khap where there is none to hit the perceived enemy, like President George Bush of America did for his Iraq adventure in the service of corporate capital on weapons of mass destruction, but with no regret to the level of destruction and murders involved.
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the message to attract attendance in a hall that the proposal for amendment to Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 will be discussed in a seminar on the occasion. On the eve of the event a press conference was also held to detail the agenda of the seminar. The banners of the magazine were quite visible in photos published in the media covering the event. Since, the meeting came in the background of decision in Manoj-Babli case awarding death sentence the people converged, even beyond the capacity of organisers to handle and capacity of the small hall. How this conclave became Khap conclave only the journalists who covered the story with their little knowledge about khaps affairs know. The lady journalist as above obediently quoted it accordingly. This Mahapanchayat turned out to be a big event where every shade of opinions and groups in khap affairs gathered there to exploit the issue at hand for sectarian ends and tussle broke to capture the stage where original organisers left the scene bewildered to save their skin. It was then a free for all to fish in muddy waters where political elements vied with each others to be on pages of the media. The media made it a khap Mahapanchayat where a proposal had come to collect money in support of those sentenced in Manoj-Babli affair and CPM got its logic extended against khaps. Panchayat denotes meeting in Hindi while Maha project one to be big. But for media every meeting is khap meeting. Ludicrously. After Muzaffarnagar riots, one of the original organiser journalist of Kurukshetra event called a meeting to condole the victims there from his particular biradari on 22 September, 2013 at Rohtak. Hardly 10-12 individuals attended, including a faction leader of his biradri khap. The meeting came in the background of Garnauthi murders by parents of the girl who wanted to marry a boy of the same village on 18.09.2013 in which no khap was involved. The media jumped upon this condolence meeting, turned it into a khap and the tirade against khaps was released with zeal. (128)
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We said and repeat that the whole rural sector is under siege for long enough to make it crawl. The scheme worked, in the name of development that proved more elusive and destructive. In the process, country side is now more of a begging angel, despite bone breaking labour. Peasant economy is on the collapse while agriculture is made to feed industry to the full. Mid-day meals scheme for its loved ones is the mercy after robbery. Dance-lessons and competition from primary class onward is a training module for the new awaiting role. It is a dichotomy of sorts, but true.
Six decades of ruthless and insidious expropriation of rural India has no parallel in world history for its sweep; for certain reasons worst than even what Red Indians in America had to go it through. The current phase of land grab campaign and mine-minerals occupation with state collaboration is intended to tighten the squeeze before the noose goes to breathe it out. Rural India stands prejudiced. What was said about village on 4th November, 1948 in the Constituent Assembly on the strength of Macaulay education is being repeated, despite the powerful rebuttal it had received then. So deep is the prejudice towards rural India! Now, corporate media is doing the job for its masters. Virtually, the whole educated class is arraigned against it for the final blow. Lest some misunderstand, facts must speak. When the new rulers in 1947 embarked upon industrial spree what was the source that had financed the enterprise? Surprisingly, peasants and artisans in rural sector were made to do the job without acknowledgment. Post-second world war, India (129)
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was as bankrupt as any other belligerent nation gasped, with hardly any capital to invest. British had left it with more debt burden to carry for years to come. Partition in addition made it virtually bleed. On empty pocket, country embarked on its march to industrialise quickly. How? Any guess! The only sector remained with it to bank upon was agriculture. Insidious expropriation of rural economy was embarked upon with no mind to its victims. The rural population was cheated over its entitlement to finance their fanciful enterprise. Some bare facts: In contrast to the urbanite organised sector, a highly discriminatory criteria was devised to determine the rate of entitlements for unorganised sector workers, including the family-labour of peasants. That robbed agriculture and made rural economy dependent on urban sector and unviable. The result: One working unit at the lowest rung i.e. a class four employee in the organised sector cannot get on average less than10,000 rupees a month, per sixth pay commission while, the whole family of five units is supposed to live by rupees 390 a month for the unorganised sector. (for more detail watch how Minimum Support Price is fixed by a commission to rob agriculture economy of its resources) The Planning Commission is doing the job for it nicely. And the World Bank is quite vigilant to oversee its job. According to the mandarins of Agriculture Costs and Prices Commission, Indian farmer works only for 156 days a year as unskilled one to keep it at the lowest and suppressed level, though agriculture is one of the most skilled works one learns through lifetime. The entitlement for his family labour is calculated for this period while computing MSP for his products. This works out much below statutory minimum wage agriculture worker is supposed to get from him for a days work on his field for eight hour work. And it financed the industrial sector well through expropriation. (130)
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It cannot be overlooked that Corporate India has reached a state of such strength and weakness that it now needs foreign lands for its jaunts. It also needs Freudian fantasy and Pavlovian science to harness human sexuality, mainly female, so that it may work as a balm on the tired nerves of its over-worked employees for survival. It is not mere coincidence that the question of free choice with due emphasis on individual liberty is sponsored, when the country has reached a definite level of industrial development with this sharp urge for corporate capital to collaborate with western corporate capital and attain the status of a super power. The corporate houses feel confident that their past labour is going to pay dividends now or never. They feel emboldened enough to demolish every hurdles now openly and pointedly, legal, social or cultural to make it irretrievable. If village life is to be demolished and its life style swept away, now is the time for them to do it. But, perhaps, they had not visualised that war between these two distinct cultures in Independent India would lead to so violent reactions as have occurred recently resulting in murders of wayward youngsters or unbending parents by their own near and dear kin on matters of traditional values of the community. This occurred because families exist within a community of shame and glory so important for man to relish or repent in its social milieu. It cannot be wished away so lightly, even if law wishes otherwise. The surprise is because murdering even the habitual offenders is not the rule among village communities that govern such matters since times immemorial. But normal are not the times now, apparently. It is a full-fledged war against rural India that was under siege for long and have reached a stage of zero tolerance. Such is the misfortune of hard working people in the rural areas that they are alone to face the onslaught. Let us learn and beware...... (132)
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Sum - Up
India is free for over six decades from British rule. Villages had the liberty to survive by their labour and allowed to live by their traditions and customs unchallenged while Khap practice with rural Haryana was never proclaimed from roof-tops as anti-national, antidevelopment ever during the early four decades of this period. It was a sort of peace with itself. No crusaders ever came out to teach our young generation about freedom of choice in matters of sex and sexuality, except when femalesex based industries (numbering no less than 20 at present) had started contributing heavily to the GDP as the unchallenged yardstick of notional progress, copying the wild West and forgetting the golden East even at the cost of national ego of super nationalists at convenience, for money!
Now, village life is turned upside down. Rural India is under siege. Its economy is being shattered and resources grabbed. Its culture and mores despised. You are not wanted in your own country to survive. Change or perish! And change according to the script offered. You are required to live for urbanisation agenda. The new philosophy ordains that dispossession of uncouth is a collateral damage to bear in the service of civilised world as fait accompli. It is really a riddle wrapped into an enigma that why the agenda of women liberation (WomenLib) of American genre, as distinct from old left variant, having existential slogans, had never been the forte of such liberal media and heavily financed NGO sector earlier when females were at disadvantage as is the evergreen faith now. Have these forces become more vibrant now? Seriously doubtful. (133)
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Such type of free-hold freedom was never preached earlier ever, except for the last two decades of liberal economy. It is not because these gentlemen have grown more democratic, rather the situation is in reverse gear. The democratic rights of the people are under tight leash of late; they have grown vary of the earlier version of democratic dispensation of their own make and feel very uneasy with democratic rights of the working people. Clearly, these forces have an agenda now against the rural folks for their alleged backward and conservative outlook towards their own life simply because the ruling establishment has set a target to urbanise a big chunk of rural India rapidly for easy take over by corporate world and the media is acting on its behalf to clear the path by implanting a corresponding culture of crash individualism to take roots. Who needs urbanisation of rural India and in whose interest? The answer will lead to the evil design of black forces. In hindsight, one thing can be unhesitatingly said that due notice was not taken of the danger inherent in the campaign from a few arrogant people that started just after independence creating prejudice against rural way of life dubbing it as a cesspool of caste, communalism and ignorance and rubbing village as an abode of conservative lazy lizards in contrast to city life. A similar relentless counter was the necessity to avoid the damage. In simplicity the humble villager started believing the charge perhaps not realising the scheme of things planned against their very mode to be over-thrown for a sinister purpose to achieve. After six decades of a relentless effort, it has reached to the present situation of desperation. The level of prejudice against rural India that has reached by now out of this campaign can be gauged when a retired Chief Justice of India, trained to see through things for truth, J.S. Verma presiding over a Committee on (134)
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as reference for authenticity while the media made its narrations about Khaps authentic on its reliable sources and press releases from publicity hungry upstarts or vested interests to the crime for filing reports in tearing hurry to beat the deadlines. And a NGO working with Home Ministry and National Commission for Women files a PIL to issue directives to Khaps against honour killings without hearing them. Thus, went the vicious circle of making truth out of untruth about Khaps and coloured the nations mind for a law to curb the democratic rights of rural people. The unfortunate part was that affiliate women organisations of CPM are working over night to provide material for the media to launch a sinister campaign to build public opinion in concert with these forces against Khaps. It may be recalled here again that village is completely an autonomous unit in traditional Indian system of selfgovernance and Khap Bhaichara consists of more than one village and may comprise upto 360 villages to have a conclave for discharging agenda at hand. To call assembly of a village or part thereof as khap is ignorance or mischief. Experienced elders of khap system have been zealously guarding the core of its conventions without favour or fear inviting their wrath on even minor deviations to rob off its core values. For example: after a historic Mahapanchayat on 7 March, 1911 which had adopted 28 resolutions at Barona, another conclave ten-eleven years later tried to repeat some resolutions that invited strong criticism in an immediate rejoinder by one of khap stalwarts to his equally prominent elder for such claims in Jat Gazette on 21 March, 1923 dubbed for chicanery and false bravado. He castigated a conclave as Sarv Khap or Haryana Khap when there were only few khaps invited and attending.
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resorting to such hateful terminology that smacks dirt communal language in essence. But when CPM leaders also started using fatwa word for describing unreasonable decisions of khaps in their view, it was more distressing. The lady from CPM who by now specialises in khap hatred is one but she can be ignored for her biased approach. However, in articles and statements when these two words have found frequent use by left leaders and cadres in general the disease semms to be contagious without mind to the underhand message such conduct leaves behind. Unfortunately, these people have their own notion about democracy, which stand emasculated by such interpretations as suits their sectarian interest. This is the story of six decades of representative democracy in the country. For example they claim that once votes are cast, representatives declared elected, people have no right to direct them or ask questions till the term expires. In fact, some where a guilty mind works when such an absurd charge is made against Khap; it is the parliamentary system of theirs where a handful of resourceful leaders of political parties decide everything in the name of electors. Khap is most democratic a system where an arbitrary dictation or rich voice does not work. To tackle issues at hand, it is within the purview of a concerned family first to resolve. On failure, the matter goes to the Kutumbh. Thereafter, it is referred to community or Gotra Khaps for help. Similarly, on failure, Khap of Bhaichara intervenes on call. When the wisecracks of this variety seek to malign Khap by terming as kangaroo courts, motive is to malign and hit it with hatred. Much has been made of a charge against Khaps that they take ludicrous decisions. The cat came out of the bag when it was alleged that Khaps, after declaring a marriage void, acted so crudely arbitrary asking married couples to become brother and sister again in relationship! The (138)
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The state structure in free India is now keen to harness this colonial principle to be intrusive and peep in even the precincts of family relationships between parents and their siblings, which the British masters could not dare to do. Khaps were never found wanting on subjects of their social interests too. These played crucial role in social reforms in the past at important junctures and mustered acceptability in the region. In living memory the Mahapanchayat at Barona on 7 March, 1911 heralded a few unconventional reforms in the community and was followed many efforts in the same direction. Suddenly these institutions have come under attack for indulging in the same type of activities i.e. exercising constitutionally recognised right of assembly, interaction and mediation in family disputes of community interests! The practice is not confined to one caste or religion either. Since there is no such practice with the urbanites, rural India is sought to be penalised for their community practice merely to push urban agenda on the community conscious rural people through sheer force of state apparatus including legislative and the executive. Curiously, the demand for banning Gotra Khaps has become shrill when, under this context of siege, khaps reacted against wayward activities of their own wards indulging in delinquent and uncivilised behaviour. In effect these self styled champions of free love are out to claim a right that does not exist in the society. In any case, such a delinquent conduct cannot be the norm in a context of social life to sustain with any reasonable sense of prudence. Ludicrous is the effort to justify elopement from their families for love marriage as a sure ladder for modernity to attain. The deceitful behaviour involved is not their concern! For love, obligation to parents and family is quite disposable value of feudal vantage to them, leading to such bizarre incidents like what happened in Kabulpur village. To the gullible, girl and the boy were quite modern in the (140)
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and community resources, including human talents. Young males and females are viewed as special zones of interest by them for a lucrative business. In this fast game rural India is considered as big speed-breaker to be removed as early as possible. The tirade throws up many lessons to learn and look both inward and outward to investigate and save the nation and its future generation from humiliation. Centralised Polity The first important conclusion from this crusade against Khap is about the basic character of modern state worldwide. It is an armed instrument of expropriation for the benefit of the corporate capital. Indian state also has gone over by now completely to the camp of corporate capital- native and foreign both with a strong urge to attain an emerging imperialist agenda at hand. It is an aspiring imperialist entity in hurry and has thrown away its legacy of struggle for Independence from British slavery. In pursuance it nurtures centralised polity keen to reconstruct the requisite cultural mould as against the time tested ethos of its own social life. The next lesson that can be drawn from this crusade is the anti-people character of the entire political establishment in the country. Political parties and their leaders of all hues are working to maintain the present state structure that serves the forces inimical to the interests of rural India. Another important lesson to learn from history is for the people to be vigilant about its future and a future safe for the coming generations. Do not believe the myths. Do not believe the political class. Do not aspire to become rulers. Safeguard your social institutions from decay and conspiracies. Keep the initiative alive for collective action to advance the cause of a rational way of life in peace and plenty with a right to self-governance. Assertion is the only way for direct democracy where people exercise their own wisdom to govern themselves with (142)
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ANNEX-1 Theodore Roosevelt on Americas own disposable Indians and their Land Theodore Roosevelt, Chapter I: Ranching in the Bad Lands, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, 1885 I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the Western view of the Indian. I dont go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldnt like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian. Turn three hundred low families of New York into New Jersey, support them for fifty years in vicious idleness, and you will have some idea of what the Indians are. Reckless, revengeful, fiendishly cruel, they rob and murder, not the cowboys, who can take care of themselves, but the defenceless, lone settlers on the plains. As for the soldiers, an Indian chief once asked Sheridan for a cannon. What! Do you want to kill my soldiers with it? asked the general. No, replied the chief, want to kill the cowboy; kill soldier with a club. Theodore Roosevelt, speech, January 1886 Robs comment: Roosevelts The Winning of the West contains several false or unsupported claims. Among them: That the US was generous to the Indians, paying them many times what their land was worth. That the Indians broke as many treaties as the white men did. That they broke treaties at all without provocation. That just and honorable nations can operate by breaking treaties whenever they choose. That international law and morality dont apply to indigenous people. His claim in Hunting Trips of a Ranchman is also problematical. The western (i.e. Plains) Indians may have been nomadic, but what about all the Indians west of the Rockies and east of the Mississippi? What is Roosevelts rationale for taking their land? In Hunting Trips Roosevelt doesnt offer a rationale, but you can imagine what hed say. He made it clear in The Winning of the West that any excuse would suffice. If the Indians were nomadic, they didnt own the land. If they were settled, they didnt deserve the land. If they signed treaties giving them legal ownership, the US had the right to abrogate the treaties whenever circumstances change.
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The Book During its long period of Independence struggle and immediately thereafter a serious debate raged throughout (read Constituent Assembly Debates for detailed reference) what shape the country is to take for good governance. In the given circumstance the country was destined to be a federation of its constituents with high degree of autonomy to govern its internal life. However, situation so conspired that a strong structure at the centre with a strong tendency to a centralised polity was thrust upon the newly free nation with a seeming federal structure. It has led to many disturbing features to emerge during the last six decades of its functioning with lacerating wounds all around. By now it is troubled nation. At its present stage of development, the ruling corporate capital is pushing the country to a highly regimented state for governance to serve its emerging imperialist agenda. It has started hurting the common man in the street and lanes. To fulfil the agenda of taking over rural India, corporate capital in collaboration with a powerful media at its command and obliging state structure, the fresh attack on the very life style of rural India came and the campaign is on for over two years and more, hitting at tthe very collective system to govern its internal life in the villages. Khap system came under severe attack. The book is a small effort to answer some of the important aspects in the raging debate.
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