More than 100,000 people have signed a petition by Amnesty International after allegations that a village council in India ordered that two women be raped as punishment because their brother eloped with an upper caste woman. It has even led to calls by British MPs for action. But local police and officials say no such order was given. The BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder travelled to Baghpat in northern India to investigate. The village of Sankraud is just an hour’s drive from Delhi. The narrow dusty lanes with mostly male residents milling around are typical of the area. The few women who can be seen have their faces covered. But Sankraud has now achieved a level of notoriety. It’s here that an all-male village council is alleged to have ordered the rape of two sisters because their brother eloped with a woman from a higher caste. The panchayat also directed that the girls be paraded naked with their faces blackened. Fearing the outcome, the girls and their family, who belong to the Dalit caste, have fled their village for New Delhi. It seems that the couple whose elopement triggered the sequence of events had been in love for some time but the girl’s family, unwilling to countenance their union, had forced her into marriage after finding a more ‘suitable’ match.Twisted notions of justice as that which underlie the panchayat’s decision in India spring from an antediluvian patriarchy that is equally well entrenched on this side of the border. The social stratification in the more conservative areas of Pakistan is nearly as formalised as the Hindu caste system and as pernicious; in the sphere of sexual morals, both systems place the burden of upholding family ‘honour’ almost entirely upon women. The outcome, often decided by jirgas headed by tribal elders, can range from ordering honour killings and blatant sexual violence to giving girls or women as compensation to settle disputes. Who can forget the case of Mukhtar Mai, gang-raped on the orders of a village council in 2002 as recompense for an alleged transgression by her brother?
pk.shafaqna.com
