CHENNAI/MADURAI: If you thought honour killings are confined to northern states, here's a reality check: a Tamil Nadu girl, who eloped with her boyfriend after she was married off to a man 15 years older to her, paid a heavy price for it. She lost her lover and was brutally attacked and ostracized by her family and community.
Megala decided to follow her heart. And paid a heavy price for it, losing her lover and being attacked and ostracised by her family and community in Mana madurai.
The latest in a series of such attacks on women in the state, the Megala case dispels the popular notion that 'honour killings' are confined to Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the north; southern states such as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh too witness similar incidents periodically. Many of them are sparked off when educated single women walk out of their homes and choose their own partners, sometimes from another community or caste.
Honour crimes and killings take place when young people challenge accepted norms of marriage, according to a study commissioned by the National Commission for Women (NCW). Megala, 20, and Sivakumar, 24, were told they couldn't marry as they were related. Her family married her off in June. Ten days after the wedding, she ran away with Sivakumar. Her family tracked the couple down and attacked Sivakumar with 'aruvaals'. Sivakumar died on the spot, and his killers, who included her father and brother, have been arrested. Megala, now in hospital, says that everyone in her village, including her mother, feels that the punishment is justified as she brought shame to her village and the Thevar community to which she belongs.
The accusation against her are virtually the same as those made against victims in north India. The NCW study, still underway, shows that of the 326 cases of conflict surveyed so far nationwide, 72% were because the couple crossed caste barriers and only 3% were because the couple were from the same gotra. "Women are making their own choices and in a patriarchal set-up this causes problems," says Ravi Kant, Supreme Court advocate and president of Shakti Vahini, the organisation that is conducting the study for NCW.
Activists in Tamil Nadu endorse this view. "Honour killings are not unheard of in TN. The basis is usually caste, more often than not a Dalit boy marrying an upper caste girl," says U Vasuki, general secretary, All- India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA).
Read more: Now, honour killing rocks TN: Father attacks daughter - India - The Times of India https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/-Now-honour-killing-rocks-TN-Father-attacks-daughter/articleshow/6136096.cms#ixzz0yo8z4snp
