“Honor” killings and customary laws: A case study of Khap Panchayats in Haryana,India

Abstract

This paper examines the resilience of feudal customary councils and their links with modern local state agencies in perpetuating crimes of “honor” in the State of Haryana, India. This peculiar dynamic has been approached by tapping the experiences and direct involvement of women activists and third sector organizations. The paper asks questions that help move beyond popular polarizations constructed between the Indian State and customary caste councils by revealing their complex interface. These women’s organizations interviewed, engage in an “anthropology of state,” dissociating the state as a formal technical entity from its actual functioning. Their feminist paradigms encourage new conceptualizations of a “weak patriarchal” state. This notion draws attention to the subversion of state rules by patriarchal cultural inclinations of state agents who together join forces in complex ways with community/caste councils or Khap Panchayats in exacerbating violence against women.

Keywords

caste councils gender “honor” killings patriarchy state third sector organizations violence

Introduction

The northern state of Haryana in India is in news due to the alarming rise in murders of young couples and women, framed as “honor” killings: “Honor killing: Killing for protecting so-called ‘izzat’” (Times of India, 2021). The National Crime Record Bureau’s report for 2020 reveals 25 reported cases of “honor killings” the preceding year, a dramatic rise from one stray incident between 2017 and 2018 (NCRB, 2020). Third sector interventions, print, and social media coverage reveal that Khap Panchayats socially sanction such violence by invoking tradition, culture, and honor (Chowdhry, 1998). The Indian State officially regards the councils as extra-constitutional; yet these continue to operate with impunity as parallel sociopolitical systems enforcing arbitrary “social justice” in rural and semi-urban areas. Relatively under-researched, the Khaps are presented in the media as anachronistic and archaic compared to the “modern” nation. Such polarizations, drawn between “modernity” and “tradition,” construct an intellectual impasse that prevents us from understanding the resilience of these councils and their existing links with local state agencies.

The actions of third sector women’s organizations in this light, take on their full importance. Their direct involvement in challenging such crimes of “honor,” entails contacts with caste councils and the state apparatus. These organizations serve as significant “crystallization points” for insider knowledge (Bogner et al., 2009: 2). The author poses the following questions to these organizations: (1) What are their roles in challenging “honor” killings in the context of the Indian state and the Khaps in Haryana?” (2) What do their unique locations tell us about the links between the state and Khaps in the context of “honor” killings?

Literature on Khap Panchayats is sparse, with major works being those by Pradhan (1966) and Chowdhry (1998, 2009). The legal ethnographic accounts of Chaudhary (2014), presenting a morphology of the Pakistani legal system, come closest to grasping the nuanced interplay between official and traditional areas such as the brotherhood (biradari), with considerations of honor, prestige and influence encroaching upon adjudications and formal decisions. To understand the resilience of these unconstitutional councils in the modern sociopolitical fabric, the paper reflects on the concept of the “weak” state (Mamdani, 2012; Migdal, 1988; Myrdal, 1968). In this respect, the role of women’s third sector is growing in importance, implementing state policies and in the exercise of justice at local levels. Secondly, the concept of “patriarchal state” (Connell, 1990; MacKinnon, 1989) is discussed to clarify the complex relationship between the state and the Khaps. However, such discussions assume the state’s simple homogeneity to the detriment of historicity. The “patriarchal state” is thus rooted in third world narratives, attentive to women’s struggles and the notion of the “weak” state.

Literature review

Khap Panchayats

Khaps are clans and they correspond to gotra (lineage segment) within caste groups (Yadav, 2010). The term “Khap” refers to the territorial divisions within the Jat caste into exogamous patrilineal clans (gotras). People of the same gotra are considered to be united by ties of putative consanguinity and feelings of brotherhood (bhaichara). Historically formed by male elders of the village community, these councils still command universal respect (Chowdhry, 2007) basing their judgments on life experiences and accumulated wisdom.

Khap Panchayats are traditional sociopolitical clan councils that have historically played a role in dispute resolution in the North Indian rural and semi urban social fabric. They functioned as social units of commensality in resolving inter-caste disputes and imposing sanctions, when traditional moral codes were violated. Khap Panchayats uphold the concept of bhaichara (brotherhood) on a gotra, cast or territorial basis (Kumar, 2012: 60). Their visibility is evinced in the Jat dominated regions of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh (Chowdhry, 2007: 34). The Jats are a dominant peasant caste (Srinivas, 1994) in Haryana, with numerical and politico-economic clout on account of landownership. These are important factors in explaining the strength of these traditional councils (Chowdhry, 2007).

Khaps and the Indian state

The post-colonial lens is a relevant framework for understanding the complex links between the formal state apparatus and informal indigenous social institutions in India, tracing the institutionalization of the latter within the state apparatus. During the British colonization of India, the policy of “indirect rule” (Lugard, 1926) was a mode of government that can be said to have contributed to the creation of a “weak” state. In this, governance of the native was a “prerogative of the native authority” (Mamdani, 2012: 3). The colonial discourse laid down its “conceptual foundation,” authorizing native authority and forms of communitarian social organizations where the “native” could seek redress (Jalal, 1995: 11; Mamdani, 2012: 12). A crucial distinction was drawn between customary laws and civil laws, defining boldly the category of the native (Mamdani, 2012: 22–24).

In the context of colonial Haryana, Chowdhry (2007) emphasizes colonial rulers to have extended tacit recognition to these caste councils in upholding caste and customary norms. Customary laws were a prerequisite for preservation of village community, in order to control the province (Tupper, 1981, cited in Chowdhry, 2007). Indeed, “even after the establishment of a ‘modern state’ based on the rule of law,” with the Special Marriage Act of 1954 allowing for intra and inter-community marriages, “Khaps remain a parallel sociopolitical authority that serve as a means for its influential leaders to consolidate their social and political status” (Kumar, 2012: 61). In going back to late colonial state formation, one observes native councils as deeply imbricated, deepened, and formalized within state formation.

In independent India, though extra-constitutional and illegal, Khaps continue to function in delivering “social justice” based on customary laws and remain an integral part of the rural social architecture. The concept of the “weak state” (Mamdani, 2012; Migdal, 1988; Myrdal, 1968) related to complex historical and political temporalities gains salience here. Related to the idea of state capacity, the Indian State’s capacity to penetrate local level Haryana and regulate social relationships (Desai, 2007; Mann, 1984; Migdal, 1988) still falls short. Migdal (1988: 23) argues that “increased capabilities of states include and rest upon increased state social control.” The concept of a “weak state” is thus an instructive tool to understand the resilience of these extra constitutional bodies.

However, the concept of a “weak state” as it is examined in this paper is not empirically equipped in addressing the state’s seeming complicity and its interface with hegemonic social forces in perpetuating a gender regime. Implicit is the conceptualization of the state as an autonomous entity. Besides, such theorization is myopic to the gendered ramifications of the state’s lack of capacity in addressing crimes of “honor.”

Customary marriage rules and Khaps

“Customary rules regulating marriage practices in Haryana are based on principles of caste endogamy and village and clan (gotra) exogamy” (Chowdhry, 2007: 93). The prescription to marry outside the patrilineal clan (gotra) exists along with the prohibition to marry outside caste boundaries. Furthermore, gotra exogamy is extended by clustering several other gotras represented in the village into an exogamous block (Chowdhry, 2007). This is linked to the idea of territorial exogamy or gaon-guhand (Kumar, 2012).

The added layer of locality makes the category of incest broad ranging, with its scope of infringement enhanced. Village exogamy demands members of a village and a “khap” to be bound by codes of brother-sister morality, where sex and marriage are prohibited between members of these units (Hershman, 1981: 133–134). These traditional marriage practices are considered to preserve solidarity (bhaichara) within the village community.

Customary norms, in requiring marriages to be “arranged” in accordance with caste and community values, have enabled Khaps to defame and extirpate from the institution, ideas of love, desire, and choice. “Once ‘love’ or ‘choice’ is conceded, reigning in the choice to suitable partners from within an acceptable circle becomes difficult” (Chakravarti, 2005: 310). Given the eventuality of upsetting this “elaborate edifice of social order” (Chakravarti, 2005), self-arranged or companionate marriages are presented by the “Khap” as deviant expressions of individual choice, curtailed through punitive measures. These range from acts of public humiliation, economic boycotts, and social ostracism (hukka pani band) to passing decrees and sanctions of “honor” killings (Chowdhry, 2007).

Cultural history has celebrated the rebellion of young couples, branded as social outcastes, with death restoring social order (Srinivasan, 2020). Despite the norm of family-arranged marriages, contemporary trends show a resolution of the social crises through litigation by eloping couples, attesting their decisions based on citizenry and rights, even if they are not asserted verbally in a social space (Srinivasan, 2020). Moreover, in an increasingly globalized world, young women are dynamically negotiating with the dominant traditional discourse, and asserting new forms of conjugality. Aggrieved women in turn took up “cudgels on behalf of liberty and freedom” (Yadav, 2010). The state here, emerges as a space for contestation of rights, capable of offering abstract solutions through bureaucratic paperwork (Holden, 2016), given its everyday presence in the community (Das and Poole, 2004), as shall be seen in the subsequent sections.

“Honor” killings

Coomaraswamy (2005: 9) argues that “frameworks of ‘honor’ and its corollary ‘shame’, operate to control, direct, and regulate women’s sexuality and freedom of movement by male members of the family.” The term “crimes of honor” encompass[es] a variety of manifestations of violence against women, where the preservation of “honor” is vested in male (family and/or conjugal) control over women and specifically women’s sexual conduct: actual, suspected, or potential (Welchman and Hossain, 2005: 4). Honor killings are a paradigmatic example of this, defined as “the murders (generally of women) committed by male members of the family with the aim of restoring the family’s social reputation” (Lang, 2000: 15, 55).

The term “crimes of honor” is beset with complexities. Feminists and rights activists question the notion of “honor,” as they take on the “descriptions articulated by perpetrators” (Welchman and Hossain 2005: 8) and serve as a blanket cover for complex motivations. Questions of family “honor” are deeply imbricated with issues of social standing and mobility, economic, and political motives (Araji, 2000).

An aspect that is singular with sociological implications is the execution of “honor” killings in a collective context. They serve as a strong patriarchal message, “communicated to both the ingroup and outgroup members of the society” (Jafri, 2008: 62). The intentionality behind “honor” killings surpasses its rational immediacy, which is not simply the physical elimination of a woman, but upholding the hegemonic discourse of patriarchal control. “Honor killing as an act in itself is a message; it is a dramatic rhetorical assertion communicated by an individual man (or several men) about his personal and collective identity that needs to be parsed in all its complexities” (Jafri, 2008: 10).

The notion of izzat (honor) operates within community and caste norms that culturally rationalize and legitimize violence against women. “The whole clan, caste, and community are co-sharers of this honor as blood ties of the family extend to them” (Chowdhry, 2007: 16–17). Caste and gotra endogamy which depend on the customary control and distribution of women’s sexuality exerts significant controls over it. Such codes exemplify a “classic patriarchy” (Kandiyoti, 1988, 1994). “Violation of the marriage code is regarded as an attack upon izzat” (Chakravarti, 2005: 309). In these cases, “absorbing the woman back into the traditional biradari (community) network becomes difficult, with her physical elimination regarded as the only ‘honorable’ option” (Vishwanath and Srinivas, 2011: 391). “Khap Panchayats functioning as parallel socio-legal systems enforce repressive gender and caste codes” (Vishwanath and Srinivas, 2011: 392). These killings are viewed as “executions” and “just punishments” for breaking caste norms and boundaries (Chowdhry, 1998: 338).

The collective nature of such violence is important for sociological analysis: it renders the individualistic and Western-centric “fit of fury” argument inadequate (Sen, 2005).

Patriarchal state?

The problematic position of the Indian State toward the arbitrary adjudications of the patriarchal Khaps raises critical academic questions on the extent to which the state embodies and implements gender inequality. This is so, as “the state has the capacity to regulate the power relations of gender in other institutions” (Connell, 1990: 527). The feminist framework, though not unitary and indeed interdisciplinary (Hobson, 2007), can help to understand the complex dynamic between the state and the Khaps.

Early feminist literature presents the state as an oppressive patriarchal entity. Radical feminism theoretically and politically engages with the concept of patriarchy regarding the state as a “system of structures and institutions created to sustain and recreate male power and female subordination” (Hobson, 2007: 137). MacKinnon’s (1989) work is seminal in asserting sexual subordination as being embedded in the state apparatus, procedures, and structure, at a time when the state was regarded as an ungendered and objective savior of women’s rights. In attempting a feminist theory of the state, MacKinnon brings to light how law “works in a social context, where power is gendered” (159). Through coercion and authority, the state constitutes a social order in the interest of men, including its laws and jurisprudence.

The state, however, is not an internally coherent entity autonomous in itself. Such macro-theoretical analyses (Waylen, 1998) do not inform us about the multiple agencies, law enforcement bodies and the “character and dynamics of state apparatus” (Connell, 1990: 517). Besides, they anthropomorphize the state as pre-existing, merely acting upon society (Molyneux, 2000). Just “as states influence gender relations, they are as much influenced by it” (Molyneux, 2000: 38). Connell (1990: 520) conceptualizes the state as “part of a wider structure of gender relations that embody violence or other means of control.”

The patriarchal state however is not monolithic but comprises complex structures and actors, with sites of resistance (Connell, 1990). A challenge to these metanarratives comes from the post-structuralist feminist perspective of the state (Charles, 2000; Molyneux, 2000; Waylen, 1988). The state here is theorized as an “assembly of different and conflicting institutions, influenced by civil society and social movements” (Waylen, 1998 cited in Frias, 2010). Frias (2010: 542–551) argues, “the State is both an agent and an arena in which battles for women’s rights take place.”

Literature on women and the state informed by third world narratives have been more attentive to women’s negotiations and strategic bargaining with post-colonial states by rooting these to their national histories and sociopolitical locations (Waylen, 2006). A significant distinction between women’s assertion of freedom in Western liberal states from post-colonial states is that the latter occurred in the historical and social context of comparatively “weak” states (Rai et al., 2006). The defining feature here is being the state’s capacity to “implement logistically political decisions throughout the realm” (Mann, 1984: 189). In “weak states,” “the implementation of directives, however radical, could be contingent upon the personal attributes of enforcers rather than the capacity of the state to ensure the implementation of its laws” (Rai et al., 2006: 33). The modern state and its laws carry the perceptions of the dominant caste patriarchy (Kapur, 2013). Baxi (2013) locates a nexus between kinship and the state, symbolizing a privatization of public law.

The concept of the “weak state” is helpful in understanding the “doing” of patriarchy (Connell, 1990; West and Zimmerman, 1998), by local state agencies embedded in entrenched cultural biases and subjective interpretations that circumvent existing legal frameworks. Das and Poole (2004) in critiquing the solidity of the universal state form, argue that the state is located in the community and even in individuals, as “continually both experienced and undone through the illegibility of its own practices, documents, and words” (10). Frias (2012: 328) argues “patriarchy is a social system that permeates institutions and becomes internalized in the interpretive and motivational structures of individuals.”

In Haryana, agencies of the state are implicated in ordering of gendered relations, by continuing to subscribe to “unwritten traditional patriarchal codes of ‘morality’, ‘family’, and ‘filial obedience’, subverting legal provision” (Chowdhry, 2007). Recognizing states themselves as subjective allows us to focus on how preoccupations with managing sexual practices are discursively producing the state itself (Puri, 2016).

Moreover, a dialogical dissonance between higher level state agencies and lower level functionaries is observed, with the latter speaking and interpreting from a public “community” or lower discourse (Kaviraj, 1984, 1991; Saberwal, 1996). In that sense, the state itself is hardly a unitary actor. As Kaviraj (1991: 91) argues “since major government policies have their final point of implementation very low down in the bureaucracy, they are reinterpreted beyond recognition.” The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has in fact taken the view that “constitutional interpretations fundamentally differ, almost mystically, from statutory interpretations” (Cooper, 1993: 8). Literature on the post-colonial state rarely addresses the gendered ramifications of a “weak state.”

The concept of the patriarchal state, though critical, is deficient, given its theoretical confinement in Eurocentric state situations. Instead, implications of a “weak patriarchal state” (Rai et al., 2006) that disrupt the binaries of law versus custom and kinship versus state (Kapur, 2013; Menon, 2004) in exacerbating gender inequalities are relevant for discussion, neither addressed in the developmental model of state formation nor in feminist theories of the state. Through a feminist epistemology, women’s organizations help explain how state power may legitimize the traditional power structure in which local social groups arrogate upon themselves the responsibility for its members, including women’s bodies that are socially inscribed and tamed. Feminist political actors of Haryana thus help do an “anthropology of the state.”

The third sector

The scope of the paper extends to literature on Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) and women’s organizations, with those defined as explicitly “feminist” or of “strategic interest” to women (Molyneux, 1985). Specific attention is given here to feminist-based NGOs, on account of their concerted effort and involvement with issues of “honor” killings, requiring a feminist level of consciousness to struggle against them. Women’s organizations and civil society campaigns, such as Shakti Vahini, Himmat Mahila Samooh, All India Democratic Women’s Association, Love Commandos, Gulabi Gang, India Love Project, and Viraam, are examples of a broad spectrum of the “third sector” in India, ranging from the politically affiliated to those autonomous from the state (Ray, 1999). In substantive terms, NGOs are generically defined in opposition to the state and for-profit organizations (Fernando and Heston, 1997). In this space, NGOs supplement, complement and substitute the state and the market in providing basic societal needs (Sutton and Arnove, 2004: ix).

In India, the state remains a defining feature of NGOs (Kilby, 2011). The National Policy for the Empowerment of Women states that NGOs “which have strong grass-root presence and deep insights into women’s concerns have contributed in inspiring initiatives for the empowerment of women” (GOI, 2001).

The post-emergency¹ (after 1976) period is regarded as a watershed in feminist praxis as the search for alternatives other than the state arose, with several women’s organizations emerging from the second and third wave of the Indian women’s movement to form linkages with the non-party movement sector (Calman, 1992; Ray, 1999). The existentialist crises of the state, with the consequent political vacuum provided a fecund ground for the rapid growth of civil society and NGOs. The late 1980s saw women’s groups, especially NGOs, beginning to address issues of domestic and institutional violence (Purushparani, 1999). Women’s organizations lobbied, demanding “better laws and better law enforcement” (Calman, 1992: 129) through mobilization of support. Such interventions pitted them against local state agencies, particularly revictimization by local police (Calman, 1992; Spivak, 1987).

The career of feminist NGOs is moving toward an NGOization (Alvarez, 1999) indicating “the growing dominance of a certain organizational form, different from early consciousness-raising organizations” (Tsikata et al., 2008). In these, educated professionals, politically skilled and economically privileged women form a vital “conscience constituency” (Calman, 1992; Mitra, 2013: 185). They rely upon the development of “feminist consciousness” (Lerner, 1993: 13), “a consciousness of women’s long-range resistance to patriarchy.” These women’s NGOs analyze patriarchy deeply and see its connections with class, caste, and community.

In modern development discourses, NGOs are regarded as providing mechanisms for strengthening civil society for the vulnerable and marginalized (World Bank, 1996). Feminist NGOs display the potential to be intermediaries in the transmission of the feminist discourse (Thayer, 2010).

Methodology

Rationale: Qualitative telephone interviewing

The efforts of women’s organizations in challenging honor killings, and their conceptualization of the peculiar dynamic between the Indian State and Khaps required in-depth discussions, and understanding of their interpretations and understanding of the social context.

Logistical reasons due to the Covid pandemic and dispersed locales between the researcher and the participant interviewees, prevented face to face interview, with the qualitative telephone interview considered a suitable alternative (Farooq and De Villiers, 2017) especially after having established a degree of rapport prior to the interview. Previous visits of the researcher to the district of Sonipat and Jind in Haryana and three focus group discussions (FGDs) with elderly male members of the village, in turn provided a sociological anchor to contextualize the questions and their order for the interview guide. While qualitative telephone interviews are discussed in literature as a pragmatic secondary choice (e.g., Kazmer and Xie, 2008; Opdenakker, 2006), their methodological benefits with respect to the target groups that are interviewed are overlooked (Bogner et al., 2009).

The telephone interview provided a more balanced distribution of power between interview participants (Vogl, 2013). Moreover, while the telephone interview encouraged interviewees to speak freely and gave more control (Vogl, 2013), it also ensured a greater level of privacy (Holt, 2010). The methodology also encouraged careful listening and clear articulation of speech. The paper’s ontological position considers these as “meaningful properties of the social reality” (Mason, 2002: 6). These are made knowable as the women activists speak and articulate. That social reality is constructed through interaction and speech acts informs the author’s epistemological position, with the qualitative interview considered a “legitimate and meaningful way of generating data” (Mason, 2002: 63). Though interviews inevitably varied, an interview guide was prepared to explore relevant issues, with these recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. The advantage being a better use of the limited time is available (Patton, 2002).

Telephone interviews were appropriate, as interviewees, seasoned women’s activists and professionals (e.g., lawyers) are experts in their own fields and “showed core competences, with a strong orientation toward topical criteria and with experience of presenting themselves to the outside world” (Christmann, 2009: 160). Indeed, the telephonic interview was a strong methodological alternative (King and Horrocks, 2010; Mack et al., 2005) to the face-to-face interview, yielding rich, descriptive, and concentrated data, while overcoming geographical boundaries.

Why women’s organizations?

Women’s NGOs and organizations are interviewed due to their direct and deep involvement in cases of “honor” killings. Their active involvement helps analyze the relationship and negotiations between state and customary councils. These experts are “crystallization points for practical insider knowledge” (Bogner et al., 2009: 2). They acquire “special knowledge” through their active participation, giving them privileged access to information (Meuser and Nagel, 2009: 23–24). Moreover, their interpretations of “honor” killings informed by feminist paradigms are important for understanding the relation between various local agents. The partial perspectives and subjective truths of NGOs and women’s organizations (Harding, 1987; Harraway, 1990), informed by their unique liminal and reflexive positions, are important.

Sampling

Purposive sampling was conducted with women’s organizations based in Northern Indian States of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, who were purposively sought and sampled based on the judgment of the researcher. Though not statistically representative of the universe of women’s NGOs, the active ground level involvement of these pre-identified women’s organizations, provide crucial answers to the research questions. Eight activists of seven women’s organizations were interviewed, with two pilot interviews and eight interviews forming the sample size. Separate interviews with scholars were conducted, including an interview with Dr. Prem Chowdhry, an expert on Khaps in Haryana.

Interventions by women’s organizations

“Justice...that’s where everything fails”

Center for social research

In conversations about the third sectors’ role, an underlying theme is their efforts in rendering justice and mediating in forming, implementing, and evaluating laws between state agencies and victims/survivors of “honor” killings. Execution of state rules, they argue, is circumvented by local state agencies through hegemonic patriarchal inclinations that further bolster the unlawful implementation of customary laws that support these “honor” killings. While their roles are an indirect commentary on the “weak state,” their experiences reveal more problematic linkages.

Violence in the name of “honor”—creating awareness through deep advocacy

A major struggle for women’s organizations in Haryana has been resisting patriarchal frameworks that subdue and legitimize the violence in “honor” killings. Their contribution lies in making the issue visible, which they assert is not ensured by the government at the local levels. Such resistance has manifested itself mainly at a conceptual level with the assertion that “honor” crimes are essentially violence against women. The feminist paradigm that the women organization’s invoke provides a trenchant critique to views and cultural ideologies that regard such crimes as “private,” concerning only the family and community (bhaichara), safeguarding the character (charitra) of the woman. Bringing together their feminist paradigms, women’s organizations emphasize the relation between patriarchal institutions in supporting violence. There are many patriarchies as Hearn asserts (1992: 3, 1998, 2012) “operating simultaneously, overlapping, relating, and contradicting each other.”

When informed of attempted “honor” killings, activists engage in “rescue” missions. They find the victims and convince them that they are indeed victims of violence and that they should not suffer in silence. “Misrecognition” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2004), a process by which power relations are perceived “not for what they objectively are,” requires the concerted attempt of “recognition” of the violence that was hitherto “normalized.” These organizations advise women to see their problems as systemic rather than personal or unique. This internalization of patriarchal principles with selfhood tied to a “patriarchal connectivity” also explains the persistence of patriarchy (Joseph, 1996).

However, a far more difficult struggle is that of countering the entrenched biases of state functionaries and their recognition of “honor” as an appropriate motivation for such crimes. The Human Rights paradigm and its statutory provisions are often cited to counteract and argue against officials steeped in biases, who subvert the implementation of existing state laws. Moreover, the media, both print and electronic, are often mobilized by these women’s organizations to engage in accurate reporting of events. A vital role of these organizations consists in sharing and creating awareness of a common form of oppression, its empathetic representation and making manifest what remained latent for long.

Researching

Organizations have engaged in research and fact-finding work to draw attention to “honor” killings, especially when assessing the state’s response. Most of them express exasperation at the lack of police and government records, and in particular at the absence of data tables on systematic gender-based violence. Reporting started only a decade ago due to these organizations’ steady intervention and mobilization of electronic media. A report by Shakti Vahini was submitted to the National Commission of Women (NCW), a government body responsible for women’s issues, to take actions against Khaps. The investigation revealed that inter-caste marriages elicited the harshest forms of objection by Khaps.

Lobbying

Based on their research and direct interventions, women’s organizations lobby within and outside the conventional political arena. A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed in 2010 by Shakti Vahini, asking the Supreme Court to issue directions to the government to take action against the Khaps. Remarking that there is “nothing honorable in ‘honor’ killing or other atrocities” and that such a killing is, in fact, nothing but a “barbaric and shameful murder” (The Times of India, 2011), it took 8 years for the apex court to declare illegal for Khaps to scuttle marriages between two consenting adults. The ruling held that “honor killing guillotines individual liberty, freedom of choice, and one’s own perception of choice,” denouncing the “self-appointed” conscience-keepers of the society (Outlook, 2023). This landmark decision is the result of a long battle that involved lobbying in specific cases and contexts.

A specific case recalled by many is the infamous “honor” killing of Manoj and Babli, a young couple from the Kaithal district of Haryana, during the summer of 2007. In the aftermath and in response to the state’s passiveness, activists raised public awareness by conducting protest marches, sit-ins, and aligning with the media within Haryana, especially Kaithal and the national capital, New Delhi.

This case establishes Rai’s argument of state and gender relations as not fixed and immutable, with battles fought out in the arena of the state (cited in Waylen, 2006: 15). Activists are lobbying for an ordinance demanding ban on Khaps and their diktats. The Law Commission Report included a draft bill, which was subsequently passed by the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly as the “The Rajasthan Prohibition of Interface with the Freedom of Matrimonial Alliances in the Name of Honour and Tradition Bill (2019)” and currently awaits Presidential assent. Iterations of this draft have been proposed to the NCW by the AIDWA and in the form of Private Member’s Bills.

According to these activists, lobbying political parties has been exceptionally difficult, given the nexus between them and Khaps, a result of “vote bank politics.”² Other achievements cited of such lobbying are the creation of protection courts and shelter homes that the state provides to victimized couples, specifically to women.

Training

Women’s organizations not only guide and help victims but also conduct regular training programs for police and officials of lower bureaucracy and judiciary. In these training sessions, officials are advised to work with impartiality while maintaining law and order and discouraged from assuming the role of “moral keepers” (samaj ke thekedaar). Gender sensitization programs are organized as a part of these sessions. In these, officials are led to realize that they can in fact reinforce gender stereotypes by intimidating and revictimizing women and couples who are victims of harassment.

In the 2021 Laxmibai Chandaragi B. case, the Hon’ble Supreme Court directed the police to formulate guidelines to train its force on how to deal with intra and inter-caste marriages. A Right to Information (RTI)³ applicant requesting information received a reply that such trainings were not yet conducted. “Law enforcement bodies, being highly masculinized and hierarchical institutions, contribute the most to women’s revictimization” (Frias, 2010: 546). The concept of secondary victimization, more developed in crimes of rape and sexual assault (Campbell and Camille, 1997), would also be present in “honor” crimes. Activists cite comments of officials; “had they been our girls we would rightly kill them, […] this is what a father gets in return, having invested so much.” The training sessions teach them to renounce these personal and biased positions and to adopt preventive measures before such crimes are committed.

Advocacy and legal intervention

By way of immediate practical assistance, women activists provide legal advice and aid, direct legal intervention, and ensure the registration of cases and their follow ups. During the interviews, many spoke about their initiatives in securing to couples, especially women, their civil and constitutional rights. Couples and young women harassed and stalked after marriage, they recall, turned to their legal counsel and mediation to seek state protection against the men in their families, protection that was not provided by local state agencies. Such intervention is seen by victims of violence as necessary in the face of partisan state functionaries and violent Khaps and community members. After providing these women with foster homes, these activists, as practicing lawyers, contact police officers, calling them in their presence to take the girl’s statement. At this stage, resistance is high, with the police having to “speak in the language of the Khap” and assume the role of “moral keepers.” This is where activists play a decisive role, insisting on the need for impartial police and administration. As lawyers, activists claim to give impartial interpretations and arguments of existing laws and past cases. The literature on “weak states” deals with the inability of the state to provide security and services to the population, in development terms. Activists, however, point not so much to an inability, but to an active disinterest on the part of local public bodies to provide constitutionally guaranteed security. In conducting these legal wrangles, they highlight the problematic dynamic between the state apparatus and the Khaps.

Khaps sanctioning “honor” killings

Moochh ki baat (hegemonic masculinity)

The “Moochh” (moustache) is symbolic of male prestige and appropriate masculinity in the Jat culture. Activists allude to the Khaps attempts in polarizing community views by drawing upon notions of failed masculinities. Khaps create an emotionally surcharged environment by tapping into notions of “honor” and its corollary “shame,” underlying hegemonic masculinity.

Typically, these decisions are taken by the men of the community in the village square (chaupal), with women denied entry. In these meetings, “masculine hierarchies are established through a show of masculine collectivity, aggression and solidarity” (Chowdhry, 2005: 5189). One activist notes that “this is becoming a moochh ki baat” (male arrogance problem). A girl’s protest not only “dishonors” the purity of the kutumb (family), but calls into question the masculinity of those closest to her and their inability to control her sexuality. For instance, male kinsmen can be the object of open mockery, “[D]erogatory epithets become permanent social fixtures to their existence” (Chowdhry, 1998: 351). However, the permanence of this is contested by the performance of “masculinity.” As Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) observe, far from being unified and coherent, masculinity is a competing and contingent category, appropriated and claimed, through acts of violence.

Khaps preserve and enforce “hegemonic masculinity” (Connell, 1990) by directing social norms for the behavior of men to reclaim the “loss of face.” This hegemony notes Connell (1990) is established only if there is some “correspondence between cultural ideal and institutional power, collective if not individual” (Connell, 1990: 77).

This institutional power is derived from the support of local state agencies, which are complicit in community violence. Relying on culturally rooted notions of masculinity, the Khaps manage to activate the links between lineage, clan and village. Being highly emotive strategies, these succeed in uniting people and closing ranks and cleavages in rural society (Chowdhry, 2007: 98).

The state agencies are in a supportive relationship with this hegemonic project. Khaps are regarded as the “frontline troops of patriarchy” (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). For the community, the “patriarchal dividend” (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005: 82) is the restoration of honor, prestige, authority, and control over land and patrimony.

Claims of “honor”?

Activists question how the Khaps’ claims to “honor” serve as an effective cultural veneer, masking other political and economic motivations. As Jagmati Sangwan of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) puts it, “to keep the exploitative structure intact, female sexuality is controlled in a patriarchal caste-based society” (Sangwan, 2010). A central aspect brought to focus by these women activists is the issue of control on land and patrimony, which involves the complex intersection between kinship, caste, and gender. Schneider (1971: 2) suggests that honor in the context of social relations can be understood as “the ideology of the power holding group which struggles to define, enlarge and protect its patrimony in a competitive arena.” Those engaged in this battle for “honor” are economically and politically prosperous farmers with extensive land holdings. These “dominant castes” (Srinivas, 1994) have vested interests in perpetuating themselves. Endogamous marriages are emphasized to keep intact the power equations.

The Jat tradition of gotra and village/territorial exogamy is interpreted by the activists as an exploitative tool for distancing women from land and natal property. Chowdhry (2007: 34) notes that the location of a girl within the natal village spells danger to patrilineal inheritance as it facilitates and could lead to the assumption of land by the girl. Activists’ intervention also reveals that the kutumb (family) often colludes with Khaps to reclaim control on land. The involvement of the kutumb turns the matter into a “private” issue, and the family expects that state agencies will not interfere. Local agencies in turn argue that family and community have best interests for their children, after all.

The desperate attempt to circumscribe kinship exchanges must also be seen in the light of the deep-seated agrarian anxiety that assails men’s sense of entitlement. The Jats’ renewed contestations and political claims of “backwardness” due to the perceived and potential loss of privilege, particularly in the wake of new economic opportunities (Srinivasan, 2020), help contextualize the “politics of lineage” (Joshi, 2019) and its historical crystallization around control of land. As Joshi (2019) observes, kinship has been a vehicle of resource consolidation, whose boundaries were determined at least in part by this pragmatic consideration. Indeed, contemporary scholars are showing discernment in revealing the economic, social and political opportunism underlying the dynamic relationship between modernity and crimes of “honor,” the latter intensifying during the modernization process (Al-Adili et al., 2008; Chesler, 2010; Kulczycki and Windle, 2011; Nowak et al., 2016; Rose, 2009). In their cross-comparative analysis, Heydari et al. (2021) make the compelling argument of “honor” killings representing the “dark side of modernity” in which the marginalization of certain social groups has led them to rely even more fiercely on “traditional” honor codes to gain social control by proxy and ensure group cohesion in a period of social transition. These complex relationships, especially between the power of the state and that of the local community, are examined by women’s organizations that invoke a feminist epistemology.

Miili bhagath—The “nexus” between the patriarchal state and Khap

Conflicting state institutions

Women’s organizations draw attention to the complex posture of Haryana’s state machinery officials in the face of decrees on “honor” killings committed by Khaps. On the basis of their direct observations, dialogs and interventions they elaborate upon an “anthropology of the state” (Migdal, 1994: 15) by dissociating the formal state apparatus from the actual functioning of the state and its implementation at local levels. One observes here a joint patriarchal surveillance, not apparent when conceptualizing the state as a technical entity. The Supreme Court of India in the Lata Singh v State of UP and others (2006 5 SCC 475) refers to these Khaps as “kangaroo courts, which are wholly illegal.” The Hindu Marriage Act (XXXV of 1955) opposed to customary laws permits inter-caste and ingotra/sagota (same patriline) marriage (Chowdhry, 2007). Women’s organizations, however, reveal the complicit and even partisan role of local state agencies in “honor” killings. Their direct involvement suggests that the “micro-level organizations and institutions that affect individual lives daily” (Rai, 1996: 27) exacerbate women’s victimization and policing.

Defunct state agencies

The panchayats are constitutionally recognized and democratically elected local bodies that represent decentralized local governance in India, at the village level. Activists emphasize their role in reinforcing the hegemony of the Khaps and consider them “defunct,” “nominal,” and in many cases serving as “shadow Khaps.” On most occasions, the sarpanch (head) of the officially instituted and elected authorities are seen by activists to not just comply but to actively support Khaps (Chowdhry, 2007). In cases of “honor” killings, institutions actively collude to perpetuate a regime of gender exploitation, which manifests itself best in its denial of women’s political representation and participation. An activist of AIDWA cites a case where she and her team rushed into the Jondhi village of Jhajjar district in Haryana to seek the legally constituted gram panchayat’s intervention against arbitrary decrees of the informal Khaps in annulling an inter-caste marriage. In order to avoid the confrontation, the woman Sarpanch (head of the village panchayat) went into hiding, while her husband spoke on her behalf and mobilized the men of the community to retaliate. These institutions appear to be steeped in patriarchal practices and bias against women. They provide an uncomplicated representation of the “male state” (Connell, 1990), with men leveraging for votes for their women in local bodies, in disguise of women’s reservation, while still calling the shots. In such a situation, intervention by the village panchayat is ineffective.

Politics of “vote bank”

Activists decry the states’ muted response to “honor” killings by pointing to the visible link between “modern” democratically elected political parties and these feudal caste-based councils. The “effects of the state on social or policy outcomes are highly contingent upon shifts in government and the parties that constitute the governments, a point which receives insufficient attention in state weakness or crises literature” (Desai, 2009: 149). This aspect is addressed by activists, for whom the state’s inefficiency is partly related to the strong linkages between political parties and Khaps, granting the latter a stronghold and allowing them to operate with impunity.

The Khaps represent the sociopolitical core of the Jat community, and apart from commanding sizeable economic and social capital, they form a politically significant electorate. The expectation of real or imagined benefits from this block has led political parties to appease and actively support them. This is part of a “politics of survival” (Beuno De Mesquita et al., 2003), characteristic of a “weak” state that “denudes state agencies of their capabilities to see through programs” (Migdal, 2001: 84). A common way to do this is to praise Khaps for their “yeoman” service, where they are praised for the effectiveness of their help in times of need. By arrogating to themselves the function of watchdogs of the society, political leaders have often publicly lauded Khaps as “social organizations,” while backing their demands (Singh, 2010).

According to women activists, political parties present Khaps as guardians of “Indian values and traditions,” who in turn rely on this construct to establish their legitimacy. Women activists consider this feudal rhetoric as deeply problematic, making men as its custodians and women as its inevitable bearers. The Khaps and the modern political system are ideologically allied and emphasize women and their bodies as community property. The congruence invoked between territory (village/state) and consanguinity (gotra/nation) in spatially and socially limiting the sexual agency of women is unmistakable. The Khap in that sense becomes an extension of patriarchal surveillance. The powerful imagery of putative consanguinity and brotherhood (bhaichara) serves as an effective cultural weapon of a “pure nation” in limiting the sexuality of women.

Police and administration—purushwadi manasikta (chauvinism)

A common reference made by these activists is the partisan role of the police force and the lower echelons of the administration in allowing Khaps to execute their diktats. This is accomplished through “standing by” and not intervening in what is regarded as a “social” issue. Ajay Kumar of People’s Group comments that “these local state agencies display the same patriarchal mentality as that of the Khaps.” Smith (1990) uses the notion of “patriarchal ideology” to describe structures of beliefs, values, and ideas supporting men’s domination over women and depicting that domination as natural.

A case of “honor” killing is usually preceded by elopement of the couple, providing an “avenue to realize ‘love’ or ‘choice’ marriage” (Chakravarti, 2005: 311). Elopements however provide a space for “criminality of marriage” in India (Mody, 2002, cited in Chakravarti, 2005: 311). The typical circuitous route that activists cite is male kinsmen of the “runaway” girl first registering a case with the police and alleging abduction or rape by the boy due to pressure exerted by the Khaps and samaj (society) to hunt down the couple. The police then hunt down and intimidate the couple, and despite Court injunction for protective state custody, leaves them at the mercy of Khaps to decide on “just” enforcement, as “honor” here is at stake.

The “criminal silence” of the state functionaries is often mentioned by the activists interviewed, pointing to acts of omission. This relates to Caulfield and Wonders notion of “political crime,” when “the state neglects to enforce laws that provide some measure of protection to women, and when it provides structural support for institutional practices which clearly harm women” (Caulfield and Wonders, 1993: 79). The civil marriage law, 1954, stipulates that “communities” have to surrender their rights to “excommunicate” and that the state has to guarantee the secular rights of individuals marrying out of choice (Mody, 2002). According to NGOs, however, the law operates quite differently at the local level due to the existing nexus that socially invalidates such marriages, despite these being constitutionally legal.

This deep alliance is attributed to social and cultural networks that tie members of the Khap and state functionaries, coming from the same patriarchal social milieu, in a kind of brotherhood (bhaichaara). The idea that women are sexual properties of their communities is deeply internalized (Chakravarti, 2005). When male kinsmen report the abduction of a woman, the police respond with alacrity, while women’s and young couple’s pleas for protection are ignored or bullied. The women activists see this specifically when couples seek direct intervention for protective state custody for fear of being hounded by male kinsmen and village clan members. The police turn them away or encourage kinsmen to reach an “understanding.” The consequence of this could be the “mysterious” deaths of women to purge the community and lineage of “dishonor.”

Activists point to the vagueness surrounding marriages of choice (Chakravarti, 2005), with laws very often interpreted and implemented according to the sensibilities of patriarchal Khaps. An instance cited by a lady activist was how a couple’s decision to solemnize marriage according to law (court marriage) was overlooked by the officers in the Marriage Registering Office, with the lower bureaucracy’s regressive “mentality” coming in the way. On pretext of verification of name and address, notices are sent, furnishing information to the family and village members about the intended marriage. The Special Marriage Act 1954 “does not provide for sending notices to the respective residential addresses of the parties to the intended marriage” (AALI, 2012: 239). Such instances indicate the lack of state social control in the “successful subordination of people’s own inclinations of social behavior in favor of behavior prescribed by state rules” (Migdal, 1988: 22).

Gauging the judiciary

The judiciary is a critical space where issues of female guardianship of “choice marriages” are vigorously debated. “The judge’s decision determines whether the woman is ‘returned’ to the ‘custody’ of the father or is legally allowed to move to the ‘custody’ of the husband in a self-choice marriage” (Chakravarti, 2005: 320). The activists in the interviews construct a complex and stratified notion of the judiciary, often drawing a wedge between the lower courts and the higher courts. They maintain that lower courts display a regressive patriarchal attitude toward couples, with orthodox interpretations that dangerously deviate and subvert constitutional and state protection. Jagmati Sangwan observes that the High Court of Punjab and Haryana have made several statements that contradict the spirit of the Constitution. In a 2021 protection petition, sought by a couple, the lower court observed “if such protection, as claimed is granted, the entire social fabric of the society would get disturbed” (Outlook, 2023). These judgments render women more vulnerable to violence from family and the Khaps. Activists cite cases where judges of the lower courts, despite the girl being major (18 years), preside saying that “she should go back to her father.” In defining custody, a “hierarchy of values is created” with “appropriate” custody decided in favor of the father (Chakravarti, 2005: 320). Women’s consent is also overlooked, the girl being deemed naïve (bholi) and considered to have been tricked and tempted (behla phusla) into such an alliance. Sometimes her soundness of mind and capacity to make an independent decision (Chakravarti, 2005) are debated. Secondly, after the couple’s, especially the woman’s murder, judges show sympathy to such violence by accused male kinsmen and Khaps through their recognition of “honor” as a motivation and mitigation (Sen, 2005). For example, the lower court in Jindh (Haryana) did not award capital punishment but only life imprisonment to the accused male kinsmen and acquitted Khap members in the Vedpal-Sonia killing case of 2011 (Deswal, 2011). The lower courts appear to be in an interface with community members and subject to social pressure.

The higher courts role as a patriarch is indirect in the sense that “it has the capacity to regulate power relations of gender in other institutions” (Connell, 1990: 527), but has maintained, so far, a tenuous balance as the proverbial benevolent patriarch (Srinivasan, 2020). Here patriarchy is seen as being embedded in the technicality of state procedure (MacKinnon, 1983), settling often for norms of legal objectivity and pragmatism over the subjective renditions of injustice and violence experienced by women. Activists emphasize courts to not consider whether or not women speak under duress due to pressure and coercion from state agencies, Khaps and male members of the families, with a preoccupation for resolution over persistent discord (Basu, 2015). Adjudications on love marriages in turn view women as abject bodies (Baxi, 2006). The role of “hidden persuasion,” with the most implacable being the one exerted by “the order of things” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2004: 272) is overlooked. Courts enforce a “coercive harmony” (Basu, 2015) by drawing upon notions of filial loyalty that institutionalize male interests (MacKinnon, 1983).

“Good judges/bureaucrats thus become important as independent factors in the lives of people, but as such do not fit into the structural network” of the “weak patriarchal state” (Rai, 1996: 33). The Lata Singh versus State of Uttar Pradesh case, involving intensive lobbying by the Association for Advocacy and Legal Initatives Trust (AALI), was presented as an example which mandated state governments to safeguard couples against honor killings. The Supreme Court here ruled strict legal measurers against the police and administration failing in providing protection to the couple.

The apex court has been coming to the rescue of women and couples, with progressive adjudications and interpretations of laws. However, these remain flexible and therefore ineffective in terms of implementation by the executive and the magistrate.

Inadequate provisions of law

While effective criminal laws (Section 320, Indian Penal Code) and Code of Criminal Procedure sections against homicide exist, some activists contend that these are inadequate to address the specificity of “honor” killings. Legal definitions of violence are sometimes not attentive to the dissonance between women and men’s perception of the social world of gendered violence (Kelly, 1987). AIDWA has demanded that a new and comprehensive law be enacted, and a draft of the proposed law was submitted to the National Commission of Women and the Law Ministry of the Government of India, in 2005. Within the draft, the right to choose one’s partner has been explicitly framed as a fundamental right, which would leave no room for patriarchal interpretations. As Jagmati Sangwan observes, “we are in desperate need for a law, so that the message percolates to the lower levels that this is all illegal and that there is no honor in this.” The “right to marry the person of one’s choice” has only recently been explicated as integral to the Fundamental Right of Article 21 (right to life and liberty) of the Constitution of India.

Activists argue that the ineffectiveness of existing legal systems is due to their heavy reliance on the empiricism of the witness-evidence process. These crimes are characterized by their lack of evidence and witnesses, as they are committed within the brotherhood network. “Honor” killings which involve family and community members leave no traces of evidence, with witnesses moved away due to social pressure. The Witness Protection Scheme 2018, although approved by the Supreme Court, remains pending in the Parliament. A broader and more inclusive ambit of intimidation and violence characterizes this draft, encompassing acts that precede and follow the actual killing. A clear feminist discourse underlies such conceptualization of gendered violence, “reflective of women’s experiences and representative of various forms of violence” (Ravarino, 2008: 5). These include physical, psychological and verbal harassment with focus on public endorsement of violence, economic and social boycott against families of the victims by individuals and collective councils (Rajalakshmi, 2010). The Hindu (2013) reported that Chief Justice Designate, Supreme Court, P. Sathasivam, had argued for a new law noting “though the prevailing law punishes the act of homicide, it does not directly punish the members gathering for such purpose.” The insidious combination of Hindutva and caste politics that ungirds the armor of the state, in turn prevents a collective resolve for initiating a comprehensive legislation, with the Prohibition of Interference with the Freedom of Matrimonial Alliances (in the Name of Honor and Tradition) Bill, in the 242^nd Report of the Law Commission, still waiting to see the light of day.

Conclusions

Women’s organizations occupy a critical position in the analysis of the links between the state and the Khaps. These relationships are framed within a feminist paradigm. The crimes of “honor” they assert demand nuanced and context specific interpretation of customary laws that normalize such forms of gender violence. These women’s organizations echo the limitations of current literature making the conceptual category of the “weak patriarchal state” (Rai et al., 2006) relevant. Firstly, a weak patriarchal state addresses the gendered consequences of a “weak state” and questions Euro-centric feminist conceptualizations. Secondly, it comments on active collusion that prevents implementation of state rules, due to the lack of state capacity. “Honor” killings, they remind us, are decreed by Khaps and reinforced by the complicity of state agents. As a result, customary laws continue to hold predominance, despite civil and constitutional rights that may formally “take them on.”

The actions and direct interventions of women’s organizations in challenging “honor” killings in Haryana substantiate the existence of a “weak patriarchal state,” a concept relatively under-researched in literature. Their direct intervention at the level of dispensing justice through implementation of existing state policies is a commentary on the ineffective implementation of state protection to the victims. Their interface with the state leads to its disaggregation into everyday micro-level agencies they confront and negotiate with. Attention to these local level agencies helps go beyond the apparent dichotomy between the Indian state and customary laws. Their intervention also addresses complex links between state agencies and the Khaps in cases of “honor” killings. These agents come together in enforcing a gender regime by way of their joint patriarchal dominance and sexual policing. The patriarchal forces, NGOs assert, are not inbuilt as much in the formal state apparatus and its structure, as effected through subjective and cultural interpretations. These are steeped in patriarchal prejudices that accommodate and yield to customary codes of Khaps, making state policies pliable. Such reiterative relationships entrench the notion of “honor” in a woman’s body, making her vulnerable to moral censoring, oppression, and violence. These notions of “honor,” though suspect, serve as a powerful cultural rationalization of violence to which state authorities often succumb.

Their experience of collusion at the level of everyday justice helps understand the resilience and stronghold of such patriarchal and feudal institutions. Significantly, they question stilted categories of “modern” and the “customary,” by showing these as mutually imbricated in exacerbating violence against women.

Bringing in their feminist paradigms and “standpoint epistemology” (Smith, 1997), informed by direct intervention, women’s organizations provide useful approaches to analyze and conceptualize relations between Khaps and actual state functioning. Such players they contend, come together in ensuring and perpetuating a patriarchal “continuum” (Kelly, 1987). Their feminist praxis of listening to the subjective but socially relevant interpretations of survivors provides crucial insights for the “everyday state,” and how it needs to be restructured, especially at the very immediate level of service provision and support, in order to increase the capacity of the state and thus guarantee justice for those who are culturally gagged. These observations are important for the development of a culturally nuanced and thoughtful discourse on human rights, particularly suited to “subdued expressions of power that is normally and regularly operating in a mode of violence” (Colaguori, 2010: 389).

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Priyadarshini Bhattacharya

Notes

Author biography

Priyadarshini Bhattacharya is an officer of the Indian Administrative Service. An alumna of the London School of Economics & Political Science, she is the recipient of the LSE Masters Award and the Hobhouse Memorial. She holds a MSc in Sociology from LSE and a MA in Public Management from Jawaharlal Nehru University. She was with the International Labour Organisation, United Nations and is currently serving as Additional District Magistrate in West Bengal, India. She is a founder of VIRAAM, a gender-based independent digital platform that promotes conversations on and healing from subliminal forms of gender-based violence.

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