The Tipping point of Khap justice and honour killings

The past few weeks I’ve been reading the book –The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. The book has been an eye opener for me in many ways. The idea of how little things can make big impact has been around for a while. The famous one I can think about is the “butterfly effect” – how by the flapping of the wings a butterfly in the Amazon jungle can cause rains in Europe. However, the things that caught my interest were the mavens, the connectors, and the salesman all playing important roles in creating viral effect

The past few weeks I’ve also been reading a lot of new items on Khap Justices and Honour killings. Almost every main stream newspaper and TV Channels has been carrying news about one or another incident happening on a day to day basis. While most of the incidents of Khap justice and honour killings news had centred around rural Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, it has now reached the peripherals of the Metros (Delhi)

It seems that these uncivilized actions have become some sort of contagious epidemic. I am sure that these incidents have been there for a long time. Not much importance would have been given to such sort of incidents. It is only now, that the main media (English TV and Newspapers) have picked it up and these things are coming to national limelight, and people (like me) blogging about it. Previously, such news would have been limited to the village or district level with maybe a local newspaper or tabloid carrying an article in the inside page.

As mentioned in the book The Tipping Point, there would be a lot of small incidents that would have led to a spurt in terms of Khap justice and honour killings. Here are some of my thoughts on the same:
1) Caste and Religion has played an important role in our culture. As the society becomes more open, and the community walls become porous the friction between the new and old increases. The extreme cases becomes incidents of Khap justice and honour killing
2) The changing social landscape: The villages are moving into the cities… the lifestyle changes, but the mentality does not. The media brings glimpses of city life into the villages, some consume it as a culture from an alien world…while a few other embrace it…the chasm is formed..
3) The aggressive nature: Not sure of this fact… but historically, the areas from where the Khap justice and honour killing incidents are reported, has been hot-bed of battles, and clashes. Whether it is political, religious, nationalist, community, or individual… the natives of these places are involved, influenced or exposed to it… this in turn has made their nature aggressive.
4) The broadcast (Connectors): As mentioned earlier, media has played a major role in giving it more importance/coverage than necessary. While all the media has gone to town telling that such incidents are downright barbaric and criminal in nature; somehow the situations leading to the incidents have found a lot of takers as reflection of what is happening in their lives
5) The Tipping person – Salesman – Malcolm talks in his book about the Tipping person, that one individual who carries forward the idea and expands it exponentially. The number of honour killings in the past 80 days is around 19 (from July 1, 2010 Times of India report), approximately one in four days. Coincidentally it was around the first week of May that our young MP from Kurukshetra, Naveen Jindal came out in open support of the Khap panchayat. All the media channels picked it up. There were experts who were supporting and opposing the cause. TV debates, news bytes all added up to creating khap/ honour killing, daily dinner table conversation across many parts of India. For many who had feeling of resentment, this open support of a sitting MP was the impetus that they needed to carry on their latent desire

While there could be many more reasons why such incidents still happen… these is my fresh thoughts basis the book I have just read :)

Cheers

Santosh

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