The cost of 'honour': Intercaste couples pay with their lives

A vicious blend of casteist and patriarchal systems continues to claim the lives of young people as legal protections and investigation mechanisms lag behind.

"We feel sorry for Keerthi’s family but I do not think the father’s act was wrong.” Janakamma (name changed) echoes the sentiment of a majority of the privileged caste residents of Bodgurki village in Kolar district who saw an honourless killing three months ago.

Janakamma is referring to the murder of 20-year-old Keerthi who was strangled by her father Krishnamurthy, a plumber from the Golla community after she fell in love with 23-year-old Gangadhar from the Madiga community. After hearing the news, Gangadhar died by suicide the next day. 

The chilling deaths do not seem to have shaken the conscience of the village.

Honourless killing, commonly referred to as ‘honour killing’, is a heinous act of crime against a family member or outsider. The crime is generally committed by members of privileged communities when a girl is in a marital or premarital relationship with a person from a marginalised caste. This extreme form of violence reported largely in rural areas and small towns, emanates from patriarchal traditions and caste prejudice entrenched in society. 

In Bodgurki, the Gollas, an Other Backward Classes (OBC) community, is privileged (38 per cent of the population). Madigas are the most oppressed, even among Scheduled Castes. The Madigas do not wield any economic, social or political power in the village despite forming nearly 40 per cent of the population. 

The divide between these communities is so vast that Janakamma recalls another incident from a year ago, when Gowthami from the Golla community married Pushparaj from the Madiga community. “I have heard people saying ‘Why are they still alive, even after their daughter brought shame to the family by marrying someone who is at the lowest end of the caste hierarchy’. No parent should face that situation,” she told DH. 

“Keerthi’s parents lost their daughter but have their dignity intact,” the mother of a 19-year-old said, even as her daughter frowned disapprovingly. 

Feeling alienated, Gowthami and Pushparaj had to leave the village permanently and settle down in a town. The only other instance of an intercaste marriage in the village was 15 years ago — between Venkatesh from the Madiga community and Veni from the Golla community. They have not been able to return to the village since.  

The latest instance turned tragic when the couple, who kept their relationship under wraps, was spotted by Keerthi’s relatives. The discovery resulted in the immediate house arrest of Keerthi, explains Gangadhar’s sister-in-law Aruna.

Keerthi and Gangadhar lived on adjacent roads. “We realised that they were in love the day before Gangadhar’s death. Keerthi rushed to our house pleading for help on that day. We were in shock while her mother dragged her away, using casteist slurs. We did not realise that Keerthi was at death’s door...”  she says. 

Gender 

A fact-finding report on the Bodgurki deaths exposes just how heavily gender weighs in on these matters. While members of Gangadhar’s family are seeking justice for the death of their son, asserting that his suicide was abetted by members of Keerthi’s family, no one has come forward to speak on behalf of Keerthi, seeking justice for her brutal murder. 

Vasanthamma is one of the few residents in the village who recognises this. “Her mother cannot even mourn her death. In this village, love and relationships are buried under the misconceived notions of family pride and honour,” she says. 

“It was wrong on Keerthi’s part to go against the wishes of her father and family, but her father had no right to kill her,” says Vasanthamma, a member of the Madiga community. 

Vigilante justice 

Ideas of purity and caste and gender prejudices persist because villagers have built informal systems to keep these notions alive. In Bodgurki, villagers have constituted an informal forum called the ‘nyaya panchayat’, wherein civil and criminal disputes are mediated.  

“Harmony has been restored in the village. In fact, there has been a sense of camaraderie amongst various communities historically,” says B V Parthasarathy, a gram panchayat member from the village. He belongs to the Golla community. “But differences crop up when people cross caste boundaries,” he says.

Nine centuries after Basavanna advocated for intercaste marriages with the vision of a casteless society, nine decades after Dr Ambedkar said, “I am convinced that the real remedy is inter-marriage,” and eight decades after Mahatma Gandhi officiated an intercaste marriage in Belagavi, perhaps the first in his presence — young lives continue to be at stake for being in intercaste relationships. 

Women across castes and men from deprived communities, particularly Dalits, bear the brunt of society’s inability to break free from the grip of honour and shame derived from caste at birth. 

Three cases of honourless killings were reported in Karnataka between June and August— two from Kolar and one from Tumakuru. In every instance, family, particularly fathers, killed daughters for being in relationships with Dalit men. 

In another suspected case of honourless killing in Kolar, a boy was allegedly murdered after a member of the girl’s family witnessed them in a conversation. Here, the perpetrators of violence belonged to the Holeya community, a Dalit caste, and the victim belonged to the Madiga community. 

Of these four cases, police say, only two can be categorised as ‘honour killings’. The other two are recorded as murder due to insufficient evidence.

In Kolar’s Totli, for instance, a man from the Vokkaliga community killed his 19-year-old daughter and buried her body immediately with the help of his brothers. When DH visited the village, residents revealed that the family had a conflict over the girl’s association with a Dalit boy from a neighbouring village. The issue, according to Lokesh, Inspector, Kolar Rural, is that the case could not be considered an ‘honour’ killing as apart from rumours in the village, no one had come forward to give a statement about the relationship. 

A sharp rise

As many as eight cases have been reported in Karnataka in the past 15 months, resulting in the death of nine young lives (six female and three male). This is a sharp rise compared to the one death recorded in 2021, according to a report by the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB). But for one case in Bagalkot, all victims were between the ages of 17 and 25. 

“We see a lot of intercaste marriages in the age group of 19 to 23. This is the age when youngsters want to explore life and are sexually curious. Rural areas and small towns do not allow that kind of space or anonymity for youngsters. Forget dating, customs still do not allow individuals from different genders to strike up a personal conversation,” says K R Disha, a researcher at IIT-Bombay. She has been studying intercaste marriages in Karnataka. 

The result of this kind of atmosphere is that, even before the young couple decides whether to continue a relationship or not, they are forced to make a decision or face the consequences. “That is why a majority of the victims of honourless killings are from this age group,” she says. 

Contrary to the historical pattern of men (from oppressed communities) being killed, we can see a growing number of daughters (from privileged communities) becoming targets in these honourless killings. 

“This change can be traced back to the enactment of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Even the emergence of Dalit movements that challenged caste hegemony made it difficult for privileged castes to kill men from Dalit communities. Consequently, they end up killing their own daughters,” says Mallige, a human rights activist based out of Mandya. She advocates for similar legal provisions and grassroots movements for the protection of women. 

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, India witnessed 530 honourless killings since 2015. This was included as a crime category only after 2014. While Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Haryana top the chart in terms of officially recorded honourless killings, recent incidents have put the focus on Karnataka. 

Legal framework

Like in the Totli murder, evidence for honourless killings can be hard to come by — as family members are likely to lie about their intentions. Activists say that honourless killing is more prevalent in the country than the recorded data reveals. In Karnataka, an analysis of such killings reported in newspapers, and those recorded in SCRB, indicates that the actual numbers are higher than officially recorded.  

Efforts to cover up the act and the motive, which is evident in most recent cases, also result in underreporting. For instance, in Tumakuru, the crime came to light a few days after the murder, when villagers grew suspicious and alerted the police. In Totli in Kolar district, a police constable overheard a conversation and alerted higher officials.

In Ballari, the father allegedly pushed his minor daughter to the canal and said that she died by suicide or accidentally. In Bagalkot, family members allegedly killed a girl and her partner and filed a missing complaint. 

“We do not have a mechanism to report honourless killings. Also, the current legal and criminal investigation provisions do not have a separate category for honourless killings. A ground survey is a prerequisite to know the gravity of the situation. Simultaneously, the government should push for a legal framework to address this crime. Sensitisation of the police is also imperative,” says human rights advocate Maitreyi Krishnan. 

Apart from insufficiency in the law, Justice H N Nagamohan Das says, social movements that support intercaste marriages are lacking in the current times. “Honourless killing is a complex issue that has social, economic and political layers. We can tackle this only through an active collaboration between society and government departments,” he says.  

In districts where social movements are strong, privileged communities do not resort to extreme forms of violence, observes grassroots worker Nagaraj Pujar from Koppal. 

Caste hegemony

In fact, “honour-based violence is stark when the privileged community involved is aggressive due to the social, political and economic power it holds,” says V L Narasimhamurthy, an English professor in Bengaluru. 

He cites a recent marriage in Doddaballapur where both families — SC and OBC — made peace with the couple in four months. “This is because even though the girl’s family is high up in the caste hierarchy, their population and economic status matched that of the male partner,” he says. 

Narasimhamurthy and his wife Kavya are still waiting for the approval of Kavya’s parents four years after their wedding. In 2019, their efforts to unite, with the parents’ consent, turned violent. “Elders like Devanur Mahadeva, Ravivarma Kumar and B Shripad Bhat were present to speak to my parents and convince them. But my father was in no mood to listen,” narrates Kavya. She belongs to a Scheduled Tribe caste while Narasimhamurthy is from a Scheduled Caste community. 

“The general notion is that there is little difference between SCs and STs as both come under the reserved category. But the reality is different. Our community is powerful in Tumakuru and Chitradurga belt,” she says. 

Her father was angry with her for choosing a man from a caste, perceived to be lower in the caste hierarchy. 

Kavya was under house arrest for 15 days, after which she was able to convince her father to take her to a predetermined location to meet with Narasimhamurthy and others. The meeting turned ugly. 

Narasimhamurthy and Kavya had to leave abruptly. However, Kavya remains regretful for the pain she feels she has caused to her parents and her brother. Her subsequent attempts to speak to her family over the phone have failed. 

Witnessing her father’s anger, her well-wishers have advised her against going to the village until he invites her. 

She also shares the predicament of a friend from her caste who married a man from the Vokkaliga community, which has a higher social, economic and political status. “Both families opposed the marriage initially. Her parents came to terms with them in a couple of months. However, her partner’s family does not allow her into the house and they have not accepted her even after a year,” Kavya says. 

While his wife is not invited, he chooses to attend family events. In some other cases, the support and stand of the male partner are shown to have a positive correlation with familial acceptance. 

In other cases, Koppala-based social worker Virupama says, women from oppressed communities are even made to live away from their partner or forced to file for a divorce by his privileged caste family. 

While living away from both villages, in a city, has helped Kavya and Narasimhamurthy forge a strong bond, stable income has also contributed to their successful marriage. Murthy was 32 years old and Kavya was a 26-year-old, at the time of their marriage. 

While there are government schemes that provide financial support to intercaste couples (that involve Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribe communities), recent data shows a drop in the number of takers. 

Apart from a lack of awareness, administrative hurdles might be a reason for this decline, says Ravi Bhagi from Ramanagara, who has facilitated around 50 intercaste marriages over the last two decades. 

Isolated efforts like that of his team are bright spots in a society which forces intercaste couples to either flee their hometowns, cut bonds with their families or face death. 

Ultimately families are failing to, “accept the truth or reality that their children can marry with their own choices outside their caste or religion,” says Manjula Pradeep, a human rights advocate.