Honour Killings, Khap Panchayats and Gender Violence in Haryana

Honour killing refers to the killing of a person by their own family or community members to preserve their honour, which was affected by them. This practice gets its validity from deep-rooted cultural notion of patriarchal norms fixed rigidly in people's minds. Humiliation drives people to take steps like these, especially those who are related to the same community. The same community members having a relationship directly impact the family's reputation, as the community believes. Honour killing drives to murder these people as they bring ‘shame’ to their community. Many of the victims that suffer from those atrocities are young couples who take steps against their family’s will and then marry from other religions or castes, or sometimes within the same community (Kumar 2022). The Northern part of India is particularly infamous because of the highest number of honour killings and Haryana contributes a big number in it. Despite many people’s efforts to criticize these activities, including applying strict laws to censure these crimes and arranging awareness campaigns, honour killings continue to occur in these regions. There are many factors that contribute to this unethical activity. Discriminatory social norms like caste-based and class-based in society encourage the spreading of honour killings in Haryana. The present research paper attempts to examine Honour killing as a social phenomenon and how various social agencies including Khap Panchayats are involved in it. Not only these encourage individuals to commit this heinous crime but these also create hurdles in the path judicial system that maintains a check over these.