Khap Panchayats are a medieval villain in the modern Love stories. Last week the Supreme Court reminded khap panchayats about their redundancy. It asked the Central government and petitioners to come up with effective suggestions for the protection of couples in khap panchayat matters. The bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra noted that police should be held responsible for protection of couples in such matters.

The Supreme Court may be in time to save couples from self-styled kangaroo courts this Valentine’s Day.

Khaps have been in news in the last few years for working their own model of medieval law against same-gotra and inter-caste marriages. They expect love to follow the ancient rules that the partner should be of same caste, but another gotra.

Maybe they still don’t know that love is blind. One can imagine a white moustached turban clad uncle having a filmy heart-attack when he notices two boys holding hands. He was so busy with gotra and caste, that he forgot to make gender rules for lovers.

Image Credit: hindustantimes

But the tragedy that they wreck is beyond satire. Couples have been hanged in villages. Eloping couples have been dragged back. Boys are hanged, and girls are gang-raped to teach them some ‘sanskar’ or ‘culture’.

Khaps are a dominating nuisance in Haryana, which is facing concerns due to skewed gender ratio. In Uttar Pradesh, some khaps ban girls from carrying cell phones and wearing jeans. And this at a time, when the rest of the society is moving towards Digital India.

Threatening and attacking adults in inter-caste or inter-faith marriages in the name of being “conscience keepers of society is absolutely illegal”, the court had observed in an earlier hearing. This is the second time in the past month that the apex court has taken a tough stance on the khaps and warned them against interfering in matters pertaining to inter-faith or inter-caste marriages. On 16 January, it was declared illegal by the court for parents or khap panchayats to interfere in decisions of adult men and women of different castes to marry.

We hope that the Supreme Court comes up with a definitive solution, and turns a guardian of rights, including the right to love, when it hears the case again on 16th February.

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