Love in the land of Kama Sutra

India is a country of a billion-plus.  So, yes, while sometimes gross numbers might be shocking, in percentage terms they might not be that different from comparable data from elsewhere.  Despite such a caveat about numbers, reports about "honor killings" and abuses related to family-honor are terribly depressing.

A typical story that is reported is about a young woman--often between 18 and 23 years old--who is in a relationship with a young man, and there is a caste or religion difference.  It is not unusual for the woman's family to find out about this when she is also pregnant.  And then all hell breaks loose, and tragically the young woman dies.  Sometimes her lover too.  And, while most are reported as suicides, a significant percentage of them are murders committed by the families who consider these developments a huge disgrace to their honor.

In the bad old days, the horror was sati--the widow burning alive along with her dead husband's body.  And then the horror of "bride burning" and now this ... Awful ... All because of love :(

Nineteen honour killings between April 9 and June 30. That translates to 80 days. Roughly, one murder every four days. Clearly, north India is waging an undeclared war against love.

You might think, along with Khap officials, honour killings have to do with caste. But the real casualty is love. None of the murdered couples married by arrangement. Scratch the skin of caste, and out comes love, bleeding.

 However, am not sure whether governments alone can social-engineer a different set of ethos:

"We will not compromise on traditions. We will either kill or get killed," says Om Prakash Malik.

Many actively defending the killings and ostracisation of the couples in love in the name of family honour.

"No one can stop such deaths. Not the Government or the Supreme Court. Even the military can not stop it," says Choudhary Naresh Singh Tikait.

Such a scenario is no different from that in many of the societies in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

Honour killings have been rampant in orthodox and socially backward groups in many countries including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories, they say.

While statistics are hard to come by due to non-reporting of such crimes, United Nations Population Fund approximates that as many as 5,000 women are murdered in this manner each year around the world.

 Here is to hoping that women everywhere will soon live in free conditions.