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.

Leave the gun. Take the jilebi?

Yet again, truth is stranger than the Onion's reports.  Here is the BBC explaining how "British Asians are outsourcing murder":

In India, murder is cheap, with hired assassins paid up to $800 (£500).
Formerly, the modus operandi was a drive-by shooting, now it is likely to be a staged road accident.
And it appears there are few risks.

The Godfather with an Indian twist. (ed: it is stupid to explain this way the title of this post!)

Speaking of the Godfather, Professor Diego Gambetta, has some fascinating observations (HT):

IDEAS: In the Mafia underworld, how celebrated is the movie ”The Godfather”?

GAMBETTA: It is very celebrated. Not just by the Sicilian Mafia and by the Italian-American Mafia, but oddly enough by people in the same line of business in Russia, in China, and in Japan. We have evidence that they understood that that was the sector of the economy in which they themselves moved, and there’s lots of evidence that they liked the film, that they could recite, by heart, bits of the film, in countries which you would think would have nothing to do with it.

IDEAS: We’ve got criminals out there in China and Japan who are modeling themselves after Michael and Sonny Corleone?

GAMBETTA: We do have evidence of that. Yes.

IDEAS: What are some other ways that criminals are modeling themselves on film portrayals?

GAMBETTA: Well, I guess ”The Godfather” is the big example because, for example, they don’t like movies like ”Donnie Brasco.”

IDEAS: Why not?

GAMBETTA: ”Donnie Brasco” is a very good movie, but it shows them as losers, as being taken in by this extremely skillful FBI agent, Joseph Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco. Several of them landed in jail, thanks to his undercover operation. And so, the movie portrays them at the losing end, and they don’t like that. Movies for them are a way of advertising, a way of gaining legitimacy.

Yet another family-murder-suicide ....

Late last year, I blogged about a horrific murder-suicide in an Indian American family:

Karthik Rajaram was a former employee of PriceWaterhouse Coopers and Sony Pictures in Southern California, but had been unemployed for a few months. He committed suicide, after killing his family — his wife, mother-in-law, and three children aged 19, 12 and 7. It is unfortunate that this Indian-American resorted to guns, reinforcing the notion that guns and violence, too, are as American as the oft-repeated apple pie and mom.

When I went to India later in December, a high school classmate said he was Karthik Rajaram's college-mate during their undergrad years at IIT-Madras.

Now, another such incident--this time in Northern California:

The police identified some of the victims of a murder-suicide that left six people dead in Santa Clara but were still trying to uncover a motive. The police said that on Sunday night, Devan Kalathat, 42, an engineer at Yahoo, fatally shot his 11-year-old son and his 4-year-old daughter and wounded his 34-year-old wife. Before committing suicide, Mr. Kalathat also killed his brother-in-law, Ashok Appu Poothemkandi, 35, a Hewlett-Packard employee; Mr. Poothemkandi’s wife, Suchitra Sivaraman, 25; and the couple’s 11-month-old daughter.

In Rajaram's case, it seemed like his worsening financial situation might have contributed to his going beserk. In this recent incident, the motive is not clear at this stage. Tragic ....

As we get deeper into spring, we will all be reminded of Columbine and Virginia Tech. I hope we will not experience anymore such tragedies.

Awful homicide/suicide

An unemployed financial advisor apparently despondent over his troubles shot and killed his wife, his mother-in-law and three children before taking his own life in a gated community in the northwest San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles police said today. ....
The 45-year-old suspect used a handgun he purchased Sept. 16, Moore said. The weapon was found next to the gunman's body, officials said.The bodies of the man's 39-year-old wife, 70-year-old mother-in-law, and three sons -- ages 19, 12 and 7 -- were found inside the home's various bedrooms. ...
Friends and neighbors identified the couple as Karthik and Subasri Rajaram, who had lived in the neighborhood for about two years.Moore said police believe that the gunman shot the victims sometime after 6 p.m. Saturday, and that he had left behind three letters indicating that he had carried out the killings.
He said the gunman had worked previously for Price Waterhouse and Sony Pictures and "had attested to some financial difficulties," Moore said. "He had become despondent over his financial" situation.

How terrible this LA Times report is. I fear for more of such news as the economic situation turns worse ....

The names suggest that the family hailed from Tamil Nadu, which is where I am from. For all I know, maybe I am even related to them.