Rinky (name changed) sits at the edge of her chair cooing to baby Pihu. A shawl slung over her slight frame seems insufficient protection against the brutal cold of a January morning in Rohtak. Ten-month-old Pihu is rather taken up with the flower on Rinky’s cap and lunges for it repeatedly. To a stranger, Rinky is just another 22-year-old girl in Haryana, easy to smile and vulnerable to the cold. But Savita (the Haryana state president of All India Democratic Women’s Association and baby Pihu’s mother), in whose home we meet Rinky, tells us an altogether different story.
Sexually abused by her father for years, Rinky left her home in Karnal district this November. “I was in Class 5 when it first happened. I had no idea what it meant at the time,” she says. The abuse stopped for a few years but began again in Class 12. “It happened regularly. They even stopped my studies for some time,” she says. Yet, Rinky went on to get a degree in history and geography. When she told her family she wanted to pursue a course in fashion, her father suggested a compromise — “Let me have my way with you and you will be allowed to study.”
Since census-keeping began in 1901, Haryana has remained a state with one of the worst sex ratios in the country (879 women to 1,000 men). In districts such as Jhajjar and Mahendragarh, the ratio falls further to under 600. Son preference still reigns, female foeticide runs rampant, and property rights elude women. The stranglehold of patriarchy over the Haryanvi society means that women are systematically excluded from the public realm and sidelined in private decision-making. Within the home they are treated as second-class citizens. Filmmaker Nakul Singh Sawhney, whose documentary
But stories of women fighting back are gaining traction. A man in Bibipur said that if the wife gets beaten three nights, she will beat the husband on the fourth. The resurgence of the khap in Haryana over the last few decades is instigated by this newfound bellicose instinct in its women. While women are challenging khap panchayats, the old order is trying to wrest back control. In a state where honour killing is not a crime and wife-beating is the norm, divorce rates have gone up and cases of domestic violence are being reported by women. Masculinity in the State is in crisis today.
Captain Mahavir, the head of Satrol Khap, one of the largest in Haryana, precariously straddles this transition. “When I got married, my father asked, ‘Can the girl milk a cow, feed cattle and collect gobar ?’ Now, I ask the girls if they’ve been to university or if they can work.” The khap leaders have also come to realise the need for an image makeover. Captainji, with his deeply lined face and rugged complexion, tries to say all the right things; he is not opposed to love marriages (his son is having one), a daughter is more important than a son, all castes and genders are welcome in the khap. But dig a bit deeper and the hollowness of these claims shines through. A love marriage is permissible if it is not in the same village and not with a lower caste. The burden of ‘ izzat ’ (honour) of the family rests with the daughters, not the sons. It is hard for the landless to be khap members, “they can’t serve chai at the meetings,” and they don’t have the wherewithal to take decisions.
“ The resurgence of the khap in Haryana over the last few decades is instigated by the newfound bellicose instinct in its women ”
In Captainji’s household, the beti may be on par with the sons, but the bahu still observes purdah and doesn’t address elders directly. His 24-year-old son Dev, a bearded man in skinny trousers, on the other hand, is a member of the leftist-theatre group Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association and frequently disputes his father’s claims.
According to a study in Hargian Singh’s Panchayati Raj Administration in Haryana , 77.5 per cent of panchayat members are aged under 50. While this suggests a shift of power to the younger men, it has resulted in traditional custodians stressing on practices that smack of aggressive manliness. In some ways, Dev captures the crisis of masculinity in Haryana. A ‘good son’, he is the media consultant of Satrol khap. “The media unfairly paints Haryana as anti-women. It’s the UP khaps that banned mobiles and jeans. Our sex ratio has improved over the decades, but what about south Delhi?” he asks. But his passion is theatre and he admits that while he has performed across Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, he finds little support in Haryana. He keeps a beard, shakes hands with women, acts in village squares; he differs from the khap ilk. Yet, he belongs to them.
Sparing no punches
Last month, two sisters from Rohtak hit the headlines when a video of them thrashing harassers went viral. Subsequently, it was alleged that the sisters were serial assaulters and the State government held back the bravery award. “But this sort of thing happens every day. I used to do the same on a daily basis,” says Jagmati Sangwan, vice-president of AIDWA. In Haryana, the bus is a conflict zone for women. Chhedkhani (teasing) is rife, “ Woh meri hai, ye teri hai ” is how men assign girls. One of the few shared spaces for both genders, the bus gives women mobility but exposes them to even more harassment. If they complain about eve-teasing, they lose their freedom to travel, which often means also losing the opportunity to study.
Nearly one-third of Haryana now falls under the National Capital Region. Property prices have shot up and landowners have turned millionaires. On paper at least, as per the Hindu Succession Act, women are entitled to property. Yet, few are in possession of their lands. “The criteria of gaon (village) and gotra (caste) are attempts by khaps to keep their daughters from inheriting land,” says Sawhney. The ban on inter-caste marriages is also strictly followed to keep resources within the family. But due to the proximity of the region to the Capital, signs of upward mobility are all too visible. An important factor of change is the increase in land prices, which has resulted in more and more women claiming their property share. “There is change now, but the pace is too slow for the cost we bear,” says Sangwan.
“In Haryana, the strength of male culture is visible in the exclusive all-male spaces in the villages,” writes Haryana scholar Prem Chowdhry. In her analysis of the rural culture in the State, she remarks that Haryana’s villages are constructed to preserve male dominance. The control extends from the home to public space. The baithaks at home, where men gather to play cards, hold meetings, spill out onto the street. At chaupals , the all-male, hookah panchayats gather to discuss politics and women. The streets too remain under male use, especially after sundown.
Nearly a year after Bibipur village in Jind district attached ‘The Women’s World’ to its name, a street, chaupal and lake have come up bearing the prefix ‘lado’ (daughter). Yet, these decidedly ‘feminine’ spaces lie unutilised. In April 2014, Sudesh Choudhary, 44, was made the first president of the women’s wing of the Satrol Khap. “We’ve got 200-300 members and we are working for more participation.” Yet, none of the mahila members have attended the panchayats, and Bibipur’s sarpanch Sunil Jaglan makes it clear that the inclusion is just an empty claim. “The social exclusion of women from community life is so strong that often voter IDs are not made for women,” says Sangwan. When women begin to have their own relationships with the world, it unnerves the Haryanvi male, who is used to “exercising control over her property, sexuality and interactions.”
“ There is change now, but the pace of that change is too slow for the cost we bear ”
The eldest of three siblings, with two younger brothers, Rinky’s childhood is similarly one of control. If her brothers aged 18 and 13 were given bikes, Rinky could only board the college bus (exclusively for women). On days when she missed the bus, she stayed home. If her brothers could watch television, go to cinemas, she had no such freedoms. While her brothers had access to mobiles — they have Facebook and WhatsApp accounts — her phone was monitored. “They answered my calls. Many times, they didn’t tell me my friends had called. Finally, they it took away altogether,” says Rinky. The family even went as far as to remove SIM cards when the phones were charging to keep the outside world out of her reach. One day, while washing clothes, she found a SIM in her brother’s trouser pocket. She smuggled it out and called a helpline number that had, ironically, flashed during the khap episode of Satyamev Jayate .
Savita, seated below a Che Guevara poster, who has been an AIDWA member for almost a decade, says cases of incest are all too common in Haryana. But most go unreported and, unlike Rinky, most girls don’t seek help. Every Wednesday, Savita holds an open office, where women from across the State share their grievances. During our meeting, her phone rings constantly with “cases” — most of which relate to sexual harassment and domestic violence — she tells us. Rinky can’t return to her village now; her family has spread rumours of an affair, even a pregnancy. She will stay at Savita’s and fight the case in court. “But they’ve threatened to burn my certificates. I need to get them back, they’re my life.”
While khap panchayats continue to assert their dominance through diktats, honour crimes and sexual violence, traditional power structures in Haryana have begun to fracture. By leaving home and her family, Rinky symbolises the new breed of women steadily challenging patriarchy. For the next generation of men like Dev, the going is only getting tougher. To be a young man in Haryana will not be such a wonderful thing.