Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
status-consciousness and other hang-ups. This, of course, has happened in many countries
in the past 50 to 100 years, but in India it has been enormously faster and also more con-
troversial because of traditional male attitudes that are evident across classes and castes,
but are perhaps harshest in villages where these traditions are strong. Women are becom-
ing economically equal with men, and are showing new independence in their careers, fre-
quently outclassing male colleagues, and have more liberated private lives, especially in
urban areas. Unemployment among poorly educated young men, who cannot find suitable
semi-skilled jobs and have nothing to occupy their time, adds to the problem. There is a
'crisis of masculinity because women are doing well, and there is a vast pool of less edu-
cated and unemployed males who get little respect even at home,' says Ravinder Kaur, a
sociologist at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.
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Khap panchayats produce clan-based, chauvinistic and often violent reactions to social
issues such as mixed-caste marriages, especially in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, where the
khap leaders are anxious to maintain their social importance in a rapidly modernizing en-
vironment. They cause 'honour killings' that are carried out by families or neighbours of
young people who have broken what they see as binding codes of behaviour. Two widows
who were said to be in a lesbian relationship were beaten to death in Haryana by a 23-year-
old nephew of one of the women, who was a convicted rapist. There are stories of murder
girl who had married into a lower caste dragged her out of her in-laws' home and set her on
fire in Andhra Pradesh. In 2010, an Indian man killed his step-daughter in Punjab because
she was in love with a Belgium-based lower-caste boy. A couple were electrocuted to death
barbaric decisions (like urging the murder of violators of marriage norms) are taken within
less than 100 km of Delhi has only made for the worst publicity', says Bhupendra Yadav, a
historian.
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The publicity, however, rarely moves beyond the shock and horror of discovering such
attitudes exist within sight of the shiny office blocks of Delhi's satellite cities that house
multinational companies. It fails to recognize the massive social changes that have taken
place around cities such as Delhi, where social tensions and clashes created by a rapidly
modernizing India are most stark.
Hazare's Movement
A groundswell of public opinion verging on anger against corrupt politicians and other of-
ficials led, in the spring of 2011, to mass protests across the country in support of a hunger
strike by Hazare, who dressed evocatively with a pointed white cap, crisp white kurta and
spectacles, reminiscent in some ways of Mahatma Gandhi. He was demanding legislation
