Khap Panchayats issue.

Dear Mr. Chetan Bhagat,

I read your article What's Gotra Got To Do With It? in the Times of India dated May 22, 2010. Having read it I shudder at the weight of the ignorance which gives bliss to your life. You have the humility to express your deep ignorance of the gotra system and yet try to make fun of institutions you hardly understand. Of course, you have no time; but a little interaction - face to face - with “no-same-gotra (marriage) T-shirt brigade” would have put some sense in your criticism. A well informed article, rather than a mere confession of your parents’ inability to educate you properly, would have been better.

Let us take an example. You state that the Khap system is thousand years old. You then say it has survived post British period for 63 years “aided by the patronage of local political parties” Is it not a moronic prose of an argument? This system survived not only the Mughal period but also the British tyranny. The system maintained itself even in that hostile environment.

Then you say that the Khap justice system is not as rigorous, or always consistent with, the Indian Legal System. Well, it tries to delivers justice to people in their own surroundings and in their own language. It is accessible to them. People do not have to wait 25 years or even generations to get the final decision. These institutions are of, by and for the people.

Instead of taking the issue head on, you chose to attack it on arguments which are not of the Khaps themselves - the logical mathematics and the DNA issue. Khaps and 99.9% of people are not DNA Scientist. So, this is not the basis of their resistance to samgotra marriage. The issue is of the custom, and the Will of the people. The issue is of majority versus minority. Most communities may not have this custom. Does it stand to reason that none should have it? Then we should all be accepting the Christian or the Islamic ways, for they are in majority. Is it this simple, Mr. Bhagat or is there more to the issue? The Parsis number a few thousands in whole India. Yet distinct, and to some - repugnant, customs are being allowed to be maintained by them. Marriage out side that community is forbidden. Then as per your logic, they hate all Indians. Going further by your logic, even the laws which void a spinda marriage are against the individual freedom and should be struck off. Even the chances of this happening are “extremely remote”.

The question is of balance of individuals’ and community’s freedom. We live in times of moral and intellectual conundrum. As you say, times of conflict between the new and the old thoughts. We have to introspect. Cull out from the new what is our own and thrash out what has been injected into us by the foreign rule. Germany, taking 30 years to re-formulate its laws from 1870 to 1900, adopted the laws that governed those lands in 5th Century AD. Those old laws, brought into effect with the consonance of the Will of the people were instrumental in making Germany one of the dominating nations of modern times. India had well developed laws since Ancient times. Yet we are living with the laws enacted or imposed by foreign nations.

Mr. Chetan, you have the basics to understand that a strong foundation is necessary to support a building. A building cannot be built top down. However, you are suggesting the same by talking of issues which are secondary in nature to the basic issues of our society. Secondly, the mere fact that there abound larger issues is not the reason to discard smaller but more important issues which go to the root of the society. Mr. Naveen Jindal seems to have a vision of India having swadeshi laws. He has the duty to voice the will of the people. That voice is being sought to be muzzled by foreign read, foreign bred intellectual mix-breeds. They see it as threat when people coalesce at any level. They would wish away any grouping of people not under their control. They want a jellied national mass of boneless individuals which they can ply like clay. The joint-family system has been systematically weakened over the years and now the village system is under attack.

To answer the question, what's gotra got to do with it? You may well ask as to what has a battalion or a company to do with the Army. It is a way of human grouping in the continuum from individual to family to cast to religion and finally nation. Compulsory exogamy for a gotra maintains the organisational structure and at the same time strengthens the fibre of the society by matrimonial ties. At this juncture, I would suggest that you ask your parents about your gotra and get related to the society at that level also.

At this stage, instead of out rightly debunking our ancient institutions, the need is to study them and give due legal sanctity to them. Given the very less time we have had, some of our post British period laws may also have flaws. The need is to rectify them and not treat them as sacramental. It is the duty of our MPs like Mr Jindal to implement the will of the affected people and bring our statutes in consonance with our culture.

Think it over.