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Committed mostly against women -- first, second and even third generation British Asians from Pakistan and India -- who dare make the most of a free, democratic society by educating and asserting themselves, "honor killings" are carried out by the male or elderly members of their family.
Having migrated from tribal, feudal and patriarchal rural societies with little or no education, the men have not been able to shrug off the cloistered male-dominated psyche. Their home societies, where village elders still set the moral parameters and empowerment of women is sacrilegious, continue to impact their conscience and judgment even when they are settled in the United Kingdom.
The problem is rampant among immigrants -- most of them originally from Mirpur in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Punjab in India -- who left their villages back home to work in factories or for builders in Britain. Even after stringent immigration laws in the 1970s, they managed to sneak in, armed with nothing, not even a working knowledge of the English language, except friends and relations already settled in the United Kingdom.
With exclusive South Asian neighborhoods in places like Blackburn, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Southhall, the need to integrate with British society never arose. Little Pakistans and Indias echoed and amplified the culture and society they were used to back home. Affordable British neighborhoods also contributed in no small measure with their aversion to South Asian immigrants moving in.
Women, well into their second and sometimes third generations, are educated and more likely to be integrated. Referring to themselves as British, rather than Indian or Pakistani, they tend to break free from the warp of tribal culture. When they are forced into marriage to grooms from "back home" by family elders, they find it difficult to adjust to their "alien" culture and norms. Sick of being doormats, they break free. Some resist forced marriages by fleeing with the men of their choice, born and bred like them in Britain and sometimes outside their caste, religion or tribe.
That is when "honor" takes on a baser meaning in the absence of education among menfolk. A sense of honor, drawn from subjugation of women and male dominance, tribal style, makes them resort to dishonorable and criminal acts like hiring thugs from their community to brutally do away with the erring girl or daughter.
The U.K. think tank Center for Social Cohesion has revealed there are nearly 25 such deaths among South Asians every year. It also highlighted the involvement of taxi drivers, councilors and community members working in the government, who, instead of acting on the hapless girl's plea, turn them over to their families.
British policemen are wary of intervening and booking the family elders, lest charges of racism or communalism start flying around. Policemen of South Asian origin, on whom racial or anti-religious stigma will not stick, are also reluctant to take strong action against the family members. Local religious bodies have decried ghastly murders masqueraded as honor killings, but they too are short of action to stop the menace.
Honor killing, as these dishonorable acts have become known, has nothing to do with Islam, Hinduism or Sikhism. None of these faiths sanction murder of a female family member if she chooses to live life her way, or marry a man of her choice. By not doing anything exemplary to reason and rein in half-educated community members still steeped in tribal culture, the clergy are opening doors for criticism of their religion.
The guilty male members of the South Asian community are using a free democratic and welfare society to airlift and foist a partial, gender-unequal culture from the dark interiors of South Asia to Britain. Knowing the extra caution and reticence of the British toward even the slightest infringement of immigrant race and religious rights, some members of the community try to couch heinous acts under inter-family, social and religious edicts.
While the spread of little Pakistans and Indias all over the United Kingdom is a future reality which the British must accept in the era of globalization and multiculturalism, South Asian immigrant fathers and grandfathers too should realize that their daughters and granddaughters are comfortable with a British identity.
Any attempt to force their clock back would be harmful not only to the future harmony of British society, but to the honor of all South Asian immigrants as well.
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(Susenjit Guha is a freelance writer living in Kolkata, India. He can be contacted at sguha60@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Susenjit Guha. )
