Suicide or Honour Killing?

A teenage girl died in Ganjam, Orissa last month. A story came out in the local paper that it was an "honour killing" (i.e. when someone is killed by their own family members for bringing shame and dishonour on the family). The girl, who was in tenth standard (14 or 15 years old), was reportedly seeing a boy that the family disapproved of. My boss and colleague, who coordinate the Orissa-arm of the 'We Can' campaign to end violence against women, went to the village to investigate what happened, along with two members of the National Alliance of Women. They spoke with the family, community members, police and doctor.

Details from the fact-finding team:

The girl's parents first reported that she died during suddenly the night from diarrhoea. Her family members were taking her body to the jungle to be cremated. It is the custom in Hindu tradition for family members to carry the dead body wrapped in a sheet on a wooden stretcher to the cremation ground. On this occasion the family wanted to cremate her in the jungle instead of the normal village cremation ground. While carrying the body, someone noticed there was blood dripping from the head. They looked under the sheet and saw that there was a wound on the back of the head and marks and bruises on her neck. Clearly she had not died from diarrhoea, and so the Sarpanch (like the mayor) of the village and her husband stopped the procession, delayed the cremation and reported it to the police. (The Sarpanch was a relative of the girl and so was present at the procession).

The father was called to the police station and told the police that the girl had actually committed suicide, not died of illness. He said that the day before the family discovered she had been seeing an older boy they disapproved of, were angry at her and had an argument. The next morning she was dead. According to her brother, when she didn’t emerge from her locked room the following morning, he looked through the skylight to see her hanging from the roof by a sari. He said he cut the sari she was hanging from, her body dropped to the floor, causing the wound on the back of her head. The dead girl was dressed in her school uniform. When my colleagues asked questions about the clothes she was wearing when she died, they were told the night dress she had been wearing had been burnt as it was dirty. The police hadn't asked any questions about the dress, or taken any photographs of the dead body or scene. They generally showed an extremely weak attempt at any investigation into the death.

The doctor has reported that it is a case of suicide and so the police haven’t looked into it any further. However many of the villagers don’t believe it was suicide. When the team arrived the father was not present and they were told that he had gone to get medical treatment as he had been beaten up by the villagers, suspecting he had been responsible. The team spoke to the girl’s friends who had been with her at school the days before her death and said she had seemed normal; nothing was out of the ordinary.

The circumstances behind this girl's death are suspicious. It doesn’t seem to be a premeditated killing, such as many “honour killings” – most of which occur in Northern states such as Rajasthan. It could be that it was an accidental death when a fight got out of control, or a suicide. I doubt there will ever be a thorough investigation, although my colleagues have been appealing to the authorities to bring the case to justice. Regardless of whether it was suicide or murder, the fact is that a young girl is dead for doing nothing more than being a normal teenage girl - meeting a boy. That the reaction of her parents could be so bad that she would commit suicide is just not right. And worse still, if the shame of the parents could be so strong that the only way to keep their “honour” is to kill their own daughter, this is beyond comprehension.

50 million missing women in India:

What is more disturbing is that this isn’t a unique case. Experts estimate more than 1,000 honour killings happen in India every year. Honour killings are just one element contributing to the massive gender gap in India. This year’s census revealed that there are only 914 girls to every 1,000 boys in India, a drop from 927 in 2001. So, despite many more education and career opportunities for women, the situation in general is getting worse. In a recent poll, India was ranked the 4th most dangerous country in the world for women (because of sex-selective abortions, infanticide, honour killings, trafficking, dowry killings). As a result of these issues, there are an estimated 50 million missing women in India – ‘missing’ meaning those who would be alive if there was a natural sex ratio. There is still a lot of pressure on women to have a son instead of a daughter and huge inequalities for women exist. Campaigns like ‘We Can’ are dedicated to changing this, recruiting individual Change Makers to change attitudes in their communities and end violence against women.

Some articles on this:

India's missing women (the Guardian)

Gendercide in India (the Economist)

India mothers charged with daughters' honour killing (BBC)

India court calls for 'stamping out honour killing' (BBC)

THE FIELD

This month I got a taste of rural Orissa, on a visit to Aaina's project areas. My job with Aaina is Communications (the website, newsletters, reports etc.), which means I'm based in the head office in Bhubaneswar where I go every day, apart from a few workshops here and there, and occasionally visiting the Amo Vidyalaya school nearby. But recently I'd been dying to make a field trip as I realised that almost 6 months had passed without me actually visiting Aaina's rural projects - where the real human work happens! So, I told my boss and she invited me along to two 3-day Livelihood Planning workshops, one in Bhanjanagar, about 3 hours drive south of Bhubaneswar, and one in Kamakhyanagar, about 3 hours north. Aaina have project offices here and are strongly involved with the communities, especially the disability community. They run disability self help groups, physiotherapy and training, child rights projects and various other things.

Planning Livelihoods:

A consultant flew over from Pune to run the workshop. About 20 participants joined each group - disabled people and self help group members from the surrounding villages, along with Aaina's field staff and village level workers. The first 2 days of the workshop involved group tasks to get people thinking about their villages, community members, resources and problems they face, and plan how to maximise their livelihoods.

Samir illustrating a social mapping exercise - the groups map out all the locations of the major resources, infrastructure etc. in their local village

The workshop was held in Hindi/Oriya, but I was able to get the general gist of it, through getting English translations from Samir and my colleagues. I was lost in the discussion part of it and tried to get translations whenever the conversation seemed to get interesting. (e.g. when the discussion turned to the caste system people got animated, saying how they are unfairly treated). Despite the language barrier, I learnt a lot by simply being there and watching what was going on. It was useful for me to get a grasp of how Aaina works as an organisation, the roles of the field staff and to meet the people from the community - who are the ultimate purpose of my, Aaina and VSO's work.

On the third day the participants were divided into two groups and went off to local villages, gathered people from the community together and carried out two of the planning exercises they had learned.

Venn diagram exercise in the community hall: shows different stakeholders (doctor, teacher, NGOs etc) and how close their relationship is with the village

....Some Blind Meditation:

In both groups the people were very shy and inhibited, especially in the beginning but gradually opened up over the 3 days. Most of the participants had mobility problems, and there were a few blind people. There was one blind man in particular who seemed very calm throughout the workshop. He didn't say much, if anything. The workshops went on late, til about 9 or 10pm, and on one evening I thought I heard someone snoring. Then I realised it was the blind man dressed in white meditating and doing breathing exercises, in the middle of the session. No-one else seemed to pay any attention. After a while I looked over and he was lying down in the middle of the floor in the "Savasana", corpse pose. I found it nice that he was able to find peace in that noisy roasting room, surrounded by people!

And outside of the long hot intensive days of the workshop, I had the chance to experience a bit of lovely rural Orissa:

- Festival of Goddesses
On the first night in Bhanjanagar, as we were leaving a restaurant we came across a parade to celebrate a festival of goddesses or something. There were some great costumes, dancers and fireworks and I was taking a video with the work video camera. One of the organiser men saw me, must have thought "ah! a foreigner with a camera - opportunity!" and took me right up to the dancers, then started making them dance for me only, ignoring the rest of the crowd. I didn't really know what to do but someone else came up and gave out to the man for ruining the show. I left then, feeling a bit uncomfortable and guilty - I just wanted to watch it like everyone else! Urg, damn my pale skin, it makes people act like weirdos.

the parade, festival of Goddesses

- A Midnight Wedding in the Middle of Nowhere
On the second night in Bhanjanagar I was invited along to a wedding party of an ex-aaina colleague who lives nearby. The workshop finished up late and we drove for miles and miles into what seemed like rural jungle. We eventually arrived at the village at 11pm. Apparently this is a perfectly acceptable time to arrive to a rural wedding, although on this occasion we seemed to miss the party. But I was enjoying the random trip anyway, having no clue where I was, yet somehow feeling safe as can be surrounded by my rowdy Indian colleagues. I followed them through the village in the darkness, to a big clearing which felt like being in the middle of a forest. It was extremely hot and humid, even though it was nearly midnight (the daytime temperatures reached to about 44°C that week..ouch).

There were a line of women in saris eating their dinner from banana leaves on the ground. My colleague kept insisting I sit in a chair which he found and placed away from everyone else under a spotlight for me so I'd feel more comfortable..(as if I need to draw more attention to myself) so I just ignored him and joined the rest of them on the ground. I had a near escape from eating prawn by accident! So I followed advice to stick to the sweet rice only (they said it was a poor wedding so the food might not be prepared well). After eating we walked back through the village, met some other people along the way and visited the bride. When we got to her new home (at her in-laws) she was already asleep in the hallway, surrounded by tiny sleeping children. I was the only one with a camera and my colleagues insisted I get a picture of the bride to show our boss. So, I felt quite guilty as her mum or someone held her head up while I took this:

the bride, on her honeymoon night..

When I told the girls in the office about this, they said it was normal in a rural wedding for the bride to be very tired, as she goes through loads of rituals, and even fasts for a day before the wedding! I felt sorry for her, not the honeymoon night that we would imagine.

It was sad to see everyone in the village asleep outside their houses, either on their doorstep or on a bed put outside. It's so hot that they have to sleep out in the open, with no protection from mosquitos (Orissa has the highest rate of malaria in India). I passed a man with his two kids, one girl still in her school uniform, all curled up asleep on one small bed outside their home. As we passed in the car I felt so bad disturbing them. I'd get a glimpse into people's small houses and see silhouettes of bodies tossing and turning on the ground.

- Blessing Puja in a field
We got home from the wedding at 1.30 am and I fell into bed (which I was sharing with my boss) and was awoken sometime after 5, informed that we're having puja (religious offering) at 7am. Great.. The sun was already roasting at 7, and my colleague was relieved to hear I wasn't sick after the wedding food! We went out to a field where my organisation are going to build a new office and did a ritual ceremony for good luck before the building starts.

sprinkling petals for good luck

My boss Sneha & colleague Dillip, the first dig

- Oriya lunch & fresh mangoes
My boss is from Kamakhyanagar and her parents live across the road from the Aaina office. So I was invited in for lunch twice, prepared by her sister-in-law. It was the best food I've had in India. A big statement, but true. Although I've had lots of nice food in restaurants, this was fresh, healthy, home cooked and amazing, so wins out! I had fried banana, aubergine with curd, dalma, boiled rice, vegetable curry, cooked mango with spices, all followed by the sweetest fresh mangoes - nyom!

- A typical Indian bus journey & a day at rehab
We had a day off in between the two 3-day workshops. So, I decided to take a detour and visit Gram Vikas for the day, as I was in the area. My work colleagues dropped me off to catch a bus to Berhampur. It was great service - they found me a seat, instructed me where to get off, and passed me chai and bottles of water through the window before the bus left. I was glad I had a seat as the bus was absolutely packed, with people hanging off the sides. I held my breath everytime some young guy ran and jumped onto the bus, casually leaning off the side holding on with one hand. When I got there Olive & her Gram Vikas vehicle were there to collect me to take me to “rehab” - the serene Gram Vikas campus, where I had a day of relaxation - yoga, a little cycle and hanging out at the office.

relaxing in "rehab"

It was a really interesting week. The rural villages are a million miles away from Bhubaneswar, which isn't exactly a metropolis in itself. An escape from the city gave me a better view in my mind of Aaina's work, what life is like in rural Orissa, and especially how tough it is for people with disabilities. And a break from my routine and incessant horn-honking was good to clear my mind too I think.

Check out the little boy washing himself in the background - cute!!

me with one of the participants from the Bhanjanagar workshop

Sharing palm tree fruits! Aaina helped this girl get a tricycle a few years back, which gives her a lot of independence. Before she had to crawl with her hands to get around.

day 3 of the workshop in kamakhyanagar, the ladies brave the heat