In village after village of crisis-hit Vidarbha region you can find many girls aged 25 or more unmarried because their parents can't afford it. This is a major source of tension in the community. The irony was hard to miss. Political leaders — MPs and MLAs amongst them — lecturing people on the virtues of low-cost marriages. Divthana didn't need the sermon. This village in Buldhana district began its cheap,...

Pressing ahead with their demand for amendment in the Hindu Marriage Act, the Sarv Khap Mahapanchayat on Sunday resolved to slap a token fine of "ek aana" (currency unit formerly used in India) on MPs and MLAs if they failed to meet its demand by June 19. In a meeting held in Jind, which was attended by around 2,000 representatives of khap panchayats, they also ruled out establishing any matrimonial...

The number of cases in which the totally unconstitutional caste panchayats have openly defied the law of the land by issuing illegal diktats has increased manifold. In Haryana today, rapid capitalist transformation is accompanied by a regressive feudal consciousness. As education and political awareness spread among Dalits, women and backward sections, alongside there is a massive consolidation of caste (khap) panchayats in defence of the status quo. The number of cases...

By scraping and bowing before khap leaders and agreeing to hold aloft their frayed flag of patriarchy, youth icon and Congress MP from Kurukshetra Naveen Jindal may have staved off a siege on his home by the violent keepers of middle-ages morality. But other MPs and MLAs who represent areas where the khap writ runs have now been warned that the lawmakers face khap ire if they don't make their...

INSIDE his hovel of branches and rags, a grizzled pauper called Badshah Kale keeps a precious object. It is a note, scrawled by a policeman and framed by Mr Kale, proclaiming that he “is not a thief”. For members of his Pardhi tribe, who are among some 60m Indians considered criminal by tradition, this is treasure. Squatting beside Mr Kale, on a turd-strewn wasteland outside Ashti, a village in India’s western...