We have another “honor killing” in India where a family believed that its religious and social standing demanded the murder of a family matter. Rama Kunwar, 30, had simply married for love eight years ago. Her husband was from a different caste, but she had hoped that her family had reconciled to her choice in returning to her village. They hadn’t. Her brother set her on fire and burned her alive as other villagers watched. No one intervened to save her despite her pleas.
Kunwar was visiting her in-laws home when her brother burst into the home and dragged her out into the street. After murdering her, the family cremated her to destroy the evidence. However, her mother-in-law alerted the police who doused the funeral pyre to collect what remains they could. Notably, it was her mother-in-law and not her mother or other family members who called the police.
One of the brothers and six other men have been arrested. According to the Times of India, the arrested include brother Laxman Singh Sisodia, Pravin Singh, Kalyan Singh, Eshwar Singh, Mahendra Singh, Bhopal Singh and Gajendra Singh. Notably, two of her aunts were also taken into custody.
It remains otherworldly for most of us to imagine the type of religious and social indoctrination that would allow anyone — let alone family members — to commit such a heinous murder in the name of “honor.” It shows again the plight of girls and women in traditional societies where they are denied the most basic rights of self-determination and choice over critical parts of their lives. Kunwar burned to death simply because she married by choice and followed her own path in life. It was not enough for her family to disavow or condemn her. They had to burn her alive. Despite the pleas of their suffering sisters as she was engulfed in flames, these brothers believed that they were righteous and honorable men in the their twisted cultural view.
Disgusting. People like this should be put away, permanently.
Kunwar has a three-year-old daughter. I wonder if the daughter will learn of what happened to her mom when she realizes that intermarrying into another caste is forbidden.
Then again, India does have a caste system. Anyone born into the caste cannot marry up or down. They must only marry the ones who are a part of the same caste. A system like this does not change overnight. Frankly, a caste system severely restricts one’s access to certain things while being in another caste grants another to things that they can enjoy and use.
TBH, I don’t know if the caste system is correlated to their religion or handed down from government since India’s inception. I’ll have to google further.
On the one hand, you have religions like that of the Aztecs, which utilized human sacrifice. On the other, you have peaceful Ghandi.
Some religions condone and encourage violence, others abhor it. Some religions advocate peace, while an adherent who becomes too powerful can use it to justify violence. Some can take a religion that has gone astray and reform it, such as when the Catholic Church was king maker and rich as Midas 600 years ago. Some atheists, like Stalin, drunk on their own power and lack of accountability engage in mass murder “to make the world a better place.”
It’s human nature. Some religions seek to civilize our natural instinct to rule by the club, others sharpen the claws and give our baser nature free reign.
Reblogged this on Truth Troubles: Why people hate the truths' of the real world and commented:
Evil resides within all religions not just within Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or in the Hindu religion. Do the religions themselves condone these kinds of acts? Evil lies within the hearts of mankind to do evil all day long, the nature of man is not pure and this helps cause such ignorance and evil that is on display in this article.
Evil resides within all religions not just within Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or in the Hindu religion. Do the religions themselves condone these kinds of acts? Evil lies within the hearts of mankind to do evil all day long, the nature of man is not pure and this helps cause such ignorance and evil that is on display in this article.
Mother Theresa, Ghandi, my sweet Grandma, and the Pope shared one thing in common – they were all religious, non violent people.
They discussed the plight of women in India in the Honor Diaries. A lot of human rights abuses are done under the framework of the caste system, in combination with the view of women as second class citizens. It’s not just the caste system; it’s the lack of human rights, forced arranged marriages, bride burning to get more dowry, honor killings.
India is a contradiction. It’s the birthplace of Ghandi, yoga, and Ayurvedic medicine, and yet, it also has the Untouchables, forced prostitution, arranged marriages, temporary marriages, bride burning, widespread disease, undependable utilities and sanitation, etc. It has both highly educated women, as well as women barred from education and advancement due to caste. Then there are the infamous Hindu Muslim wars.
It appears it does everything in the extreme.
I have known two women who escaped from abusive, forced arranged marriages. One of them was forced to get repeated abortions here in the US because her husband forbade her to go on birth control, but also forbade her from having a child. (He had serious logic issues.) He made her sleep on the floor and wait on her mother in law like a servant. I also knew a very young girl foreign exchange student who was being sent home to India for an arranged marriage to a much older man she’d never met. She didn’t want to go through with it, but she could not bear being disowned and spoiling the family’s honor. I’ve often wondered what became of her.
Dang! Talk about serendipity, or whatever it is you call it when stuff seems to coincide out of thin air, here is this. Above, I mentioned the guy wanting to kill climate-change deniers, and voila! This!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Americans are fools who think caste does not exist, class does not exist either. Fools. Who also think race is imaginary and that we are all “free” whatever that means. Fools, in a word. Ignore the past but the past will not ignore you.
People the world over have a tendency to enforce conformation with certain prevailing beliefs and ideas. These guys burned somebody to death. Horrible. This is an extreme example. Here, we just dig up dead Confederates, shun people who said the “N” word seventeen years ago, and persecute/prosecute bakers who don’t want to bake wedding cakes for homos.
But make no mistake, it is the same underlying desire for conformity with ideas which exists in the caste murder, and here with the PC crowd. To wit, I offer:
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
CWD
The young woman was visiting her in-laws. When her family learned that she was present, in the village, a group of individuals barged into that home, dragged her outside and set her on fire. Despite her cries for help, other villagers did nothing to intervene.
That’s the story.
Yes, atheists are the most nonviolent human beings in the world. Nothing but love and joy emanate from their pores. Just ask Stalin and Hitler.
If Professor Turley actually cared about and respected this woman’s death and his blog, he would take the time to report it accurately rather than presenting this mess of a story.
Another report that validates my decision to become an atheist all those years ago.
I am confused by the article. Either she was burned alive or killed and then cremated to destroy the evidence. Both methods are mentioned in the article.
Randy Newman was from LA and hails from Sunset Blvd. Yet he travelled to Louisiana and was quite good about conveying things about that state and New Orleans. Randy was probably being observant. But not from afar like one looks through a telescope (not merely observatory). As to the movie portrayed here in the article I did not recognize the cast. And it was spulled wrong– no e on the end. It sounds like a true story. It reminds me of some folks down in South Carolina who killed their sister for “shackin up” with a man of a different color. I guess birds of a feather prefer to flock together.
Yellow Man, a song by Randy Newman
Very far away in a foreign land
Live the yellow woman and the yellow man
He’s been around for many-a-year
They say they were there before we were here
Eatin’ rice all day
While the children play
You see he believes
In the family
Just like you and me
Oh, yellow man, oh, yellow man
We understand, you know we understand
He keeps his money tight in his hand
With his yellow woman he’s a yellow man
Got to have a yellow woman
When you’re a yellow man
Racist, Satire, or merely observatory?
India is an odd place. Family means a lot and then it means zero. To kill someone because they defame your family is one thing but to kill a family member for porking someone and getting married is quite another thing. When they get off the boat at Ellis Island we need to give them a test.
We have stuff in our culture which is probably offensive to others. Particularly when we make movies about it and send the movies overseas. I was on a cruise ship once when that movie was shown with the Jets and many foreigners from Asia walked out in disgust.
(music- to the tune of The Jets, from an old movie whose name escapes me)
You’re a Jet! You’re a Jet!
You’re a Jet all the way!
From your first cigarette…
To your last dying day!