Art Vandelay

Atul Subhash's tragic end triggers a strange train of thoughts. Back in 2019, we made a video on why Khap Panchayats are important and irreplaceable in this country. The video received a huge pushback for defending a 'regressive and outdated' embarrassment of a - wait for it - casteist institution. Part of the reason the backlash was so strong was that true to what has become a tradition at @upword_, we chose not to use the more sophisticated 'customary justice forums' and doubled down on the politically incorrect term. We called a khap a khap. The thing with khaps, or customary justice forums if you prefer, is that unlike the courts, they organically emerge from the communities whose affairs they seek to manage, judge and resolve. They are cheap, efficient and accessible and don't need professionally trained interlocutors aka lawyers to represent you and protect you from getting strangled by a web of jargon written in an alien language. Khaps are especially effective in marital discord because their goal is reconciliation rather than converting an unfortunate dispute into a business opportunity. There is no major monetary angle and therefore, no incentive for either side to play a zero sum game. In short, if both sides want a resolution, they are most likely to find it leaving the formal judiciary free to handle only complicated, unresolved or bad-faith cases. With the courts unburdened of hearing 4000 divorce cases every day, chances are that their time would be better spent in delivering justice rather than watching politicians make disastrous laws for dowry, marital rape etc. Khaps are a patriarchal institution and their empowerment is an unabashed affirmation of the glorious tradition of patriarchy. Nothing can replace good and honourable men in charge of their families and at the helm of community affairs, protecting motherhood from predatory ideologies, sexual chaos unleashed by the media, and indoctrination euphemistically called education. Any well-raised young men (admittedly rare) reading this, know that marriage is a huge risk in this dark age, but don't give up without a fight. You still have a fighting chance to find a woman you deserve and who deserves you. Shut out all the bakwas of gender equality from your consciousness, read the Manusmriti preferably with traditional commentary, take its injunctions seriously and armed with the power of discrimination you so acquire, find yourself a good wife and give her the love, care and respect that you have for your mother and for the mother of the Universe. If you fail, you will remain unmarried but you will save yourself from the horror show that was Atul's marital life.