Not me, your honour

He was 15 and in love. So he penned his feelings to the 14-yearold object of his adoration – but the villagers descended on his house, dragging him by his hair down the road.

His screaming mother followed, pleading for his life. But they threw him in front of a moving train. His sin? He was of a lower caste than the girl.

I read the three paragraphs hidden on page two of a national Sunday paper more than a decade ago and decided this boy couldn’t die in vain.

He needed a book blowing Death by Dishonour wide open. I gave up. Not that the caste system is too complicated. It’s just taboo.

My Hindi friend explaining the system shook his head many a time. I heard “it’s complicated”; “religion”; “you won’t understand”; “culture”.

So I forgot about it until, during my Corona binge-watching, I stumbled upon The Stoning of Sorayah M.

Apparently based on truth, the story is simple: hubby wants to take a child bride and frames his wife, telling the Pakistani small-towners she is having an affair with a widower.

And so his honour is revenged. If only life imitated movies. I find honour killings in India, Palestine, Asia – but especially Pakistan.

The latest, in May, when two women were murdered after a “disgusting” video of a man kissing them on the mouth leaked.

A father and a brother were arrested, but, despite a new law fixing a loophole for killers to escape prosecution, old-school “I forgive you” by the victim’s family still rules supreme.

The law came three months after Qandeel Baloch, a social media star and feminist, was killed by her brother for dishonouring the family – one of about 1,000 honour killings a year in Pakistan,

Human Rights Watch tells me. Iran is worse: also in May, Reza Ashrafi beheads his 14-year-old daughter, Romina, for running away with a 29-year-old man.

Ashrafi will get away with it because religious leaders oppose change to Iran’s antiquated laws. I despair at humanity.

Like barbarians, we kill children, marry them off, trade them in sex rings, beat up women, murder them – and we hide behind culture, heritage, religion, manhood, honour…

So yes, my Hindi friend, you’re right. It’s like our muti killings in the name of culture: I don’t understand. And not in my name.

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