In India, women continue to be killed for daring to assert their sexual freedom or their freedom to choose their own partners.
The video of a father holding his daughter’s severed head while walking carefree down the street shocked India on Thursday, just four days before International Women’s Day.
Sarvesh Kumar, from the Pandetara village of Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh, found it appropriate to behead his 17-year-old daughter because of an alleged love affair she had with a man he disapproved of. In the video, he is realistic. There is no guilt or pain, just a practical account of the events.
After picking up his daughter in a compromising position with a man two days earlier, he vowed not to touch food or water until he could kill them both. In the video, he explains that he was unable to find the man, only managing to kill his daughter. “I locked the door and did everything,” he says in Hindi.
The clip was largely removed from social media platforms due to its graphic content.
At one point in the video, he puts his severed head on the floor. The ponytail on the girl’s head hangs limply; your eyes are closed. “I left the body at home,” Kumar tells the man who is filming the video. He reveals his daughter’s name and the name of the man she was supposed to have a relationship with. He proudly explains how he killed her and why. The man interrupts the narration twice to answer calls. He cooperates with the police when they search him, ensuring that “there is no gun with me”.
Incidents like this are very common in India, especially in central patriarchal regions like Uttar Pradesh. Many women who choose to seek relationships against the wishes of their family or outside their religion or community are at risk of fatal consequences from their male relatives. Honor, in our society, is linked to the chastity of women, and any deviation is severely punished.
In January, a 17-year-old girl and her 19-year-old boyfriend were reportedly murdered by the girl’s relatives in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district. The following month, the IANS news agency reported that another woman was burned alive in the state of Gorakhpur for her relationship with a Muslim man. A few days later, a man stabbed his brother-in-law for marrying his sister in Meerut.
And while their partners also bear some of the weight, studies have found that it is women and girls who bear the maximum penalty for their families.
A 2016 report by the International Journal of Recent Scientific Research analyzed 50 honor killings in Uttar Pradesh and found that girls and women were killed in more than half of the cases. In contrast, boys and men were killed in less than a quarter of cases. He also found that most of the murders targeted younger women between the ages of 11 and 20.
“To combat the honor killings epidemic, it is necessary to understand what makes these crimes unique. They differ from simple and psychopathic homicides, serial murders, passionate crimes, revenge murders and domestic violence, ”concluded the study, adding that these acts of violence were due to predefined norms and cultures in a patriarchal society, where honor is equated with the way women behave.
The U.S. State Department’s 2019 Human Rights Practices Report concluded that honor killings are “a problem, especially in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana”. Uttar Pradesh, in particular, topped the list of Indian states with the highest number of crimes against women in 2019, according to the latest report from the National Crime Records Bureau.
But in general, honor killings are quite underreported in India.
According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), some 5,000 women and girls are victims of honor crimes every year, although some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) estimate that the number could reach 20,000.
Although these crimes are treated as homicides in India – for many, this has not been a major deterrent. Honor killings often involve the silent complicity of family members and neighboring communities, and now the Hardoi case serves as a clear and serious reminder of why India remains one of the most dangerous countries for women.