In the name of honour
PADMINI SWAMINATHAN
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The saga of Asian girls in Britain who do not conform to ‘tradition’
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DAUGHTERS OF SHAME: Jasvinder Sanghera; Imprint Hodder, Hachette India, 612/614 (6th Floor), Time Tower, M.G.Road, Sector 28, Gurgaon-122001. Rs. 295.
This book, in a sense, can be read as a sequel to Shame by the same author. Through Shame, Jasvinder Sanghera courageously lifted the veil of secrecy cloaking the violent goings-on in her family; it made public her flight from her family to escape forced marriage and the terrible consequences that followed such fleeing not least because of the perceived ‘dishonour’ befalling the family. Karma Nirvana – the institution that Sanghera founded to help women who found themselves in similar circumstances – is a testimony to the widespread practice on women of honour-based violence and threat of forced marriage. One couldn’t ask for more evidence on how time stands still while attitudes have just not changed but seem to become more rigid in the name of upholding ethnic culture and values amongst the immigrant South Asian ethnic communities settled in Britain.
Honour-based violence
Daughters of Shame, based on the true stories of victims of forced marriages, provides a graphic account (albeit touching only a miniscule number of cases), of the depth and range of violence facing Asian girls on a continuing basis when they resist their families’ choice of partners for them and/or rebel against their families for forcing them into marriage when they would rather complete their schooling and work towards a career.
Woven into the text amidst the accounts of the nature and kinds of violence facing young girls and even boys that Karma Nirvana and, Sanghera and her team have to contend with, are her own reflections on a number of issues including the roles of local schools, institutions of the British government and personnel, and of the communities to which the victims belong. Constraints of space make it difficult to discuss nuances of individual cases dealt with in the book. We therefore highlight some of the broad observations made by her on the theme of honour-based violence perpetrated in the name of upholding culture and family “izzat”.
Insensitivity
In listing the characteristics common to women who had picked up courage to flee their oppressive families or forced marriages, Sanghera finds that, uniformly, every single victim “claimed to have been the black sheep in her family, just as I was in mine… The next common link was that getting a boyfriend was usually the trigger for an escalation in the abusive behaviour they endured.” The inexplicable levels to which South Asian families have degenerated in their anxiety to be made to feel “proud” among their kith and kin can be gauged from the utter insensitivity that parents displayed even when marks of physical abuse were clearly visible to their naked eyes, and even when they were aware that marriages were contracted and lasted very often only as long as the groom (picked from the “native” land) acquired rights of residency in Britain. The story of Maya, for instance, recounted in the book would make any sensitive South Asian person hang her/his head in shame for the sheer nature, length and depth of violence that Maya had to continually endure only so that her family could “keep its respect”; the latter was all that mattered to them.
Females constitute the overwhelming majority as far as honour-based violence and forced marriage victims are concerned; however, as per a British government report mentioned in the book, 15 per cent of such victims are men. Imran, a male victim, helped by Karma Nirvana subsequently became the catalyst around whom Karma Nirvana extended its services to male victims of violence.
Sanghera’s observations on the British government establishment’s understanding, reading and treatment of cases of such violence are telling since they provide a clue to why such violence persists despite any number of laws and institutions to deal with violence. Citing the case of Tarvinder who was kidnapped by her own mother (Kamal) and cousin, she notes the light sentences that were handed out to the perpetrators of violence on the ground that the presiding judge felt “the kidnap was well intentioned, even though the kidnappers were guilty of poor judgment in carrying it out.” She observes that “until the establishment faces up to the reality of these issues, we will never make progress. Refusing to acknowledge the seriousness of crimes such as kidnap just because they take place within a family all but condones the actions of people like Kamal. It sanitizes what they do and allows them to cling to their skewed, self-serving view of honour.”
Serious questions
Her own experience captured in Shame and those of victims with similar experiences documented in Daughters of Shame raise very serious questions about the Asian communities that have made Britain their home for economic reasons but disallow their children from accessing even the most basic of benefits such as education that British citizenship confers on them. Worse, a theme that Sanghera could profitably pursue as part of her ongoing doctoral dissertation is to deconstruct the notions of honour, respect, stigma, and shame that have so entrapped these communities that they are now not just unable to come out but unwilling to accept that they have tied themselves up in ruinous knots.
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