Two events in the last few days deserve special attention of the readers — one, a meeting of the Maha Panchayat of 36 “khaps”, or gotras, in Kurushetra, Haryana, on April 13, to protest against the death sentence of awarded to the five accused in an “honour killing” case and the other a march to Jaipur being organised by Rajasthan’s Gujjar community to demand five per cent special quota within the quota of other backward classes (OBCs). Though unrelated, both these events provide us an opportunity to take note of certain disturbing trends of social and political behaviour in our democracy and to consider what immediate steps are required to deal with such challenges to the authority of the Constitution and the law.

Let us first take the case of the Maha Panchayat in Haryana. The facts of the case are shocking, even sickening, to any civilised person. A young couple, Manoj, 23, and Babli, 19, were killed allegedly on the diktat of the panchayat two months after their wedding in April 2007. The two had eloped to Chandigarh where they got married in a temple as their parents and “khap” were opposed to their marriage on the ground that they belonged to the same gotra, Banwala. The additional district and sessions judge, Karnal, had sentenced five of the culprits to death, one to life imprisonment and another to seven years imprisonment. The “khap” has come out in angry protest against the court’s judgment and has demanded that the government take necessary steps to get the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, amended so that all matters relating to “social life and moral responsibility” are dealt exclusively by khap panchayats according to the traditions of their gotras. One of the most disturbing aspects of the speeches made at the Maha Panchayat in the Manoj-Babli case is that many among those who protested vigorously against the court’s order were educated and well-to-do people.

It is hard to believe that in a civilised society like ours, and at a time when India is emerging as one of the shining examples of technological progress, a young couple could be quietly murdered by hirelings for the simple reason that they chose to get married. Incidents like these are the real challenge to our democracy and if they are allowed to go unchecked and unpunished, India’s claim to be the largest genuine democracy in the world may not be accepted by those who believe in human rights and liberties.

We in India were very quick to condemn the Taliban rule in Afghanistan as barbaric, but we often seem to forget that such mock trials and kangaroo courts are active in our country also — in a India that has a rich cultural heritage, with progressive and tolerant traditions. What is equally surprising is that our politicians have not taken serious note of what happened in the Maha Sabha. Obviously, politicians do not want to risk losing the votes of the khaps and Maha Sabhas and prefer to leave the issue to the courts.

I SHALL now turn to the Gujjar agitation for the five per cent sub-quota. Perhaps, Gujjars have a legitimate grievance that they have not received what they deserve and that the crows have been eating away what was intended for the sparrows.

The Gujjar agitation is not an isolated one in India. There have been some demands for quotas within quota in other parts of the country too and certain concessions have been made by some state governments. But now we find that every time an attempt is made to improve the lot of the really disadvantaged backward classes, there is a simultaneous demand for sub-quotas for the most backward categories within that group. We find such demands being made by certain political leaders even in the case of the one-third representation for women in the legislatures for which a bill has already been introduced in the Rajya Sabha.

Perhaps former Prime Minister V.P. Singh believed that it was politically expedient to introduce the reservation system for the other backward communities without really examining how it could be implemented without provoking demands for sub-quotas from all those who claim to be the “most backward group” of the OBCs. Very often governments prefer to yield to political pressure from their votebanks and if this trend is allowed to continue we would have facilitated further hardening of the caste and sub-caste divides in the Hindu community. And eventually this can lead to irreparable consequences affecting national integration and unity of the whole country.

If the government sincerely accepts that the reservation system has not succeeded inadequately delivering social justice expected of it to the deserving communities, the right thing for the government to do is to examine the whole question of reservation and examine what can be done to ensure protection of the legitimate claims of those who are really suffering from various handicaps without having to create sub-quotas.

In fact, the Gujjar agitation has pointed to the need for such an introspection by the government and for appointing a committee of experts to make recommendations for protecting the interests of the most deserving among the backward sections. If on the other hand the government yields to pressure from the agitators and recognises such sub-quotas, the future governments will find that the entire reservation system has become administratively unimplementable — If nothing else, just corruption on a massive scale would have neutralised the benefits of reservation because of the proliferation of sub-quotas.

- P.C. Alexander is a former governor of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra