Are we as a nation awake or what?

The last few days have seen a torrent of news items on honour killings across the country and I'm trying to make sense of this nonsense called honour killing. It seems that panchayats (local governments in villages across India) are allowed to rule on the issue and can actually penalise persons who choose to marry out of their community. As if that is not enough, there is this notion of 'gotra' and if somebody chooses to marry a person from the same gotra the panchayats can nullify the marriage and punish those who dared to enter into holy matrimony thus! So what is this 'gotra' - I asked around and believe it or not very few even have a foggy idea of what it is! One of the most cited explanations is that every one of us is descended from one or the other Rishi (Hindu hermit) and each of these descendents along the paternal line will be said to have been born under that gotra - for example, all the descendents of Rishi Bharadvaja belong to Bharadvaja gotra. Now, it is forbidden to marry a person from the same gotra - I really wonder who is keeping track of the gotras that people belong to and does any one really care? Well, it seems there are plenty who are keeping track and even more folks who care and will even kill those who dare!!

I haven't the faintest idea which gotra I belong to but then again I am not brahmin and technically speaking the gotra system applies to the brahmins is what I must deduce because you trace yourself to the rishis who were all brahmins.

With so many brothers killing sisters and their husbands for marrying within the same gotra or outside the community the politicians have gotten into the act and some have said panchayats must be given the legal authority to punish people who flout the gotra or community rules! I think it stinks just as badly as the insistence of some politicians to do the Census of India on a caste basis! For heaven's sake don't these jokers realise we are living in the 21st century and not in vedic times? Does education and basic intelligence not impact upon such issues? Seems like education in India is for the classrooms and must be left back there when we exit the classroom and enter the big bad world! That perhaps explains why we in this country do not think anything about spitting in the corners inside buildings or in places where people tread, that perhaps explains why people across the country think nothing of taking a crap in full public view on the roadside!

Seems like none of the politicians or advocates of honour killing have read that soul stirring piece by the poet laureate of India - Tagore:

.....Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee to ever-widening thought and action -
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.

It is clear we, as a nation, have not yet woken up!!