I just had a read through a thought provoking article on Reuters. Essentially, two early 20s couple have been killed by their own family in an effort to uphold the girls’ family name. They eloped, and were expecting a baby. To make matter worse, the couple were from different casts and the same village. Apparently, this is a recipe for disaster. The shocking thing is that the village where they’re from are generally in favour of the actions of the girls’ family. This puts the law enforcement agencies in a difficult situation to pursue justice.
This got me thinking. When do local norms actually get above the law? I suppose society as a whole wouldn’t be too happy about how the situation ended up with a murder of an expecting lady and man. But, where do you draw the line and enforce that local norms do not have the power to take the law into their own hands ? When is it OK for local norms to take the law into their own hands? When is it OK for local norms to get away with murder?
Once that’s been figured out, then comes the next question: WHY?
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