IN a democratic country where the constitution provides the right to live with dignity to all its citizens, choice becomes an important matter. Choice, in totality includes everything – education, dressing, living etc,  and in a globalised world where people from various backgrounds are interacting with one another, the freedom to choose a partner becomes an important aspect of choice.

But with the consolidation of caste panchayats during the last three decades, the crimes against young citizens who choose a partner and allegedly transgress the boundaries of traditions are becoming more violent and pronounced. There has been a tremendous increase in the number of honour related killings. And a variety of other accompanying violations of democratic rights have further led to distress and humiliation for the affected families.

AIDWA has led many successful struggles against honour crimes and has been continuously demanding for the enactment of a separate law to comprehensively address the multiple dimensions of these crimes. But the governments at the centre have remained inactive in the formation of this important law.

In this flux of time, AIDWA organised a five-day orientation-cum-developmental workshop on "My Choice, My Right" from September 26-30, 2015 at MP's Club in South Avenue, Delhi in collaboration with ISWSD and HIMMAT. The aim of the workshop was to train cultural activists from different states who will in turn become master trainers for preparing state level cultural teams which will take AIDWA’s campaign for the enactment of the law against honour crimes, further through cultural programmes.

The workshop began with an introductory session where the participants were informed about the motives and importance of this workshop. Jagmati Sangwan said that love marriages tend to diminish the socio- economic and cultural inequalities in the society, but those in power do not want to accept any change. Therefore, honour crimes and killings should not be viewed as mere conflicts between two generations, rather they are perpetuated to control the sexuality of  women so that the uneven distribution of property and power remains just in the same order. And to protect their right to choose, the youth of the country must own this agenda as their agenda. The spirit and slogan of AIDWA is to rise for the rights of young women who are deprived of the right of free choice of marriage.  

Then a day long discussion on the script of the play inhe jeene do, was held so as to orient the participants on the issue of gender discrimination and to expose the cruelty with which young citizens who choose a partner are tortured and killed in this society. On the fourth day a discussion with Shubha who is a poet and patron of JMS, Haryana, was held who focussed on labelling of women who want to exercise their choice in marriage, as “bad” women and “good” women by the patriarchal society. One play, the poem hamesha rehne vale by Shubha and two proses of Meera Bai thare desan mein rana  saadh nahin and ab meera maan le tumari were worked upon during the workshop. Naresh Prerna, Cultural Coordinator, AIPSN and Deepti, HGVS were the resource persons and Tapasi Praharaj , AIDWA was in-charge of this workshop. It was attended by 25 cultural activists in all from Uttarakhand, UP, MP, Orissa, HP, Haryana and Delhi and concluded with a performance in front of a small gathering of people from various organisations.

 It should be noted that AIDWA started an on-going multi-phased mass campaign “Pass the Bill, because ‘Honour’ Kills” to build public pressure on the present government to legislate the law, which AIDWA has prepared, to deal with crimes in the name of honour. In the initial phase, posters were put up in different localities, meetings with young women were organised in various colonies of different states. During this phase, it was observed that interventions through cultural activities can take the campaign to the larger public and cultural activities are also important since honour crimes are manifested in the existing patriarchal notion of culture and tradition in our society.The second phase of the campaign has begun with this workshop and intends to reach out to the youth in educational institutions.