(a) Explain the thematic linkages between 'Patriarchy' and 'Honour killing' in India, citing some recent cases. (20 marks) (b)…

(a) Patriarchy and honour killing

Patriarchy in India is a structural order in which male kin control women's sexuality, marriage and mobility, and caste endogamy and lineage purity depend on that control. Honour killing is its extreme enforcement: when a woman or man chooses a partner across caste, gotra or religion, the family or community reads it as a loss of izzat and a breach of endogamy and gotra exogamy, and answers with boycott, coercion or murder. Honour here is collective, so the punishment is public and often approved by caste bodies; khap panchayats in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh have issued such diktats without legal authority. The victims can be men as well, typically Dalit husbands, showing how gender and caste operate together.

Cases show the chain. In Manoj–Babli (Haryana, 2007), a khap order led to the killing of a same-gotra couple, and in 2010 a Karnal court sentenced five to death, a first for such a case. In the Kausalya–Shankar case (Tamil Nadu, 2016), a Dalit husband was hacked to death in public, and the court convicted the wife's family. Pranay Perumalla (Telangana, 2018) and Kevin Joseph (Kerala, 2018) are further cases.

The Supreme Court's guidance in Lata Singh (2006) and Shakti Vahini (2018) directs preventive, remedial and punitive steps against khap interference, yet India has no separate central law, and a Law Commission draft (2012) remains unenacted. Change needs legal reform, safe houses and social change in norms of marriage and caste.

(b) Challenges to cooperative movements and measures to strengthen them at the grass roots

India's cooperatives, from the Cooperative Credit Societies Act 1904 to the Amul model of Tribhuvandas Patel and Verghese Kurien, hold both success and failure.

Challenges: political interference and patronage in boards and elections; bureaucratic control by registrars; weak professional management and audit; member apathy and domination by large and dominant-caste members, so that small farmers and women are excluded; poor capital and dependence on government funds and NABARD refinance; heavy losses and poor recovery in rural credit cooperatives and PACS; and sharp regional imbalance, with strength in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Kerala and weakness in eastern and central India. The 97th Amendment (2011) made cooperatives a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(c) and added Article 43B, but in Union of India v. Rajendra N. Shah (2021) the Supreme Court struck down Part IXB as it applies to state cooperatives for want of ratification by states, leaving it valid for multi-state societies.

Measures: insulate elections and audit from political control through independent state election authorities; enact state laws in the spirit of the amendment; professionalise management and train members; computerise PACS, widen them to multi-service centres with dairy, storage and Jan Aushadhi roles, using the Ministry of Cooperation (2021); give women and small farmers seats and leadership; and link cooperatives to markets through federations and e-platforms.

(c) Ageing and the problems of the aged

Ageing is the rising share of older people in a population, in India those aged 60 and above, arising from falling fertility and rising life expectancy. It is also a social process in which roles, status and dependence change with the life cycle. Census 2011 counted 8.6% (10.4 crore) aged 60 and above, and the UNFPA India Ageing Report 2023 projects about 20% by 2050.

Major problems: income insecurity and pension gaps, as most older people worked in the informal sector; poor health and high out-of-pocket costs; loneliness and loss of role as migration and nuclear families thin support; abuse and neglect; feminisation of ageing, with widows facing double disadvantage; and poor rural access to care. Responses include the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007, the National Policy for Senior Citizens, the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme and Ayushman Bharat cover for those aged 70 and above, though coverage and enforcement are thin.