Khaps in the Transforming North Indian Rural: Mapping Changes and Continuities

Introduction

In recent years, there has been a renewed scholarly interest in the study of rural societies in India. The introduction of neoliberal economic reforms, changes in domestic and international political economy, rising agrarian discontent, and alterations in gender, caste, and class relations—all these factors have pushed social scientists to take a fresh look at the transforming rural, spatially as well as notionally. Additional interest is generated by one of the biggest farmers’ protests in the history of independent India, which began in the North Indian villages and achieved victory at the borders of India’s national capital. Under these changing circumstances, two different yet interrelated sets of arguments have come forward related to India’s countryside.

The first challenges economic determinism inherent in the scholarly and policy discourse. The dominant understanding tends to define rural in terms of ‘that which is not urban’, juxtaposes villages against cities, and ignores the distinct sociocultural life-world that India’s countryside cultivates. These newer reflections argue that the decline or ‘dilapidation’ of the rural means more than economic and material impoverishment. The crisis of the rural is equally social, political, and psychological (Suthar, 2022). The other set of arguments also affirms the changing nature of the rural but is equally wary of considering this change as essentially ‘decline’, ‘dilapidation’, or ‘vanishing’ of villages. Rather, it underlines that India’s villages have always remained in a state of transition, and would continue to be so. Villages will co-exist with urban spaces, albeit differently, as per changes in local and global circumstances, without necessarily being eliminated in the process (Jodhka, 2023).

These fresh arguments enable interrogation of those aspects of the rural that have hitherto been denied adequate scholarly attention. This negation can be attributed to two reasons. First is related to policy discourse. Rural has been predominantly studied as an economic category at the expense of its sociocultural aspects, gender relations, and political intricacies. It has largely been analysed as an extension of urban-centric discourses or as their residue. This reduces rural populations either to being consumptive units to which the state extends its benefits or a vote that needs to be mobilised in favour of political parties. The second one pertains to academic engagements with India’s villages. The early decades of post-independence scholarly contestation on India’s developmental and political trajectory cemented the binary or continuum between ‘tradition’ versus/or/and ‘modernity’ in the academic discourse (Kothari, 1970; Rudolph, 1965; Rudolph & Rudolph, 1960). Such continued scholarly tenacity denied any possibility of studying change and transformation in the rural that was labelled as ‘traditional’ and hence ‘static’ against an ‘ever changing’ and ‘progressing’ urban (Jodhka, 2023). One casualty of such hegemonic policy and scholarly discourse is the study of khaps and their consistent transformation in tandem with the transitioning North Indian countryside.

Khap panchayats are one of the most talked about communitarian social groups in the popular discourse, and yet scholarly intervention into their life-world, organising, and functioning remains severely limited. Notoriously ill-famed for ostracising, excommunicating and violently punishing young couples for their marital choices, khaps have rightly faced backlash from human rights organisations and women’s groups for their involvement in honour-based violence (HBV). In this article, we argue that some recent activities undertaken by khaps in major sociopolitical events in north India have unsettled the established binaries and notions attached to them.

With a disproportionate emphasis on khaps’ engagement with socially contested matrimonial alliances, ¹ the existing studies on these groups have not only failed to analyse their other sociopolitical enterprises but also fallen short of noticing the changes that they are undergoing, under the transforming rural. We analyse the role and participation of khaps in three recent political events—farmers’ protests (2020–2021), female wrestlers’ protests (2022–2023), and mobilisation against Nuh–Mewat communal violence (2023) to understand what remains relevant of the existing scholarly understanding on them and what requires a fresh inquiry. We also emphasise that the political vocabulary employed by khaps in these three events is anchored in notions of honour and dignity, ‘protecting’, which has always been one of their central concerns. Based on our analysis, we attribute these changes in khaps to their weakening hold in the North Indian countryside. Khaps have employed these changes as survival or adaptive strategies in the rapidly altering sociopolitical and economic milieu.

Through this inquiry, we do not provide a defence of khaps but present a fresh lens to critically engage with them to break free of scholarly tropes that stereotype everything rural as ‘static’, thereby denying them a possibility of change.

Methodology

This article is based on three major sources. Primarily, it is based on 18 in-depth interviews conducted with various khap (n = 4) and farmer leaders (n = 2), women activists (n = 3), student activists (n = 2), women wrestlers (n = 3), minority rights activists (n = 2), and community mobilisers (n = 2) who work towards fostering communal harmony. All interviewed participants are based in either of the three North Indian states—Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh or in Delhi, the national capital. Additionally, we have built upon field notes taken during participant observation in these three events under analysis. Lastly, we rely on detailed reports and opinion pieces published in popular media related to khaps and their role in farmers’ mobilisation (2020–2021), female wrestlers’ protests (2023) and Nuh–Mewat communal violence (2023). Interviews with all participants were conducted with their consent. Their names have been pseudonymised in order to protect their privacy under ethical considerations. However, the pseudonyms given to participants reflect their social locations. All the interviews were conducted in Hindi or other regional languages like Haryanvi, Bagri and Mewati and were later transcribed and translated into English.

Situating Khaps in the Changing Rural

Khaps are clan-based and territorial communitarian groups that exist mostly in rural areas and among agrarian castes, prominently jats of North India. However, it has been argued that members of other castes also form their membership and are given different positions and responsibilities under the khap system (Chaudhary, 2014). One of the earliest works on khaps defines ‘descent’ and ‘residence’ as the focal points around which they are organised (Pradhan, 1996). Khap representatives define these focal points as gotras [clans] and village ties. These groups not only largely operate in Haryana but also sparingly in neighbouring states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi. The jurisdiction of a khap can be limited to just one village or can range up to several villages, sometimes even more than 50 villages. ² Three major forms of khaps actively operate today. These are ‘single caste and single clan’, ‘single caste and multi clan’, and ‘multi caste and multi clan’ (Sangwan, 2008).

Despite their ubiquitous presence in the ‘khap belt’ (Devi & Parihar, 2021), there is no unanimity among scholars as well as khaps themselves over their origin. While some members of khap panchayats trace their origin to the times of King Harshvardhana in the sixth century ad, scholars argue that such a historical tracing is an attempt at myth-making to draw social legitimacy. They emphasise that the origin of these communally organised groups is quite recent, not older than a couple of centuries (Chaudhary, 2014; Ingole, 2021). Additionally, different khaps have different mechanisms through which their head, that is, the khap chaudhary [leader], is elected. ³ In some khaps, the head is hereditary, while in others, the leader is decided unanimously by its members. Khaps are traditionally attended only by men and exist as social sites where hegemonic masculinity is performed and reinforced (Björkert, 2006). Despite exercising jurisdiction over all castes that inhabit a region, khaps are largely dominated by the most powerful caste. In North India, jats’ control over land and other productive resources enables them to exert significant influence on khaps’ overall functioning (Srinivasan, 2020).

Over the years, their organisational structure(s) have undergone notable changes. This includes relaxing of gotra norms for securing membership to specific khap (Thakur et al., 2015), mending of the election process to select leadership and broadening of the social base to ‘include’ women, marginalised castes and religions as ‘office bearers’ at khaps’ different organisational levels. This diluted the ‘traditional’ idea of khap and gave rise to several social permutations and combinations of organisational roles and responsibilities discernible in some of the existing khaps.

With the power of the modern state entrenched after India’s independence in 1947, many scholars projected the possible demise of ‘traditional’ institutions like caste panchayats and khaps alongside the rise of ‘modern’ institutions like caste associations (Jodhka, 2024; Kothari, 1970; Rudolph & Rudolph, 1960). These attempts at situating the evolution of caste panchayats through the tradition versus modernity paradigm have been challenged by others who trace elements of continuity between caste panchayats and caste associations and argue that even the latter, despite their purported modernity, still undertake socially conservative activities mandated by the former (Ingole, 2021). All the interviewed khap representatives traced the origin and relevance of khaps to exigencies produced by a ‘volatile’ and ‘disorganised’ society. They argued that khaps’ primary objective is to secure social order and harmony. Some also underscored that the region falling under khaps’ jurisdiction was vulnerable to attacks from invaders who used to enter the subcontinent through its north-western frontiers and tried to make their way to the capital. In such circumstances, khaps assumed the responsibility of protecting their territories through a concerted system of decision-making, as expressed by Sharvan Singh ⁴ (age 52, Rohtak):

Khap is neither a body nor a concept. It is a system through which decisions are arrived at. It developed in societies which rejected rule from above and adopted a system of self-governance. Mob always makes wrong decisions and here comes the relevance of khaps. Under the khap system, I may have my opinion but I will agree to whatever the seasoned elders have to say.

Under the khap system, elders hold the power to make decisions for people who inhabit its area of influence. They strictly operate as per the principle of bhaichara [brotherhood] and a strong sense of biradari [community] (Sangwan, 2008; Yadav, 2009). Since all members belonging to a gotra, village and khap follow brotherhood and are believed to have descended from a common ancestor, there are strict taboos attached to sexual intermingling and marrying within the same clan, village and khap (Chowdhry, 2009). Attempting to maintain social order, khaps regulate people’s marital choices through ‘social ostracisation’ of the disobedient individuals, families and communities (Ingole, 2021). After independence, despite institutionalisation of a ‘modern’ state, khaps continued to exert their influence in matters which were not considered typically ‘political’. These include adjudicating family and marital disputes, conflicts over property, matters related to the exchange of material goods, etc. The popularity and widespread influence of khaps in this region has been expressed by Amanat Khan (age 26, Nuh), a minority rights activist from Haryana: ‘courts take a lot of time to settle disputes. Decisions made by khaps are instant and are unanimously agreed to. This saves a lot of time and resources. Not everyone is so well educated to deal with difficulties posed by the legal system’.

Analysing the effective presence of khaps within a ‘modern’ legal institutional regime, sociologists and legal scholars labelled them as ‘sites of legal pluralism’ and ‘localised versions of sovereignty’ (Baxi et al., 2006; Sangwan, 2008). The major issue that prompted such theorisations was khaps’ dealing with contentious marital unions, most prominently sagotra [clan endogamous] marriages, considered incestuous under their customary codes but are legally recognised under the state law. ⁵ Still, several sagotra and inter-caste couples continue to be ostracised, punished and killed for defying the socially sanctioned marital norms under khaps’ diktats (Ahlawat, 2015; Chakravarti, 2018; Chowdhry, 2009). Scholars have also argued that under the garb of incest and intra-gotra restrictions, inter-caste couples are targeted the most (Chaudhary, 2014; Ingole, 2021). In an agrarian context dominated by powerful caste groups, khaps perceive inter-caste marriages as a threat to ‘their’ land. Such marriages are perceived to be taking away the productive and reproductive labour of women outside the community, which is fundamental to its material affluence. Khaps have historically opposed every state legislation and initiative that contained the possibilities of land fragmentation and alienation from dominant castes. Their opposition to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, is well-documented (Ahlawat, 2012; Chowdhry, 2009, 2014).

Moreover, attached to land and women is the notion of izzat [honour] that defines the masculine self of the North Indian rural. It is fundamentally these anxieties pertaining to loss of honour that undergird the violence against contentious marital unions. Interestingly, all the interviewed khap representatives accepted that khaps in several such cases punished couples through excommunication but never ‘ordered’ their killing. Notwithstanding their claims, the complicity of khaps in HBV has been well-documented in several fact-finding reports (Kumar, 2012; People’s Union for Democratic Rights [PUDR], 2003). Moreover, there is a clear correlation between the influence of khaps on society and the sex ratio in the North Indian countryside. The stronger the presence of khaps, the lesser the sex ratio in that specific region, signalling the prevalence of sex-selective abortions (Kaur, 2010, 2016).

The dominant scholarship has tried to make sense of khaps’ activities solely through marriage-centric discourses that place their preoccupation with matrimonial alliances as their sole purpose. It has also been argued that these groups are ‘parochial’, ‘archaic’, and are ‘frozen’ or ‘stuck in time’ (Chaudhary, 2014), ruling out any possibility of studying changes that they have steadily undergone over the years. Urban-centric discourses made them the representative face of the North Indian rural that failed to keep pace with the ‘modern’, rapidly ‘developing’ cities and metropoles.

However, in the discussions we had with khap members and representatives, there was a lamentation of the loss of influence that these groups used to exercise till a few decades ago, as articulated by Sharvan Singh: ‘Aaj aapko chaudhari mil jaengey, lekin khap nahin’ [These days you will find Chaudhari, but not khap]. This dilution of their influence is due to several factors, most prominently the changing agrarian and land relations in the region and consequent weakening of the traditional caste order. Diminishing material power of dominant castes has waned their influence in the villages. With changes in economic relations, spread of education, and diversification of employment opportunities, marginalised sections, especially women and disadvantaged caste groups, feel ‘empowered’ enough to defy the diktats and punishments meted out by khaps (Hooda, 2024). Further entrenchment of the law-and-order machinery, comparatively easier access to state institutions, as well as the younger generation’s fascination with opportunities offered by cities and metropoles, significantly diluted the authority of khaps. All these factors thus compelled khaps to carry out the first major change in their structure in 2010 when the Sarv Khap panchayat announced the creation of women’s wings (Chaudhary, 2014; Devi & Parihar, 2021). However, by 2017, only three khaps—Dahiya, Satrol and Boora—had a women’s wing (Singh, 2017). This transition of khaps from a body of patriarchs to the one that ‘allows’ women’s leadership must also be taken with a pinch of salt. Not only are these changes nominal, but the women heads and leaders in khaps are also substantially denied the rights enjoyed by their male counterparts. Additionally, many controversial diktats of khaps are meted out by women leaders themselves. A female chaudharain [khap leader], Sangeeta (age 48, Meerut), who heads the women’s wing of one of Haryana’s khap, articulated her paradoxical presence in these groups as follows:

I am a woman and it is not easy for a woman to step out of the house and make decisions, no matter how educated she is. Khaps also reflect society. I am not given the same importance as the male leaders…. All of us understand live-in relationships are wrong (sic)…. We will also approach the president of India to make parental consent mandatory for wedding of young couples, so that everyone becomes raji (happy) in the end.

Interestingly, there are limited studies seeking to analyse such an intriguing paradoxical presence of women’s wings and their role in disseminating the khap ideology. Many recent works on khaps still continue to study them as all-male councils. As the background socio-economic and political conditions that have historically enabled the entrenchment of khaps continue to erode, they are compelled to make multiple adjustments in their conventional ways of functioning. Several scholars expressed ‘surprise’ over recent activities of khaps, underscoring their failure to notice the incremental changes that khaps continued to adopt over the years as survival and adaptive strategies. These changes do not instantiate a revolutionary break from their past, nor do they mirror their ‘archaic’ existence. They are a product of changing North Indian rural areas and hence should be seen as such.

Back Into Action: Farmers’ Protests and the Salience of Khaps

India witnessed its biggest farmers’ protest in 2020–2021 in response to the three controversial farm bills ⁶ passed by the Indian parliament in September 2020. Many farm leaders argued that these laws were detrimental to the agricultural sector as they pushed towards the corporatisation of farming. Additionally, they also jeopardise the public distribution system and food security of the country (Dhawale, 2022). It is not our task to present a detailed account of these protests since some emphatic commentaries have already been made about the background, nature and making of the movement (Jodhka, 2021; Kumar, 2022; Punia, 2022; Suthar & Kumar, 2022). Instead, we try to underscore the manner in which khaps contributed to this movement and how their participation brought some salient changes to the movement and the nature of khaps themselves. The movement began from Punjab’s villages where several farm unions mobilised peasantry against these laws. Farmers landed at the borders of Delhi in the winters of 2020 and resolved to stay there until these laws are taken back.

With initial apprehension, the khaps of Haryana also joined the protesting farmers from Punjab. Alongside their counterparts from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, they collectively ran multiple protest sites surrounding the borders of Delhi. Interestingly, some scholars found the participation of khaps ‘surprising’ and ‘unlikely’ (Kumar, 2022; Singh, 2022). Such a response to their participation is unusual, considering the socio-economic position of khap leaders in the North Indian villages. They are disproportionately represented by peasantry, and land has always been a crucial rallying point for them. In his interview, Ramesh Kumar (age 55, Jind), associated with a farm union, highlighted:

Many khap chaudharis are farmers, and their livelihoods depend on agriculture. Those from Haryana had to join, even if it meant putting aside their long-standing differences with Punjab over water sharing and forge a collective front against the government. Trouble over kheti-kisani (agriculture) brought them to the protests.

Once they entered the scene, khaps became instrumental in mobilising farmers from their areas of influence and maintained the supply of material resources required for the movement to sustain. Three interesting changes were noted with respect to khaps, specifically brought about by their involvement in this protest. The principal change was to give up their role as ‘decision makers’ and function on orders given by the farm’ leadership, many of whom did not belong to khaps. This was articulated by Deepak Sinsinwar (age 56, Rohini), an advocate, who actively followed khaps’ mobilisation in the protests: ‘unlike their traditional mode of functioning, khaps did not take initiatives, give orders or make decisions about direction of the movement. They followed what the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM ⁷ ) leadership decided’. Secondly, they shared platforms with groups and organisations that hitherto have been their biggest critics. These include left-affiliated farmers’ and trade unions, feminist and anti-caste organisations. Some women activists were even invited by khaps themselves to mobilise women from farming communities for the movement (Sangwan & Singh, 2022). Commentators attribute the success of this protest to this broader coalition or ‘synthesis’ (Kumar, 2022) forged across ‘caste, class, region or religion’ (Suthar & Kumar, 2022). However, despite this surface-level coalition, there were deeper fault lines in the movement generated by the involvement of khaps (Singh, 2022). This has been emphatically expressed by Vikas Kumar (age 26, Shamli), an anti-caste student activist who participated in the protests:

I am personally apprehensive. The dominant castes carry numerous atrocities against our people. I came here in solidarity, looking at the visuals of police violence over farmers. People from my university were joining. But local dynamics are different. There are lots of contradictions. I don’t know how to make sense of them.

What is also interesting is the large-scale participation of women from the khap belt at protest sites. Unlike the domestic sphere, at these sites, men too were engaged in domestic chores, including cooking and washing utensils. Wondering at such ‘relaxing’ of gendered norms, a feminist activist Ritu (age 44, Rohtak) who participated in the movement said: ‘Earlier Haryanvi women were confined to their saal (inner courtyard) and men used to take the baithak (drawing room). The protests equalised the field as both could sit and work together’. However, such apparent changes, though received significant attention in popular media, are not evidence of women’s enhanced role in the leadership positions in the movement or of an equitable work sharing inside their homes (Sangwan & Singh, 2022).

Lastly, social ostracisation, the functional tool through which khaps secure compliance (Ingole, 2021), was used not to ‘oppress’ but to demand accountability from legislators who supported the three farm laws against which farmers were protesting. Several instances across Haryana were recorded where legislators from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its coalition partner in the state, Jannayak Janata Party, found it difficult to enter villages, were socially boycotted or had to flee the scene. In this specific instance, social ostracisation was directed against the ‘powerful’ as a tool of resistance, marking a departure from the usual.

Though khaps entered the movement for securing values of ‘kisani’ (Suthar & Kumar, 2022), they took it upon their dignity, after an emotional appeal made by Rakesh Tikait, a leader of Bharatiya Kisan Union, also a khap leader. While speaking to the media, he broke down, expressing his apprehension that the protest site at Delhi’s Ghazipur border might be dismantled by the brute force of the police and armed groups. In order to emotionally appeal to the farmers across north India, he said: ‘I will only drink water that will be brought from my village’. Within hours, thousands of farmers from across north India reached Ghazipur and other protest sites, giving a new life to the protest that slumped after some incidents of violence, which also included some protesting farmers. The discourse in the khap belt shifted to maan–samman [respect], garima [dignity] and izzat [respect] of the farming communities, severely hurt by the tears of ‘their’ leader ‘They made our elder cry’, said Amit (age 29, Sriganganagar), a young farmer from Rajasthan who reached Shahjahanpur protest site, immediately after the news of Tikait’s breakdown went viral.

This point onwards, honour, dignity and respect attached to farming as a profession became the prime rallying point around which khaps carried out mahapanchayats across North India to mobilise support for the movement. During these mahapanchayats, not only did the movement grow stronger, but khaps also saw a revival and gained a certain degree of legitimacy that was waning for reasons discussed in the previous section. Spectacles created by large panchayats, attended by lakhs of farmers, testified that communal bonds still hold an emotive force. Farmers and khaps deployed a political vocabulary that consistently appealed to the notions of respect and dignity and broadened the social base of the movement. Such appeals made people fighting different sociopolitical battles feel for the farmers’ cause and galvanised the rural agrarian discontent into a force that ultimately led farmers to victory when the government of India decided to withdraw the three farm laws in November 2021.

Wrestlers’ Protests: Strange Irony and Khaps’ Mobilisation for ‘Gender Justice’

In January 2023, India’s wrestling champions Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia, along with their colleagues, initiated a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, alleging that Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh (the former chief of Wrestling Federation of India and BJP’s erstwhile member of parliament) and his associates sexually harassed women wrestlers. They demanded an inquiry into the accused and urged the government to dismantle the federation. The government responded to their demands by constituting a committee that was given the mandate to look into these allegations. Followed by such assurances, the wrestlers called off their protests. The committee submitted its report in April 2023 to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, which was not made public. Dissatisfied with the proceedings of the committee, the complainants claimed it was biased towards the accused. Disillusioned by this channel, complainants (a total of seven in number, including a minor) tried to lodge an FIR with the Delhi police but failed to do so. In the light of these circumstances, the wrestlers resumed their protests at Jantar Mantar in April 2023, demanding the arrest of all the accused. The complainants approached the Supreme Court of India to get their FIRs registered. Subsequent to the court’s order, two FIRs were registered against the accused under sections 354A (making sexually coloured gestures) and 354D (stalking) of the Indian Penal Code. One of these two FIRs was lodged under Section 10 of the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.

These wrestlers continued to make appeals to the larger public through media and social media to garner support. However, it is only with the entry of khaps and farmers’ organisations that their protest gained momentum. Khaps’ support for such a movement that has gender justice and women’s rights to its core produces a strange irony before us. Khaps share an almost anti-thetical relationship with the feminist and gender rights movement. They are widely known for their anti-women diktats, policing women’s choices and encouraging sex-selective abortions (Devi & Parihar, 2021; Kaur, 2016). What then explains their explicit and ‘unconditional’ support for female wrestlers’ fight? When asked this question, Deepak Sinsinwar emphatically responded: ‘This was a fight for the dignity of our daughters. Protesting girls are our sisters and daughters. Khaps have always come forward to protect women. When they [wrestlers] urged people to join the battle, Khaps came forward to participate’. Khaps’ participation in this protest also enhanced their social legitimacy even among sections that hitherto vehemently criticised them. Khaps broadened the support base of the protest, provided backend support, mobilised people from North Indian villages and mounted pressure on the government to meet wrestlers’ demands. Banking upon the legacy of historic farmers’ movement, khaps and farmers’ unions effectively tried to bargain against India’s ruling political party, which was alleged to side with the accused. Interesting synergies were built during this protest, marking interesting deviations in the usual functioning of khaps. First, as happened in the case of farmers’ protests, khaps surrendered their decision-making role and exercised their mobilisation capacity based on decisions arrived at by wrestlers. From not ‘allowing’ women to attend khap’s proceedings to women making decisions in them, one can observe a marked difference in their workings. Second, panchayats organised by khaps in support of protesting wrestlers, whether in Rohtak (Meham Chaubisi khap) or in Delhi, were also joined by women’s rights activists who have been long-time critics of khaps and their activities.

However, these adjustments do not mark a radical or structural break from the khaps’ overall stance on women’s question. The support for female wrestlers was largely mobilised around a protectionist discourse, couched in phrases like ‘yeh ladai hamari behen-betiyon ke samman aur izzat ki hai’ [this is a fight for the respect and honour of our sisters and daughters]. In such an understanding, women’s respect is attached to the honour of her family, community and village. Some of the protesting wrestlers belong to Haryana and the khap belt. In recent years, the state became famous after several sportspersons, especially women, excelled and won medals for the country (Malik, 2023). Therefore, sexual harassment of women was perceived as an attack on the entire caste/community and village. Concerns pertaining to the community honour mediated notions about their daughter’s dignity that became the entry point to the protest. Even wrestlers felt hesitant and apprehensive about being identified as ‘feminist’ and feared breaking off from the community. They reinforced their roots and connection with the ‘community’ and regarded their elders’ blessings as the driving force for the movement, as expressed by a female wrestler, Diya (age 25, Sonepat), who was part of the protest: ‘Whatever we did, we did with the blessing of our badey buzurg [elders]. We fought not only for ourselves but also for our younger sisters who want to join wrestling’. Therefore, the support of khaps was inspired by communally shared honour and not women’s rights discourse. This becomes even more apparent if one takes into account the absence of large-scale mobilisation of women from the state around an issue that directly concerns them. Their participation in the protest would have upset the local gender dynamics in the region. Interestingly, it remains to be seen whether this conditional collaboration between female wrestlers and khaps reshapes the role that women play in their organisational structure and functioning.

Unlike the farmers’ movement, this protest could not sustain itself in the face of state repression, and the protest site was dismantled in August 2023. In the aftermath, wrestlers tried to keep their demands alive. They continue to fight a long battle that is still ongoing. This failure has also been read as the reluctance of khaps to put their complete influence and power to mobilise for this protest. This is because, unlike farmers’ protests, the wrestlers’ protests did not directly concern their material interests. Additionally, latter had the potential to disrupt local gender equations and would have required khaps to radically shift their historically shaped stance on women’s question. Interestingly, in their discussions about wrestlers’ protest, khap members lament their weakened organisational strengths. They feel that despite their contribution to these two protests, khaps today are at their weakest point. Ashish Nain (age 30, Hisar), a leader of the Binain khap, expressed these concerns as follows:

If khaps were as strong as they used to be, there was no way that we could not win this protest. Khaps had the capacity to halt entire villages and cities to get their demands met. The fact that we lost this fight indicates how irrelevant khaps are becoming, day by day.

This weakening of khaps has also been attributed to ‘internal’ factors, including caste polarisation and contradictions along with widespread corruption that prevails in khaps’ ranks and functioning (Gudavarthy & Choudhary, 2025).

Puncturing the ‘Communal’ Plot: A Case of Decommunalisation in Nuh–Mewat ⁸ Violence

‘Hum Hindu nahin hein, hum panchayati hein!’ [We are not Hindus, we are panchayati! ⁹ ], said Sharvan Singh in response to a question about his religious affiliation. Curiously, all the interviewed people associated with khaps were reluctant to identify themselves as Hindu. Some of them even said that ‘jat and farmer do not have a religion’, to dissociate themselves from already established religious identities. When asked about religion, many of them used terms like kisani, panchayati, haryanvi, dehati, etc., to show their affiliations.

Traditionally, jats and people under khaps’ influence have categorically maintained distance from institutionalised religions, evident in the manner in which the colonial government was repeatedly petitioned and compelled by these groups to recognise their customary practices. These practices are different, sometimes also in conflict with both the shariat and brahmanical laws (Chowdhry, 2004). After enumeration, many jats found themselves divided across religious identities. Irrespective of their religions, they continued to acknowledge their common descent and cultural ties. However, a parallel project of intimate and consistent interaction with Arya Samaj simultaneously played its role in concretising a larger Hindu identity among the jats (Datta, 1997). Such a homogenising project witnessed its crescendo in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar riots (2013), in which the underlying conflict between Hindu jats and Muslims—two communities that share intimate ties in the rural agrarian set-up came to the fore (Singh, 2016). In these riots, Gathwal and Baliyan khap played a controversial role (Rao et al., 2013). With these riots, a long-standing project of assimilating jats into the Hindu fold was believed to have been completed.

However, khaps also present a very interesting case for what can be termed as ‘decommunalisation’. We look at their role in making ineffective the possibility of large-scale communal violence in Haryana’s Nuh district. In July 2023, following the incidents of Hindu–Muslim communal violence in Nuh, the tensions began to spread in several other districts as well. In order to escalate the tensions, the Hindu nationalist organisations, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, appealed to the youth, asking them to join the conflict. These calls were made in the name of a unified Hindu identity against Muslims, the religious other. Apprehending the consequences, khaps and farmer leaders immediately called upon a meeting in Delhi, in order to discuss plans for extinguishing the lingering possibility of communal violence. Based on this meeting, khap leaders across the state appealed to their members not to participate in calls for violence. In an exemplary move, khap leaders organised mahapanchayats across Mewat, attempting to show inter-religious solidarity. In one such panchayat organised in Bass village in Haryana’s Hisar district, khap leaders took upon themselves to ensure the protection of Muslims in the area, keeping in view the possibility of violence from majoritarian vigilante groups (Jafri, 2023). Such attempts by khaps punctured the communal plan that could lead to widespread conflict in the region.

When asked about this exemplary role of khaps in averting violence in Mewat, a khap leader, Pankaj Choudhary (age 55, Jind) said, ‘We cannot allow anyone to break our bhaichara. It is against our ethos. It is against our dignity to fight for manufactured issues. We have always fought for what is right’. In the Mewat region, Meo Muslims also have social groups known as pals. Their structure and functioning are almost identical to khaps. Commenting upon these incidents, Amanat Khan, who followed khaps’ mobilisation against communal violence in Mewat, appreciated their role:

Without them taking a firm stance, things would not have settled so easily. There are many incidents of communal violence against young Muslim boys in Mewat. I could not even imagine what it could lead to. For us who believe in kabilayi sanskriti (clan-based culture), neither caste nor religion is a matter of any concern.

Though khaps’ dealing with the question of religion is interesting, an in-depth analysis of everyday practices through which these rural agrarian communities are ‘decommunalising’ themselves is still required. Interestingly, here as well, the appeals made by khaps made references to dignity, respect and honour. Many considered it disgraceful and dishonourable to prioritise one’s religious affiliations over one’s ties based on common descent and culture since agrarian communities across religions remain intimately intertwined in a fabric of interdependence and belonging. In stage speeches given by khap leaders during panchayats also reiterated the ‘centuries-old brotherhood’ between the two communities (Manav, 2023). This also signifies that ten years down the line, wounds of communal violence in Shamli and Muzaffarnagar were, to some extent, healed by the successful avoidance of conflict in Mewat.

Broader Coalitional Strategies and Lingering Apprehensions

Based on our analysis of khaps’ role and participation in these three recent events, it would not be wrong to say that they are incrementally transforming. However, these changes should not be seen in a vacuum. As has been argued in the beginning, they are a function of consistent changes that are happening in the North Indian rural. The inability of the dominant scholarship to capture these changes is representative of the fact that institutions which are often associated with the ‘rural’ are assumed to have no possibility of transformation and change (not necessarily progression). As a result of socio-economic and political developments in the North Indian countryside, the khaps were witnessing a decline in their relevance and influence. Partly, some of their recent activities can be seen as adaptational and survival strategies that gave them a renewed life. One of the prime examples of such a survival strategy is to forge broader coalitions with groups and individuals that have been critical of khaps and their activities. Dhar (2023), a left-affiliated feminist activist and scholar, articulated this emphatically in response to these recent changes in khaps: ‘The farm laws could alter their power dynamics by displacing them from the land altogether, so to resist such efforts, khaps took upon the responsibility of building broad solidarity, twisting and relaxing their norms, and even submitting to several progressive demands’.

Contrarily, there are other women’s rights activists who, while acknowledging the recent changes in khaps, also expressed their apprehensions by marking these steps towards transformation as a bid to enhance social legitimacy in times when they are facing an all-around crisis of existence (Datta, 2023). Several khaps are still undertaking activities that signal a continuity with their basic ideological underpinnings. The most significant and consequential of them is the extent to which they petition the state and central governments to amend the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA), 1955, to disallow village and gotra endogamous marriages and illegalise live-in relationships.

Another trigger that accelerated the process of transformation of khaps is the threat posed by the rise of right-wing Hindu majoritarianism. Many khap leaders see this project for the consolidation of a unified Hindu identity as an assault on their existing identities. They felt a sense of social suffocation because of the engulfment of their local culture and customary practices by the pan-Hindu identification. This denied them the possibility of keeping a dual identity—being a jat and a Hindu at the same time. Therefore, the role played by khaps in puncturing Nuh–Mewat violence cannot be reductively read as only an outcome of the urge for social recognition. It is equally a pushback from the community against the possibility of it getting eclipsed by the majoritarian identity. Some of these issues require a prolonged and in-depth investigation that can be taken up further by researchers working on and around India’s transforming rural and the sociology of community-based groups like khaps.

In Conclusion

We analysed the role and participation of khaps in three recent salient sociopolitical events, namely farmers’ protests (2020–2021), wrestlers’ protests (2023) and communal violence in Nuh (2023). Based on our analysis, we underscored that the dominant and existing understandings of khaps need an update. There are significant changes and shifts in the functioning of khaps, which often tend to be eclipsed by discussions on their role in the perpetuation of HBV. These changes are partly seen as adaptive strategies to secure survival in a volatile rural agrarian context and as attempts at gaining social legitimacy. We argue that these changes are also a result of pushback from these communitarian groups in the face of a threat to their identity from the hegemonic religious majoritarian project. These recent shifts are manifested in the creation of broader alliances and the usage of a more inclusive political vocabulary employed by khaps. We also highlight that recent changes in khaps also put to use appeals towards securing communities’ honour and dignity to mobilisational tasks apart from policing people’s marital choices. We situate our attempts in recent scholarly arguments that underline rural to be in a constant state of transition and the intellectual fixity attached to discourage attempts at understanding its nature. It remains to be seen whether these changes are merely cosmetic or have a substantive longevity and sustainability to them.