Caste-offs

In a January submission to India’s Supreme Court, an association of the country’s caste councils begged for greater sympathy for men who commit “honor killings” of wayward females. The councils denied encouraging such killings, but emphasized that fathers or brothers who murder a daughter or sister are usually “law-abiding, educated and respectable people” who must protect their reputations after a female has had a “forbidden” relationship — especially a female who intends to marry within her sub-caste, which the councils believe leads to deformed babies.