What is a khap?

Khap leaders have consistently supported the aggrieved wrestlers in their ongoing protests against the WFI chief. On Friday, another khap mahapanchayat was held in Haryana’s Kurukshetra where leaders reiterated their demands for the arrest of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and gave the government a deadline of June 9 to act on it.

But what is a ‘khap’, in the first place?

Khaps are mainly gotra – clans tracing their paternal lineage to a common ancestor – and region-based social outfits. They derive their name either from the number of villages/clusters of villages or the gotras they represent.

As per MC Pradhan’s The Political Systems of the Jats of Northern India (1966), khaps used to have three kinds of functions – settle familial/village disputes, maintain/protect the tenets of the faith, and protect the area from outside invasion. Today, the last function is largely irrelevant. The major function of khaps today is to settle disputes and ensure that social and religious custom is enforced in their area.

With regards to leadership and succession, a defining feature of khaps is that they do not have a set organisation. While earlier, succession as a khap president/leader was hereditary, now, that is not necessarily the case. To preside over a meeting of a particular khap or a group of khaps, the chairman of the same is nominated unanimously and on the spot. As largely there are no defined rules to elect president of a khap, in many cases more than one person claims to be head of a particular khap – causing  fights and disputes.

How many khaps are currently functional?

Om Prakash Dhankar, a leader of Dhankar khap from Haryana’s Jhajjar district, says that there are nearly 300 main khaps in north India – in the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.

According to Dhankar, several khaps including Gathwala khap (Malik khap), Dalal khap, Poonia khap, Sangwan khap, Dahiya khap, Sheoran khap, Binain khap (Hisar) and Sherawat khap are gotra based khaps which have jurisdiction in the villages dominated by the gotras concerned.

Others are region based. These include Meham chaubisi khap, Rohtak Chaurasi khap, Satrol khap, Jharsa 360 khap and Sonipat 360 khap. They have influence ranging from a couple of villages to a few hundred villages.

Most khaps are active in Jat areas and several of them belong to the gotras of this community. However, other castes including Gujjars and Rajputs as well as Muslims, too might have khaps.

What is their social importance?

In several rural parts of north India, khaps have tremendous influence among villagers because of their role in resolving local social disputes including marital problems, land disputes, and other family matters. Khaps enter the picture when such issues are not resolved by the concerned parties themselves. Khaps can impose a number of penalties, including social boycotts and monetary fines.

Over the years, their controversial diktats regarding inter-caste or intra-gotra/intra-village marriages had drawn widespread criticism. Critics have called them “kangaroo courts” – imposing the law of regressive social custom rather than the constitution of India. They have also been accused of committing honour killings, even though khap leaders themselves deny this charge.

Recently, khap panchayats have insisted that they are in favour of inter-caste marriages while simultaneously demanding an amendment in the Hindu Marriage Act to ban same-gotra and same-village marriages.

Where do khaps draw their power from?

Khaps draw power from the large number of people who are associated with them, by virtue of their gotra or place of residence.

They also draw legitimacy from their actions – on different occasions, they play the role of pressure groups, mobilising people for political issues.

Currently, several khaps are actively participating in the protests being held against the WFI chief. Prior to this, they had actively participated in the farmer agitation against three contentious farm laws in 2020-21 – laws which were eventually repealed, in no small part due to the role played by khaps.

Due to the sheer number of people khaps can influence, they have also become crucial players in north Indian politics, with all parties constantly jockeying for their support.

However, independently, only a few khap leaders have succeeded in their own political careers. Currently, Sangwan khap leader Sombir Sangwan is an independent MLA from Haryana’s Dadri constituency.