Naveen Jindal's Support To Khap Panchayat - An Act Under Compulsion

Everybody is surprised and shocked that Naveen Jindal has expressed his support for the infamous Khap Panchayat's opposition to same-gotra marriage. The root of the surprise lies in the fact that Naveen Jindal is not only a young politician, but is also well educated and comes from an elite family with apparently a modern outlook.

However, I feel that there is nothing surprising about it. Naveen Jindal is not supporting the Khap Panchayat spontaneously, but under compulsion. Everybody knows that the Khap Panchayat commands huge control on the local community, i.e. the local electorate. Therefore, if Naveen Jindal rubs the Panchayat in the wrong way,then it will ultimately result in his losing the support of the local people. And that will eventually result in his failing to retain the Kurukshetra (Haryana) parliamentary seat in the next general election.

Therefore, it is simply to ensure his victory in the next election that the hapless politician is feigning support for a demand that he himself knows to be completely wrong.

It is basically a classic example of the draw backs of popular democracy, wherein a public representative is forced to support a wrongful demand, simply because it is a popular demand. We witnessed a similar incident when we saw Sachin Pilot fighting for getting his Gujjar voters the coveted ST status. However, Sachin Pilot was very much likely to be aware that his Gujjar voters' demand for an ST status was completely illogical and baseless.