Negotiating Honour by Jat and Muslim Women in Muzaffarnagar,Western Uttar Pradesh

Dangers of Orientalist Explanations: Post-colonial and Feminist Perspectives

Most of the studies by euro-western anthropologists emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War and were geographically located around the Mediterranean Sea, a region that juxtaposes west Asia with southern Europe. Mediterranean region witnessed the growth of Islam and Christianity, but the academic gaze was mostly on Muslim societies, ² and communities falling on ‘pastoral-agrarian- continuum’. ³ Prolonged association of honour with societies and cultures which are an anomaly in the euro-western ethos has led to widespread misconceptions and generalizations, like, honour and Islam are ‘inseparable and binomial’(Giordano, 2016, p. 417), honour-based violence as uniqueness of Asian cultures, characterised by irrational communities, engaging in violent practices, refusing to modernise (Chakravarti, 2005), associating ‘honour cultures’ with ‘backwardness, crime and otherness’ (Sen, 2005, p. 44). Because of these specific connotations, honour has become significant in debates on ‘culture and identity’ (Gill, 2006). Thus ‘archaic’ honour is still very much around but evoked only in particular contexts. Post-colonial literature informs us that culture is an essential tool of imperialism, and serves the purpose of othering, and creating hierarchies (Abu-Lughod, 1991). The hierarchies and differences in non-western cultures are assessed by looking at the ‘treatment’ and status of women. By highlighting the poor status of ‘oriental’ women, western imperialists intervene in the ‘third-world-countries’. In colonial times, widow immolation and child marriage were areas of intervention (Sangari & Vaid, 1990), and in the present time, it is women’s involvement in overt cultural practices like veiling (purdah, ghoonghat). Such intervention has been described as the ‘western-saviour-complex’ and is an important practice of creating hierarchy and othering by depicting women from the global south as eternally oppressed, a victim of violence, and poverty (Mohanty, 1984).

The extensive western media coverage of Aysha Bibi, a young Afghan woman, whose nose was cut off by her husband as a way of punishment, is one such example. The headline that accompanied this image was ‘what happens if we leave Afghanistan?’ and was used to justify America’s presence in Afghanistan (Abu-Lughod, 2013, p. 27). Such intervention is problematic because honour crimes are explained as community-specific behaviour, thus necessitating civilizing missions from the west, and invisibilising the historical context in which these honour codes emerged. In the analysis of gendered honour, we cannot limit ourselves to enquiries around cultural meanings alone. Cultural determinism has a seductive appeal, however, it lacks nuances and is essentialist. It is important, therefore, to look for other ways in which we can read the non-western women’s engagement with patriarchal honour–culture.

One such mechanism is to ‘write against culture’, by writing ‘ethnographies of the particular’ (Abu-Lughod, 1991). Feminist theorists have elaborated on the complexities of honour by pivoting women’s experiences, which substantiates that honour is conceived in myriad ways. Saba Mahmood’s work on the piety movement in Egypt is a profound example of such intervention. She found that women actively embodied religiously prescribed, the community-accepted forms of modesty, and bodily comportment (Mahmood, 2005). While western theorists might read the situation as internalised patriarchy and lack of agency, Mahmood emphasizes that agency can ‘encompass acts that uphold apparently patriarchal values’. Women actively practice religious comportment because it enables them to negotiate with problems at home, and outside. Mahmood’s work gives centrality to women’s experiences and looks at the workings of the patriarchal community, honour practices, and women’s agency in a nuanced way. Thus, by departing from the normative understanding of honour, and by pivoting women’s experiences and engagements with honour, we are departing from a fixed understanding of honour, and argue that the concept of honour is fluid and dynamic.

Understanding Honour and Gender in India

Patriarchy continues to determine the conceptual underpinnings of honour. While honour is rare, and controlled by men, shame is accorded frequently, especially to women, with regard to sexual conduct (Wikan, 1984). Women’s comportment acts as a ‘fundamental axis of evaluation’ among all patriarchal groupings, such as family, community and nation (Gilmore, 1987). The honour of collective– communities rests on the sexual purity of its natal women, which is why different cultural values reiterate restrictions and control on female sexuality. Whenever women digress from the community-prescribed norms pertaining to sexuality, it brings shame to the patriarchal community, highlighting the contagious nature of shame that is often transmitted through women (ibid). Thus women become a ‘weak link’ in the chain of masculine virtue, and mutually enforcing, moral obligation among males (Campbell, 1964 in Gilmore, 1987). In this context, honour is not a gender-neutral value, as shame is allocated to women, and men are the custodians of collective honour and therefore the patriarchal control over female sexuality.

Female chastity lies at the centre of honour codes, as women are the signifiers of ethnic difference and otherness, which is important in ideological discourses on the construction, reproduction and transformation of communities (Yuval-Davis & Anthias, 1989). This explains communal violence against women because women’s identity is constitutive of the identity of the community, any threat or damage to women is also reflected in their community (Chhachhi, 1991). For instance, the gendered violence during the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan and other communal and ethnic riots in the Indian subcontinent are illustrative of the gendered subtext of collective honour. Three distinct trajectories are visible in the numerous cases of gender violence. Women were raped, mutilated or killed by men of the ‘other’ community because they were the carriers of community honour; or they were killed by family members in the anticipation of rape and impregnation by the enemy other. In the post-partition context, both, India and Pakistan, tried to retrieve the ‘abducted’ women, in an effort to retrieve the honour of the nation-state that was lost with its women (Butalia, 1994; Das, 2007; Jeffery & Basu, 1998). These trajectories suggest that women’s bodies are the symbols of honour and the recipients of violence and shame.

Moreover, women are crucial to the community because they are involved in processes of biological and cultural reproduction, which are important for the perpetuation of the community. A woman’s body is the embodiment of society’s productive and reproductive values, which is why men and older women try to take on the role of the protector (Chowdhry, 2007). Control of women’s bodies and sexuality is central to preserving the family/community’s honour. Woman’s sexuality is controlled through early marriage, restrictions on movements, surveillance by family members, extended kin and community. Such control of female sexuality assures the paternity and the lineage of the offspring (Chowdhry, 2002, p. 12). This is similar to the seed/earth symbolism of reproduction that sustains an ideology of honour in which material and human resources remain in the hands of men (Dube, 1986). The idea is to control production and reproduction because autonomous and unsupervised reproduction is dangerous for the perpetuation of patriarchy in the community. In this regard, culturally distinct, gendered practices, such as veiling, segregation and rules pertaining to marriage, become crucial for the maintenance of honour and group identity (Chowdhry, 2007; Jeffery & Basu, 1998). Group identity is formed by maintaining patrilineal succession, and caste purity (Chakravarti, 1993). The practice of caste endogamy ensures patrilineal descent and restricts questionable claims on patrilineal property. Therefore, the pursuit of maintaining the status quo of honour has significant material-economic implications.

Political and economic alliances among groups depend on the kind of women provided in the marriage alliance process. Women hold a ‘central position as an exchange value’, and thus have been regarded as an ‘immaterial resource’ (Davis, 1977, pp. 43–44). Jane Schneider has highlighted the ecological and politico-economic factors in explaining honour. In the absence of the state, the pastoral and agrarian communities were struggling to organise men in groups, and as a response, they developed a mechanism of social control—the code of honour and shame, to deal with intense conflict that external ecological pressures had created within and between different groups. In these situations of inter and intra-community conflict over resources, honour was defined as ‘the ideology of a property holding group which struggles to define, enlarge, and protect its patrimony in a competitive arena’ (Schneider, 1971). While pastoral communities were struggling to find an organizational solution to a compelling ecological problem, such as the difficulty in regulating access of men and animals to natural resources, agrarian communities were struggling with maintaining lineage continuity. In pastoral societies, female reproductive capacity became valuable, as ‘might was right’ when one needed to fight for resources. This made reproductive women just like other contested resources like pastures and water. In agrarian communities, the main problem was the potential fragmentation of the family of procreation, with fathers, sons, and brothers set off against one another because of inheritance rules; where the daughters/sisters are expected to hold the group together. This reiterates the centrality of gender to notions of honour, as well as its significance of gendered honour for the ‘realpolitik’(Ortner, 1978).

Contextualizing the Field

Muzaffarnagar has been known for its economic and political dominance, both of which are embedded in a strong agrarian context. The district is located in the fertile Ganga–Yamuna doab and has been the first recipient of the green revolution, a technological intervention that enhanced the productivity of agrarian land. With the advancement of this technology, the region soon came to be recognised as the ‘sugar bowl’, and ‘bread basket’ of India (Behal, 2020). The economic clout that developed around agriculture also transmuted into political power. The region of western Uttar Pradesh has produced influential leaders who have found base support and backing in the region’s rich sugarcane farmers (Bentall & Corbridge, 2006; Hasan, 1989). In addition to agriculture, for the past two decades, the region has been incorporated into industrial corridors ⁴ . Moreover, Muzaffarnagar is a part of the National capital region, the elongated territory to the country’s capital, New Delhi ⁵ . The proximity to the national capital ensures a certain kind of impetus to the flow of ‘global’ goods, ideas and people, and has significantly transformed the boundaries between the rural and urban and has thus changed the nature of the district.

However, in the past few decades, the region has been witnessing a wide-ranging process of ‘agrarian transformation’, that covers undesirable consequences of the green revolution, such as inequality, distress migration, poverty, ecological crises and farmer suicides (Mohanty, 2019). Moreover, extensive and continuous use of chemical fertilizers has destroyed the quality of soil, the food cycle of the region and has led to ecological distress (Kumar, 2018). The premature heat waves that have destroyed the nascent wheat crop, have led to export crises (Down to Earth [DTE], 2022), fodder crises (Shukla, 2022), and food crises (Sajwan, 2022) is just one example in how agrarian transformation and ecological crises are unravelling. The continuing agrarian distress has been exacerbated due to the doubling of electricity charges, the rising cost of diesel and fertilizers, and the unpaid dues to sugarcane farmers by mill owners. These issues have generated agrarian distress among farmers across generation, caste, class and religious lines. Rural economic inequalities have exacerbated and class differences have sharpened. It is evident that while the green revolution produced a class of rich farmers, a larger group of people relying on an agrarian way of life became economically vulnerable and affected across the caste, class, and religious groups (Kumar, 2016).

Because agrarian pursuits are not as profitable as it was in the past, the people in the region are shifting to non-farm work, and migrating to the nearest urban centres, like Delhi. Moreover, formal education has facilitated aspirations of upward social mobility, not only among Jats but also among Muslims and Dalits (Pai & Kumar, 2018; Singh, 1998). But due to the increasing agrarian distress, coupled with a shift to a non-farm economy, and diversified occupational choices of previously dependent Dalit and Muslim communities, the Jat anxiety is at an all-time high. The processes of social transformation over the past three decades, such as the commercialisation of agriculture, urbanisation, migration, and increasing importance of education among dependent communities have disrupted the status quo and weakened the social relations that were organised around an agrarian way of life. All these developments have raised alarm and led to different kinds of conflicts, as is reflected in the tussle between Jats and Muslims, and Jats and Dalits, and among men regarding women (Chowdhry, 2005, 2009; Pai & Kumar, 2018; Singh, 1998, 2016). The tussle often takes forms of communal violence, caste-based violence and gender-based violence. For instance, scholars have established a strong correlation between economic anxieties and resentment with the 2013 Jat–Muslim riots in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli (Daniyal, 2017; Singh, 2016). Similarly, inter-caste conflicts have intensified due to the rising cases of elopements and love marriages, and there is a dominant perception among Jat communities is that first the Dalits took their jobs, via reservation, and now they (Dalits) are trying to get involved with (Jats) girls (Chowdhry, 2009).

In this context, gender is rarely highlighted in scholarly discussions, except with reference to honour killings. There is no engagement on how honour codes have evolved with the emerging social, economic and cultural transformations, and moreover, women have continued to be represented in passive terms, as victims of patriarchy. While honour-based acts of violence are an important feature of the field, we have to locate new ways of gender bargains, and negotiations that women take up to survive, sustain and strive in an inherently patriarchal yet rapidly transforming society of Muzaffarnagar.

Traditional Gender Roles and Honour Codes in Western Uttar Pradesh

Previously, traditional gender roles and honour codes were organised around the agrarian economy, which determined the norms around labour, sexuality, movement, and mobility. For instance, Prem Chowdhry’s work on Haryana highlights that the dominant culture of the region, which is embedded in agrarian ethos, demands high participation of women, without providing any economic worth or social recognition. Women who do ‘hard’ but ‘unpaid work’ are considered as having ‘high moral values’ (Chowdhry, 1993). As women continued to perform unpaid labour on family farms, it induced the honour of family, community, and women. Even though women had no property rights (Agarwal, 1994, 1998), they were regarded as equal partners in agriculture, a role that became legitimized after marriage. So along with wife and mother roles, women were also ‘bound’ to take up agriculture and animal-rearing work. They gained ‘personal satisfaction’, ‘hamare ghar (khet) ka kaam sai kaisi sharmindgi’ (There is no shame in doing your work) (Chowdhry, 1993). Thus the traditional notion of honour of rural agrarian women lies in doing unpaid work for the family. Women going out for paid work is alien to the prescribed traditional gender norms and roles and brings shame to the family and community at large. Moreover, woman’s participation in the labour market was, and is still considered undesirable because it constrains the traditional gender role of motherhood, towards her children as well as her cattle and land.

The narratives of middle age Jat and Muslim women, who came out of the domestic sphere in the early 2000s, show that they entered the public sphere for paid work, not out of choice but because of majboori/compulsion. Pinki Chaudhary (Jat, forty-eight), Geeta Chaudhary (Jat, forty-five), and Shaheen (Muslim, forty), were not socialized towards paid work. Moreover, they neither aspired for paid work nor were they trained, in terms of education. However difficult circumstances within the private sphere, such as domestic violence, alcoholic husbands, marital rape, mental harassment and lack of support, provoked these women to enter the public sphere for paid work. Pinki and Geeta worked on farms, performed cleaning and cooking services in the nearby areas and started stitching clothes. Later they started working as ASHA and Anganwadi workers. Shaheen, who belonged to a relatively upper-class family, relied on her natal family for help, managed to finish her education, and started working in an NGO. The narratives of these women, who started working almost 20 years ago, reveal that they were shamed for entering public spaces for paid work when it was not a part of the traditional gender norms. There were questions about their dress, the timing of work, nature of work, and so on. They were accused of being prostitutes, and many times they received indecent proposals. In these circumstances of indecent proposals and constant scrutiny by family, neighbours, and community members, sexual propriety became all the more important for these women. Women sought all the measures, such as dressing appropriately, to keep up with the socially prescribed levels of honour. For instance, it was public knowledge that Geeta and Pinki were in unhappy marriages, but that did not accord them the choice to divorce, because of shame. Struggling amidst lack of resources and unsupportive husbands, they often had to venture out for work, or seek help from strangers, which often lead to sexually threatening situations. However they never ‘compromised’ on their honour, and they were extremely proud of themselves, and therefore were respected by society. ‘Izzat hai to sab kuch hai’ (honour is the be-all and end-all) they say in retrospect. In this sense, being honourable is full of challenges, but simultaneously, it is also an assertion/claim of status and highlights that despite everything that went wrong, women continued to remain honourable.

Emergence of Non-farm Economy, and New Honour Codes

Due to agrarian distress, and out-migration of young men, in search of non-farm employment, there has been a shift from the traditional gender roles that were embedded in agriculture. In the contemporary society of Muzaffarnagar, women doing paid work in public spaces is normal, especially because increasing agrarian distress has forced households to become ‘pluri-active’, where multiple members of one household have to work in order to survive and sustain (Jodhka, 2014). Pluri-active households, coupled with male migration, have opened opportunities for women, in terms of work. As a consequence, agrarian work and non-farm work in the region have become increasingly feminized, which implies low skill, low status and low pay. Despite the fact that the feminization of agriculture and labour has detrimental effects on women’s work, this also implies a shift in traditional gender roles and existing honour codes as more and more women are moving into the public sphere for paid work. Moreover, the feminization of agriculture and labour has provided women with a new sense of autonomy (Kannabiran & Swaminathan, 2017, p. 42). Women doing paid work means more and more women are going out every day, crossing the threshold of the home and entering the liberating domain of public space. They start understanding the public space as a space of freedom and opportunities, which can be accessed through education, meaningful employment, and honourable behaviour. Thus gender roles for women have changed substantially, because of the shift from farm to the non-farm economy, and the rise of education and state intervention through the initiative, beti bachao, beti padhao/Save daughter and educate her ⁶ . Because Muzaffarnagar and other districts in western Uttar Pradesh have low CSR, this program is an important initiative. Many parents referred to this initiative while explaining their choice for educating their daughters.

These are relatively new developments in the distressed, rural-agrarian society of western Uttar Pradesh, and it has implications for what it means to do gender honourably. Women are actively ‘doing’ honour in order to access public space and the facilities that accompany the access to public space, like education and employment. For example, in Muzaffarnagar where we conducted research, as labour became feminized, we saw more and more adult women entering public spaces to do different kinds of paid work. They are teaching, doing social work, working in malls and shops, in home-based cottage industry making lace and stitching uniforms. Due to the nature of work, rising female employment did not challenge the local code of female chastity, since employees were doing what was considered ‘women’s work’ whether in public or domestic settings, they were doing ‘respectable’, feminized labour for the benefit of the family. Since they were doing paid work for the family, this also induced their honour. And it also indicates change in women’s agency, for instance, they had acquired more freedom of movement within the villages, towns and the city of Muzaffarnagar.

While female employment is encouraged, certain kinds of work are considered respectable and therefore permissible for young women to pursue as it is honourable. Women in the field aspired to be doctors, teachers, or social workers. Whenever young women aspired to do something different from the status quo, they were not allowed to pursue that vocation, because of lack of respectability. Shilpi, a 24-year-old Jat, wanted to be a fashion designer, but she was forced to pursue a Bachelor’s in Education. Her family convinced her that teaching was a respectable profession. Sarita, a 25-year-old Jat, post-graduate, says,

a woman from the village recently started a beauty parlour. However, her mother-in-law and the ‘ladies’ of neighbourhood taunt her. They consider her bad not because she goes out for work, but because the kind of work she does is not good for other girls. Other women present their daughters-in-law as respectable because they stay at home.

The teaching profession is encouraged, but fashion designing or ‘beauty’-oriented vocations are rejected.

Young women are entering public spaces in various capacities, which is also generating tension among families and communities. The dangers of loitering have become prominent in the region. Stereotypes of ‘awara’ (loiterer) and ‘gharelu’ (domestic) are recurring in the field. Women loitering in public spaces evoke social tensions around their sexuality. While there is an explicit tension that lower caste, lower caste and men from other communities will attack women but the implicit patriarchal anxiety remains that women will develop consensual relationships with men of other communities, thus defying the norms of endogamy (Phadke et al., 2009, p. 188). In this regard, if any young woman defies the social norms by falling in love, immediately she is restricted from accessing public spaces. The implications of falling in love are myriad, restricted access to public spaces, early marriage, discontinued education, violence by kin, and sometimes even honour killing. When Geeta found that her daughter had a boyfriend at school, she immediately discontinued her education. Before Sumbul was leaving to pursue higher education in another city, the first thing her mother said was, that she should not hear a single rumour about Sumbul.

Public spaces and opportunities are denied to women because these spaces enable the intermingling of men and women across different sections of the social hierarchy, which pose a threat to the honour of family, village, and community leading to conflicts. In response to these emerging threats around honour, young women are socialized about the loss of honour in relationships because they are ‘girls, and thus vulnerable and therefore should always be conscious of consequences such as loss of honour, chastity and purity’ (as highlighted by a respondent). Shireen, (twenty five, post-graduate, Muslim) recalls her mother saying, ‘Never fall in love as it brings shame, and don’t do any inappropriate activities such as roaming with boys, or loitering in the city…’ It is in this context that we can understand why and how women imbibe honour in order to negotiate with the patriarchal community and society. Access to resources, opportunities, and circumscribed freedom is available to women if and when they behave honourably.

Generational Anxieties Around Honour

New educational opportunities, a rising literacy rate, and access to television, mobiles and scooters have exposed younger generation women to alternative values and lifestyles, that are alien to rural-agrarian communities, whether Jat or Muslim. There is consensus among the older generation of both communities that the threat of loss of honour is more as the younger generation women are becoming increasingly independent because of education and employment in public spaces. Parents are particularly concerned with the mixing and blending of non-kin boys and girls in public spaces, such as malls, colleges and cafes. Moreover, male friends and boyfriends are the looming threat in times of necessary access to school, coaching, and mobiles. Parents and community members worry that schools which boast of imparting English education, create avenues for illicit hetero-social engagement.

When we look at the north Indian rural-agrarian belt, especially with reference to Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, and western Uttar Pradesh, women’s access to mobile phones becomes a contested issue and official bans by village panchayats have been imposed so as to restrict women’s access to this revolutionary communication technology (Kovacs, 2017). One of the respondents, Khurshid, (Muslim, 50, mother to Sumbul) says:

In our time, these was no entertainment, no television or mobile. My mother didn’t allow me to watch TV, till one point. When I used to go somewhere, I used to see television, but even that was not allowed. I didn’t have any knowledge about the world. These days girls have a lot of information, they have too much knowledge. But they don’t use the knowledge for benefit, they misuse it. If they are getting a mobile, they meet boys, and enter into relationships.

This narrative highlights the complexity and ambivalence around honour, especially with the rise of television, mobile and social media. While mobile phones have become a necessary device to access public space in a safe and protected manner, it also facilitates love affair and illicit relationship.

There are other related sources of anxiety and tensions which are reflected in a whole range of decisions that are taken by traditional panchayats, such as bans on women wearing jeans, and short skirts and dancing at social events. The cultural importance of doodh–dahi (milk and curd) in the diet has been deteriorating, and the consumption of pizza and chowmein is rising. Few respondents describe such culturally ‘alien’ food as tamasik, which induces wild desires in the hearts and bodies of consumers. Such food is considered as the peril of ‘city life’ (shehri zindagi) which destroys the simple living, hardworking people of rural-agrarian society, and especially polluting women. In other instances, the younger generation of women does not want to dung work anymore, work that their predecessors had been doing for so long, and in an unpaid capacity. Simultaneously, there are recurring narratives on how young women are always on the mobile, as opposed to being in the fields or the kitchens. These instances become crucial to understand the shift in gender roles, practices, and becomes important to illustrate the nature of gender-generational ‘anxiety’ in the region.

The older generation of women feel that the values of restraint and modesty have been given up by the girls, and they try to police young women on how to behave. Pinki Chaudhary (Jat, 48, Anganwadi worker) says,

I tell the young girls that they should be ‘mazboot’ ⁷ (strong). Have a control on your desire. Don’t be lured by anyone. If your parents are giving a mobile for your safety, don’t misuse it. There are so many girls who are bringing shame to our community because of mobile. They are sent outside for education but they behave like ‘awara auratein’ (shameless women), and do wrong activities. Society is becoming ‘frank’, and our girls are proof of this. They are maturing fast. They make friends on Facebook, but in the name of friendship, girls are eloping with boys. Boys promise them ‘I will do this for you’, ‘you are so beautiful’. And girls are falling in the trap.

When asked what is the most pressing issue that the Muzaffarnagar society is facing, elder generation respondents (men and women) pointed out that with the changing times it is very important to control ‘our girls’, and keep them within ‘limits’ so they become good women. Ramesho, a 60-year-old Jat, politician and member of Mahila Morcha, compares a woman to flowing water, in the sense that both possess the strength to nurture and to destroy. In order to harness feminine energy, women need to have boundaries. She says:

Look at a river, river has no control, so when flood comes, the river will be out of control and kill people. However, if we look at the canal and its sturdy boundaries, we can see the power it holds and we can harness it in appropriate ways. Canal has a boundary, similarly, woman has ‘maryada’/limits. And we have to stay within limits. If we live a dignified and honourable life, then there will be betterment of society, country, family and self. These days thinking have changed. Women have started displaying themselves, they are indulging in show off. They have lost self-control…

It’s crucial to note that boundaries are valorised and honourable behaviour of women is linked with the betterment of the community. Ramesho’s narrative highlights the patriarchal and generational anxiety around changing notions of gendered honour. Her concerns about younger generation women showing off and losing self-control highlight not only concerns around gender honour but also community honour, and highlights that women are still considered carriers of community identity.

This often led to conflicts between women of different generations. Generational conflict is due to many other reasons, for instance, around a new way of doing things. For instance, Preeti, a Jat woman, is a teacher, working in a college. For her role as a teacher, and as a paid professional she needs to have many dresses, which are smart, trendy, as well as respectable. She feels bad that her mother is unable to appreciate her new lifestyle, and constantly questions her spending habits. This example highlights contestations between different interpretations of honour. For the older generation, honour lies in simple living and saving money, however for the younger generation of working women, honour lies in maintaining appropriate femininity in place of work. While the older generation feels the need to control the girls due to the open-mindedness that accompanies education, employment, and necessary access to public space, the younger generation women feel mistrusted, misunderstood, and express unfair treatment. Preeti (28, Jat, teacher and researcher) says, ‘I know the difference between right and wrong. It does not matter if I am wearing lipstick, or wearing jeans, or talking on phone. My honour cannot be corrupted, and my parents are struggling to understand this.’ Sumbul, who has been sent to pursue MBBS from AMU, says that she understands, ‘what is at stake here, honour, and opportunities’. Thus, the women spoke about themselves as persons who knew right from wrong. Moreover, in both communities, women see themselves as powerful agents of family and community honour, but they also saw themselves as agents of change, and they are constantly navigating amidst these issues.