I learned about this at Rachel’s Tavern, and have pasted excerpts from the Chicago Tribune Article: 

“An Oak Forest man set a fire that killed his pregnant daughter, son-in-law and young grandson because he was upset over his daughter’s marriage, prosecutors said Tuesday.” “Subhash Chander, 57, told police that he resented the couple for what he considered a “cultural slight” — that his daughter Monika Rani, 22, had married a man from a lower caste and done so without his consent, according to a court document.”

“According to prosecutors, Chander, who was from India, claimed he was motivated by his resentment for a son-in-law who came from a lower caste. Although it has been outlawed in India for more than 60 years, the Hindu caste system still exists in rural parts of that country and can spark feelings of entitlement in Indian culture, particularly when viewed in a religious context, experts say.”

This news is sad and disturbing. May the victims of this crime rest in peace. At Rachel’s Tavern, the dialogue turns to issues within the South Asian American community about domestic violence and women’s shelters. This is a much needed discussion for Muslims too, as Muslim Americans have the very same problems, and since the Muslim American and South Asian American communities overlap with each other.

I disagree with the Chicago Tribune article’s assertion that caste issues are mainly limited to rural India. Caste based identification and castism is very alive across India (and also in Pakistan). Not to mention that India is about 70% rural, so that would be a whole lotta people even if it were just a rural phenomenon. It shouldn’t be a surprise that caste issues are found within the South Asian diaspora, though it is extremely tragic that we are reminded about castism when a murder like this one occurs.

I am also having another chain of thoughts about these murders. Some insensitive part of me is sighing in purely pragmatic relief that this didn’t happen in a Muslim family. These crimes tend to be hyper-sensationalized in the American media to smear Islam and Muslims and prove that Islam is somehow conducive to such barbarism. Like with Aqsa Pervez’s murder. Or with the murder of sisters Sarah and Aminah. Or countless other instances. Somehow I am relieved that this family’s problems can’t be pinned on Islam and Muslims by the media. This can’t go on the Islam-watcher websites. This won’t be another strike against us.  Although realistically, caste based crimes do occur within Muslim communities in South Asia (like what happened to Mukhtar Mai), too. When we hear about them, though, there is little mention of caste or culture. Only religion. Islam. But these guys were Hindus. The murderous father and his victims were not Muslims. This father’s rage at his loss of authority over his daughter, his sense of soiled family honor and reputation, his reaction to his daughter’s act of transgression, all of this could have occurred among Muslims. It has. It does. But this man wasn’t Muslim. Not a Muslim. Not about Muslims. Not this time.