On January 18th, eighteen-month old Rajvinder Kahlon was found dead in her home in North Delta. Her father, Lakhvinder Kahlon, is being charged with first-degree murder. Of course, there are cultural factors involved. There are some media reports that allege Lakhvinder Kahlon was depressed due to the fact that he had three daughters and no sons. He is undergoing psychiatric assessment and his next court date is scheduled for February 15th.
The South Asian community in the Lower Mainland has been under great duress due to the significant increase in domestic violence against girls and women over the last few years. I fear that this latest tragedy will serve to stir up Western stereotypes of South Asian culture. Under constant media scrutiny already, this senseless tragedy is the latest blow to my community.
In the midst of this all, I’ve seen some cause for cautious optimism. From my experience, the South Asian community is acknowledging domestic violence as an issue and is more progressive and more open to dialogue now than ever before. The work done by local South Asian media, activists and culturally-specific service providers has set a precedent for community reflection and action.
Domestic violence affects every community, regardless of colour, class, or creed. It is indeed, sadly unfortunate that the local media chooses to scrutinize such horrid acts of violence via the lens of ethnicity alone, rather than examine systemic, cross-cultural root causes of gendered violence in the context of patriarchy.
Rajvinder leaves behind her mother Manjit Kahlon and two sisters. Today, on the day of Rajvinder’s funeral, I struggle with the grief of this heartbreaking loss and honour her short life.
A trust fund in Rajvinder’s name has been set up for the Kahlon family at TD Canada (Account Number 6401672).
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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 8:09 pm and is filed under Activism, Anti-Violence, City, Controversy, Justice, Legal, News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I have known the father for 20 years… he to me is a hardworker,kind,humble person. As far as i am aware that he was severing for depression (mental illness) which he didn’t recieve the correct kind of medical attention that he required. I feel that the media & community have taken this issue into the wrong direction instead of waiting for his assesement and statement of his wife. They have speclated that it is due to having 3 girls and much other stuff that is not true. What bothers me is that when his wife supports him & understands that he was not in the right state of mind and she is the only one to truley know the truth… (why are people making up stories). I feel that it is already hard on the wife & 2 daughters that their happy family is torn apart from this tragedy caused by this illness. It would be only respectful for the media & community to stop expressing their opinions and address this more towards “what mental illness is” how can we all come together to help prevent another similar tragedy from happening again. Our community doesn’t have any understanding about what mental illness is..what the affects of it are… how many different kind there is & also how to reach out for help instead they are ashamed too embarassed that others will find out so they don’t admit that they are affected by this illness. We all should be educated about it and how to seek treatment.
Karen, thank you so much for your post. You are right, as usual, right now the media is all speculation and allegation. It will take time to sort out the true situation. Yet…the sad fact is that another young girl was robbed of her life in our community, and this tragedy needs to be set in a context of escalating violence against us as women. You’re absolutely correct when you say that our community, as a whole, are ashamed and embarrassed of mental illness. It’s only when we openly diaologue with each other that we can truly learn such warning signs and seek help and support from within our community before it’s too late.
I’m curious: what is the history of mental illness in India, and all its neighbors? Given the broad history of “madness and civilization” in Europe, that Foucault spent three volumes documenting — there MUST be a trace OR documentation thereof that is perhaps kept from the masses. I say this because we’re looking at 1.5 billion people at least, and mental illness is unavoidable no matter how hard anyone tries to brush it under the carpets.