India in Love

by Ira Trivedi

  I take a good look at the black belt Love Commando. He tries to look fierce, but he does not look particularly threatening, nor can he do much about his protruding stomach that spills several inches over his tight pants. I ask Harsh where the runaway couples stay and he points to the roof. I notice a rickety iron staircase near the entrance—it looks like this is the only way up. I ask if there are any couples in residence. He points to a pair of young women cooking in a kitchen attached to the office. Two other couples sit huddled around a black-and-white TV. They are not allowed to leave the cramped space without the permission of Harsh and Sanjoy.

  I take a look around at the dismal conditions and ask them how they make enough money to sustain the organization. Suddenly Sanjoy looks gloomy and begins telling me his woes. They shot to fame after being featured in the media. Now they have hundreds of couples calling from across the country. They don’t have the heart to deny them assistance, but they do not have the resources to house them either. They have had to sell their cars and houses to make ends meet. Sanjoy says that he has one piece of land left in his village which he will have to sell next if things don’t work out. They receive some donations, but not enough. Sometimes lovers whom they have ‘settled’ send funds, but this is usually not the case. The ones who do give money are the journalists who come to interview them. Sanjoy takes out a carefully folded cheque from his pocket, and proudly shows it to me. He says that the $100 check is courtesy a Belgian journalist who has made a documentary on them. Harsh tells me with an eager smile that they are expecting something from me too.

  As we are talking, a small man comes into the room with a box of white, milky sweets that he offers to us. Sanjoy tells me that this man had an inter-caste marriage against the wishes of his wife’s parents, who kidnapped her after the marriage. The Love Commandos helped him get his wife back, so he has come to thank them.

  Harsh has six cell phones, six different helpline numbers for lovers to call on. The phones ring continuously. Harsh picks up one phone and turns on the speaker for me to listen in.

  The caller has a girlish, nasal voice. She is a student from Pune, called Pallavi.

  ‘I am in love with the boy, what do I do?’ she says squeakily.

  Harsh: What is your age?

  Pallavi: Nineteen.

  Harsh: The boy’s age?

  Pallavi: Twenty-one.

  Harsh: What does he do?

  Pallavi: He works at a call centre.

  Harsh: You want to get married?

  Pallavi: Yes.

  Harsh: Can you come to Delhi?

  Pallavi: Uh…

  Harsh: If you can come, tell me, if you can’t come, tell me.

  Pallavi: I want my parents to understand first.

  Harsh: You want your parents to understand and then you want to get married? Or you want to get married anyways?

  Pallavi: Uh…I don’t know.

  Harsh: How old is your love?

  Pallavi: Seven years.

  Harsh: When you first started your love, did you ask your parents? NO! The Indian Constitution says after eighteen the guardianship of your parents ends. You can do as you please.

  Pallavi: My parents tell me they will commit suicide.

  Harsh: Till date no parent has died, if anyone has died, then the lover has or the love dies. You have to raise your confidence, get married and come here. We will protect you from the problems.

  Pallavi: My parents are asking me to come home but I am scared. My best friend was killed last month because she loved someone from outside her caste.

  Harsh: Be confident. If your parents don’t murder you, then they will do emotional atyachaar. When you want to get married, then you call us.

  Harsh shakes his head in disgust when he puts down the phone. ‘See, they killed her friend, they will kill her too. It’s pretty standard. She has loved, so kill, that’s the way the story always goes.’

  Harsh and Sanjoy cite the example of the Manoj-Babli honour killing case. In June 2007, the killing of newly-weds Manoj and Babli was ordered by a khap panchayat in Kaithal district, Haryana, because they got married despite being from the same gotra or clan. Honour killings go both ways—for marrying outside the caste, or for marrying too deep within. The landmark case that followed convicted Babli’s parents for the honour killing—a first in Indian history.

  As in Manoj and Babli’s case, often the killers are the lovers’ families, in collusion with the khap panchayats of their village. Khap panchayats are kangaroo courts run by elderly men in villages and towns across India. These councils once dominated political life in villages across north India by exerting social control through edicts that governed everything from marriage to property disputes. Though several villages have grown into towns because of rapid urbanization and despite the fact that the Supreme Court has condemned these councils as illegal bodies, khap panchayats continue to thrive—a far from vestigial organ of the country’s rural heritage.

  A smattering of statements by various chaudharys or heads of the khap panchayats highlight their antediluvian views. The chaudhary of the Baliyan khap, Mahendra Singh Tikai, has gone on record saying, ‘Love marriages are dirty, I don’t even want to repeat the word, and only whores can choose their partners.’ He further said, ‘Same-gotra marriages are incestuous, incest violates maryada (honour) and villagers would kill or be killed to protect their maryada.’ He scoffs at the laws of the Indian state, calling them ‘the root of all problems’. ‘That’s your Constitution, ours is different.’160

  Amongst many other retrograde suggestions, the khaps have advocated child marriage, saying that if it is instituted, the natural sexual desires arising when the child hits puberty will be avoided, while another has said that girls should be married at the age of sixteen as it will help young people satisfy their sexual needs and will also help reduce rape cases.161 Some have suggested banning phones and jeans for women as a way to avoid titillation and rape, while another khap leader stated that chowmein caused hormonal imbalance which led to men raping women.162

  To make matters even more difficult for lovers, the police are widely distrusted, especially in the cow belt of India, in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana and Punjab. Despite orders directing the police ‘to deal sternly with parents/relatives/other members of the society who threaten such couples’, and to provide ‘mediation/counselling cells’ and ‘to prevail upon resisting parents/relatives to reconcile with such couples’,163 people at large suspect the police to be in cahoots with the khap panchayats. This is where organizations like the Love Commandos are able to help. ‘The Government is a fraud. They promised a bill against honour killings that has still not been passed. They know they will lose votes if they pass this. The khap panchayats control many votes. They even said they would get us [Love Commandos] involved, but we haven’t gotten even one call!’ exclaims Sanjoy in a fit of anger.

  According to a 2006 survey, ‘law enforcers as well as people (both rural and urban) in the affected states agreed that khaps were raising the right issues (81 per cent of the 300 police personnel interviewed and 46 per cent of the 600 residents’.164 Even though young India is daring to fall in love, there is resistance from an older social order and this is why the awful khap panchayats have not been eradicated despite their terrible, misogynistic views.

  Sanjoy sighs, suddenly looking tired after his burst of anger. He looks down at his shoes and says, ‘It’s sad, parents get so happy seeing filmi love stories, but when it comes to their own daughter’s love, it’s a different story.’

  LOVE BIRDS

  Over the coming weeks, I visit the Love Commandos more often than I need for the purpose of the book because I enjoy spending time there. Whenever I have a free moment, I hop into an auto and navigate the crowded alleys of Paharganj, the lime pajamas with the ice-cream motifs acting as a landmark to their decrepit little office. I help Sanjoy and Harsh, both of whom know little English, manage their popular Facebook page. Over time, I have come to adm
ire these two men who spend their days helping young lovers with unparalleled optimism and always with a sense of humour. The stories that I come across here are so dismal and depressing, and the lovebirds-in-flight who arrive here are often in funereal spirits, but somehow Baba and Papa, as Sanjoy and Harsh are called by those they help, always manage to uplift their spirits. Baba and Papa, as I begin calling them too, take what they do seriously. They liaise relentlessly with politicians, police officials and lawyers to get their agenda noticed. They organize public meetings and fundraise aggressively. Naturally they bask in the media attention that they get, and give interviews with relish but I don’t think anyone should grudge them that, considering all the good work they do. They are encouraged by the coverage that they receive and hope they will one day be a bona fide NGO.

  The runaway couples spend most of their time in a cramped makeshift dormitory—a row of wooden beds with dirty sheets and a pile of mouldy newspapers in the corner. Perhaps the only clean place in the room is a little shelf which functions as an altar. Four small idols line the shelf, and a bunch of freshly picked flowers decorate the altar. Every evening the couples gather around the altar to pray. They aren’t allowed to leave the shelter for fear of being discovered, so it is on a row of hard, wooden beds that we sit together drinking thimbles of sugar-laden tea as they tell me their stories.

  Everyone here is young, in the age group of eighteen to twenty-five. All the women wear thick bunches of red and white plastic bangles and have red sindoor dotting their foreheads, proudly signifying their newly-wed status. The couples come from smaller towns where tight-knit patriarchal communities suffocate their love. In these towns, men and women do not interact freely and society still attempts to govern the behaviour of individuals. If people break boundaries, especially of caste and communities, they are often killed. In the course of the weeks that I have been visiting the office of the Love Commandos, I have begun to gain the trust of many of the runaways who have sought them out, and their stories are more often than not hair-raising examples of just how brutal this country’s so-called guardians of morality can be when their notions of morality are flouted.

  KAVITA AND PAVAN

  This is not the first time that Kavita and Pavan have run away. They ran away three months ago from their hometown of Jaipur when their parents refused to accept their decision to get married. Kavita’s parents pleaded with her to return, and when she did, they told her that they had found someone else for her to marry, and if she refused, they threatened to kill Pavan. Undeterred, Kavita and Pavan ran away again. They got married in a hasty ceremony and then made their way to Delhi to get protection from the Love Commandoes because they knew that trouble, maybe even death, was at their heels.

  ‘We have run away in support of each other,’ Kavita says clutching Pavan’s hand in a bold display of emotion. ‘My parents don’t want to listen to us, they just want to kill me, kill him, kill everyone,’ she says matter-of-factly.

  Kavita’s parents live in Mahendragarh, a small agricultural village, but she is a student in Jaipur, completing a master’s in computer science. Pavan is from Jaipur where he works at a computer institute. They are from different communities; she is a Gujjar and he a Kumawat. Though Kavita’s family is threatening the couple, Pavan’s family is supporting them. However, Kavita and Pavan have not asked for his family’s help because they fear that under duress or violence from Kavita’s family, they might disclose their location.

  Kavita and Pavan’s problems are common to many of the narratives that I hear. Two young people either across, or too far close within caste lines fall in love and want to get married. The boy’s family is usually accepting of the alliance, but the girl’s family is not, and they attempt to kill or intimidate the boy. The daughters are usually put under house arrest in the hope that the love or the lover will eventually die. In several instances, the boy or both lovers are killed by order of the khaps. According to reports, 94 per cent of the killings are carried out by the woman’s family. At the heart of the problem is female virtue and chastity.165 By falling in love the girl has disobeyed her parents and has defiled not only herself but also her clan. To reclaim their lost honour, the family kills.

  The only time that Kavita seems joyful is when she speaks of the past. She tells me about the Ganesh temple where Pavan and she met every day. ‘This was our set place, Ganesh always protected us,’ she says wistfully, toying with the Om pendant that she wears around her neck on a black thread. She continues with a grim smile, ‘We have roamed around a lot, a lot of women wear scarves around their head in Jaipur and there is a lot of profit in this. We didn’t know if we would live, so we wanted to make the most of our love story.’

  Currently, Sanjoy is speaking with a Gujjar leader, hoping that he will help them arrive at a compromise with Kavita’s parents. While they wait for a positive outcome, Kavita and Pavan will remain here—a dismal honeymoon if there ever was one.

  On the face of it, honour killings seem to be a matter of caste but Arvind and Shikha’s story made me realize that the issue went far beyond caste lines. Shikha has the face of a child, and she speaks in the lilting way of the young. She is stick thin—I can wrap my fingers twice around the circumference of her wrists. Arvind and Shikha are from the same caste, Kurmi, and were neighbours in Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh. Their love story began seven years ago when Shikha was sixteen years old and Arvind had returned to his hometown on vacation from university. He fell ill and as he lay in his bed nursing a high fever he looked out the window straight into Shikha’s living room at the doll-like young woman playing with her brother, cooking dinner, watching television, and tending to her parents. As his fever raged, he fell in love with her and decided he wanted to marry her.

  Two years after Arvind fell in love, he finally mustered up the courage to speak with his dream girl. Shikha quickly reciprocated his love but hadn’t anticipated the resistance she would face from her family. When Arvind asked her parents for her hand, he was thrown out of the house, but not before Shikha was brought before him and beaten with an iron rod. Arvind went back to Bareilly, where he was a university lecturer, wishing never to come back to Pilibhit, and determined to stay far away from Shikha. He speaks with a pensive look on his face, ‘I wanted to leave her alone because I didn’t want to ruin her life. But I realized I couldn’t stay away from her either, I loved her too much. I returned to Pilibhit and on 15 August 2010 I gave her a mobile phone.’ On the occasion of India’s Independence Day, she too got her independence.

  ‘I always thought, I have love, I have everything. But this was just the beginning, our love would be tested,’ says Arvind. Shikha is huddled next to Arvind in a pair of cotton pajamas and a long t-shirt. A cotton dupatta is flung across her neck. She musters the courage to speak.

  ‘It was a sad day when my mobile phone was captured. My mother beat me, but Arvind got me another mobile phone. This too was discovered, and I was beaten again. This happened to us at least five or six times.’ Since mobile phones seem to play such an integral part in the love stories that I hear, I ask the lovebirds what they would do if they didn’t have mobile phones.

  They look confused, because they cannot even imagine life without this lifeline. Then Shikha pipes up, ‘The internet! We had to communicate for two months on the web when my mobile was discovered and Arvind was in Bareilly.’

  ‘And without the internet?’ I ask.

  After a long pause, Arvind tentatively says, ‘Letters,’ and they nod their heads confidently. Yes, letters it seems would have done the trick—love letters, the way they show in the movies.

  Why did Shikha’s mother have a problem with her marrying Arvind, I wonder. They were after all from the same caste, and neighbours too. All in all, it seemed like a good match to me.

  ‘We are of the same caste, but my mother doesn’t like his family. Ever since I can remember our mothers have squabbled. I don’t even know where the problem first began, but it was always something, the
repair of the wall that joined our houses, water, electricity, there was always trouble,’ says Shikha. She continues, ‘When they realized that I wouldn’t leave him my mother told me that he was using me. They told me that he had a wife in Bareilly. I didn’t believe them. I had faith in my love.’

  Shikha continues with a shrug, ‘It’s not a matter of caste, the issue is that of adhikar (right). Girls here are not meant to have any adhikar. And if they show it then they are thought to be disrespectful.’

  It looks like honour killings go beyond just caste. It is essentially about patriarchy and control. If women stray or exercise their right, they are killed. Throughout the conversation Shika mentions her mother, never her father, and I ask her why. Both Arvind and Shikha laugh. ‘Because her mother controls everything in the house, especially her father. Everything revolves around her.’

  I find this bizarre. I would imagine that a matriarch would want to uplift her daughter instead of debasing her.

  I ask about their future plans. Baba and Papa are negotiating with Shikha’s parents to accept her marriage with Arvind. They will try their best, and eventually go back to Bareilly where Arvind’s job awaits him. They both know that they can never return to Pilibhit. Even if their parents accept their marriage, their community never will. Arvind has a terrified look on his face. It is as if by voicing his plans to me he has just now realized the consequences of his actions. He says softly, looking at Shikha, ‘This is our second birth, we feel reincarnated in just one lifetime.’

  ♦

  Perhaps the most tragic of the tales that I heard at the Love Commandos is of Ankur and Arpita. He is a Dalit, and she a Rajput.

  ‘She was in the eighth standard and I was in the eleventh. I saw her at the window, standing with her nose up. I kept on looking at her, day after day, through the window, and then I fell in love.’

  Ankur continues, ‘I fasted for her. I prayed that I could speak with her, if only for a minute. Five years after I had fallen in love with her, a friend of mine made us speak on the phone. I remember my body trembling, I couldn’t believe that my dream had come true. We began talking, and we never stopped. We used to talk all the time, even during our exams. We never failed our exams, in fact we got the highest marks when we talked the most!’