Love Commandos operates underground shelters in cities like Delhi. (Photo by McKay Savage via Flickr)

Lovers arrive in Delhi under the cover of night. The journey from rural areas is risky: love, after all, is not the basis of India’s marriage system, and dishonored families punish couples who have defied the order. Their sons and daughters have chosen the unthinkable: to marry outside their caste or religion. Only about 10 percent dare to defy these rules. In fact, khap panchayats (unofficial village councils) have forbidden inter-caste marriage in 98.4 percent of the 1,589 villages surveyed in Gujarat, despite discrimination based on caste being illegal in India for decades.

The norms remain because couples fear reprisal, from social and familial ostracization to physical abuse and even honor killing. The system drives fathers to murder their daughters and brothers to burn their sisters. The UNestimates that India is responsible for one-fifth of the world’s 5,000 honor killings every year. In some cases, the shame to the village is so strong the entire family is banished.....Continue Reading

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