India Love Project: How one couple is fighting the rising tide of hate

When trolls forced the retraction of an advert showing marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim, two journalists came up with an idea to celebrate ‘love outside the shackles of faith, caste, ethnicity and gender’, as Namita Singh reports from Delhi

Lata Singh and Brahma Nand Gupta had to elope and then fight her family in a case that went to India’s Supreme Court over their right to an inter-caste marriage (India Love Project)

It was the year 2006 when the Supreme Court of India ruled that “this is a free and democratic country, and once a person becomes [an adult] he or she can marry whosoever he/she likes”.

Yet more than a decade since that judgment, the toxic culture of hatred towards interfaith and intercaste marriage has only become more outspoken and mainstream. 

 So when last month a major Indian jewellery brand was forced to pull an advert that preached “unity in diversity” by showing members of Hindu and Muslim families brought together by an interfaith marriage, an idea to do something that instead celebrated such unions germinated. It was the birth of the India Love Project.

Co-founded by a journalist couple, Priya Ramani and Samar Halarnkar, and their friend Niloufer Venkatraman, India Love Project advocates for “love and marriage outside the shackles of faith, caste, ethnicity and gender”.

“Indians have been falling in love outside the rigid rules of their religion, caste and community for as long as we can remember,” Ms Ramani told The Independent. “We’re only seeking to change the toxic conversation around love and marriage and bring back that warm, fuzzy feeling.”

The idea had been around for a while, “ever since politicians started hating on interfaith marriage,” she said.  But, even though they began discussing it actively last year, the trio never really got down to it, because in Ms Ramani’s words, "launching a website is a lot of work”.  

It was the online bullying that jeweller Tanishq faced over its advertisement, and the immediate withdrawal of the campaign, that sparked them into action. As a tribute, the Instagram display picture for India Love Project – or ILP as its founding members like to call it – is a screengrab from the advert itself.

Among the inspiring stories featured on the page and accompanying online forum is that of Lata Singh. She has not just organised around 39 intercaste marriages, but was the plaintiff in the 2006 case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, Lata Singh vs the State of Uttar Pradesh.  

“Today is my 20th wedding anniversary. I eloped with my friend Brahma Nand because my family would never have allowed our Rajput-Bania (intercaste) wedding,” she shared in a post on the forum.  

“When my three brothers found out we had married they filed a case of kidnapping against his family. We spent the next seven years in court until the Supreme Court (Lata Singh vs the State Of UP) in 2006 ruled that intercaste marriages were in the national interest and that adult Indians could marry whoever they wanted (sic).

“We still have that newly married feeling. Maybe because for the first seven years after we ran away from Farrukhabad to Jaipur, he spent most of his time working. I was in court all the time,” she said.  

Ms Singh still longs to return to her childhood home, but now sees this as a that dream might never be realised. “Three years ago my eldest brother died. If he had lived a little longer, I feel he would have come around. I would have been able to go back to my childhood home. Now that will never happen.”

Under the current political climate, with a right-wing, Hindu nationalist party in power in Delhi, the situation seems to have only gotten worse. Many couples, even those that have the support of their immediate family, are scared to speak out because of the fear of being trolled, Ms Venkatraman told The Independent. “It's strange and sad that couples in India may be meeting more opposition now than they did a few decades ago.”  

At the same time, Ms Ramani said, most of the subjects she spoke to seemed “more delighted than scared to be featured” on their forum. 

“Why would the state object to people sharing their own love stories and digging into their own family albums to share their favourite visual memories?" she asks. “There’s nothing illegal about it.”  

Attacks on interfaith marriage are not just coming from disorganised fringe groups on the internet. Chief ministers of the national ruling BJP in several states have vowed to bring new legislation against so-called “Love Jihad”, an Islamophobic conspiracy that claims Muslim men are seducing Hindu women in order to convert them to Islam. The term has become widely used – many trolls accused jeweller Tanishq of “promoting Love Jihad” with its advert.    

Critics say the government has no business interfering with citizens’ choice of partner. “On what basis should the state find it objectionable?” says Ms Venkatraman. “Inter-faith, inter-caste or inter-religious unions are part of our constitution and represent who we are – a heterogeneous civilisation.  And those of us who are products of these relationships are merely saying: ‘Hey! We exist.’ The state cannot deny that.”  

The forum’s founders hope to expand its reach beyond just telling the stories of successful intercultural and heteronormative unions in India’s major cities. “We recognise that we need more stories from the hinterland, and we are presently networking to find those. We also want more intercaste and LGBTQ love stories,” Ms Ramani said. In fact, they intend to provide services including legal aid and counselling to couples who need it.  

“We have had messages from couples who are not yet hitched and are facing resistance. They appear to be under stress and we have connected a couple with a group that counsels such couples. We are also trying to connect those who require legal assistance with counsellors,” Mr Halarnkar said.