Mind The Gap: Why Indians fear love marriages
From village boycotts to ‘love jihad’ laws, adult autonomy is under threat.
“Families of those children who run away and have love marriages will face a social boycott,” declares the bearded man reading from a long register. He elaborates on what this means: No invitations to social events, no employment. No milk to be delivered, no barber services. Those who break the boycott will be punished by a similar boycott. The all-male crowd surrounding the man nods solemnly in agreement.
India’s dread of love marriages just became official in Panchewa village, one of the 1,089 villages that make up Madhya Pradesh’s Ratlam district. The video quickly went viral and news of the announced boycott was widely reported, wide enough to prompt a visit by Piloda Janpad Panchayat chief executive officer B.S. Hans.
Hans was there to deliver a message: The panchayat’s order was illegal and action would be taken if it went ahead with it. It is reported that village elders told him that the unanimous resolution had been passed to discourage a growing trend of youngsters running off to marry. A series of elopements and inter-caste marriages minus parental consent—oh the shame of it—over the past six months has reportedly triggered the anxiety that led to the panchayat announcement.
Panchayats have been known to issue a variety of edicts in a bid to curb too much freedom for young women. No jeans. No mobile phones. I’m not sure chow mien was ever banned but the noodles were certainly blamed by a Haryana khap panchayat for the reason for rape.
Official anxiety
{{/usCountry}}Panchayats have been known to issue a variety of edicts in a bid to curb too much freedom for young women. No jeans. No mobile phones. I’m not sure chow mien was ever banned but the noodles were certainly blamed by a Haryana khap panchayat for the reason for rape.
Official anxiety
{{/usCountry}}It’s not just panchayats. In October 2025, a district education officer in Faridabad called Anshu Singhla sent out a warning to schools that students were bunking class to engage in anti-social activities and “love jihad” in parks. That letter was quickly withdrawn after it went briefly viral on social media.
{{/usCountry}}It’s not just panchayats. In October 2025, a district education officer in Faridabad called Anshu Singhla sent out a warning to schools that students were bunking class to engage in anti-social activities and “love jihad” in parks. That letter was quickly withdrawn after it went briefly viral on social media.
{{/usCountry}}In Parliament, the government has repeatedly confirmed, most recently in February 2020, that central agencies have no evidence of the trope called love jihad, a conspiracy theory under which wily Muslim men entrap innocent Hindu women for marriage and conversion. “The term ‘love jihad’ is not defined under the extant laws. No such case of ‘love jihad’ has been reported by any of the central agencies,” G Kishan Reddy, minister of state for home affairs told Parliament.
But lack of evidence has not stopped 12 states from enacting laws that ostensibly prevent forcible conversion but effectively ban interfaith marriages. These laws have been challenged in the Supreme Court where the case is pending. Meanwhile, even in Karnataka, where the Congress is now in power, the law that was passed by the earlier BJP government, has not been repealed, reflecting a far larger social anxiety around interfaith relationships.
In Uttarakhand, an investigation by The Indian Express into the court records of 51 of 62 cases filed under the 2018 Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act finds that only five had completed trials and in all, the accused had been acquitted.
Despite failing judicial scrutiny, the state has gone ahead with an amendment to the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code act with even more stringent penal provisions, including imprisonment of up to seven years for offences related to marriage and live-in relationships.
Valentines Day is rebranded as love-your-parents day and assorted goons trawl public parks to tick off men and women who are together. In January, video of a municipal councillor Munesh Dedha went viral. It shows her questioning a couple for sitting together in a park in east Delhi.
Modern marriage
The States’ anxiety over consensual relationships whether interfaith, inter-caste or sometimes just over the simple exercise of autonomy by an adult daughter, can been seen through data on arranged marriages.
The India Human Development Survey, a nationally representative longitudinal dataset of over 41,000 households, finds 95% of marriages continue to be arranged by families. In 40% of these marriages, the women have no say; 65% of couples meet for the first time on their wedding day.
But, points out Sonalde Desai, sociology professor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research who is spearheading the study, things are changing.
Education has played a pivotal role and among female graduates, 77% have a say in the choice of a spouse.
Love marriage rates continue to be low, but are showing an upward trend. In 2011-12, just 5% of women in the 25-29-year-old age group said they had chosen their own partners. Between 2022-24, this number had risen to 12%.
Arranged marriages endure because South Asian parents are “far more likely to rely on their children for old age support,” says Desai. “With no other sources of financial and residential support, it matters a lot to parents that they get along with their children’s spouse, particularly their daughters-in-law. This makes love marriage threatening to them.”
Arranged marriage also ensure endogamy around religious and, perhaps more crucially in a country where caste hierarchy remains intact, caste lines. Transgressions can become grounds of not just ostracization by the family but also the horribly misnamed ‘honour’ killings. National Crime Records Bureau data for 2023, the latest available, records 38 cases of honour killings. It was the highest recorded in the past six years.
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