Live-in couples in small town India have it rough – Varanasi to Vadodara, Aligarh to Alwar

But for one small catch: they arent actually married, and their struggle to establish the status of their relationship has justbegun.They are a Hindu-Muslim live-in couple in Varanasi the odds couldnt be higher in Yogi Adityanaths Uttar Pradesh.Both atheists, she comes from a Muslim family, while his is an upper-caste Hindu one..

Time and again, several benches of the Allahabad high court have observed that such relationships aretime-pass,immoral and illegal, particularly in cases of interfaith and intercaste couples approaching the court to seek police protection.As recently as March 2024, the Madhya Pradesh High Courtobserved thatconstitutional rights need not always be enforced, while hearing the case of a live-in couple seeking protection..

Across Indias smaller cities and towns from Varanasi to Vadodara, Aligarh to Alwar and beyond live-in relationships are on the rise, and so are all the accompanying social pressures.As more and more couples seek to explore alternatives beyond marriage, society and pop-culture are catching up, devising new stratagems to fight families, landlords, and social prejudice aplenty...

Meanwhile, Ranju Singh, a house-owner and social sector professional living near thekachehri(court complex) area of Varanasi, pointed out how in her experience living and working in the town, as well as in Azamgarh and Lucknow, it was almost impossible to find people in middle-class to upper-class localities whod rent to a live-in couple.These couples find themselves join a long list of Muslims, Dalits, meat-eaters and single women subjected tohousing discriminationandresidential segregationacross Indias cities..

The couples family backgrounds (his, a Muslim one and hers, a Hindu one), led to difficulties in Manibens job posting as a constable in the Gujarat police.. While the two finally got married under the secular Special Marriage Act in November 2023, both knew that threats from family, neighbours, and even colleagues on the job, would pose a risk at the start of their relationship..

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