Love Commandos: Saviors, Revolutionaries or Scamsters?

Words by Konkana Ray

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Characterized by his oversized moustache and turban, the Maharaja was Air India's beloved mascot. In their earlier days, Air India established an in-house art studio and commissioned artists from around the world to depict beautiful posters of the Maharaja in all his mischievous antics and  him adopting different personas in each destination, such as a monk in Rome, a lover boy in Paris, and even a sumo wrestler in Tokyo. The posters put Air India the map as an example of genius marketing in the mid-20th century, earning the company a myriad of advertising awards and a loyal legion of fans. While the Maharaja remains Air India’s mascot to this day, he is most fondly remembered throughout the world for his role in India’s golden age of advertising. (Available now in Print)

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Love Commandos: Saviors, Revolutionaries or Scamsters?

Love Commandos- a volunteer force rescuing young lovers from families and village councils determined to keep them apart.

“Khullam khulla pyaar karenge hum dono. Iss duniya se nahi darenge hum dono..
(We shall express our love openly. We shall not fear the world,” goes the lyrics of a popular Bollywood song from the 70s. 

In January 2018, childhood sweethearts Pranay Perumalla, a Dalit, and Amrutha Varshini, a so-called ‘upper’ caste Hindu, entered into an inter-caste marital union against the wishes of their families. In September 2018, twenty-four-year-old Pranay was brutally murdered in front of his helpless pregnant wife in the South Indian state of Telangana. He was hacked to death by a hitman hired by his wife's influential father. Amrutha’s family was against this union as they believed that the ‘honor’ of the family had been tarnished by this act of marrying a ‘lower’ caste. Their love was tragically crushed in the name of honor and the price that the ill-fated couple paid for love was ‘Pranay’s life’. 

In the suburban and rural pockets of the world’s largest democracy, thousands of star-crossed lovers get caught up in the upswell of perceived challenges to Indian society’s age-old marriage traditions. It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to say that most Indians do not have the privilege to choose their lovers or express their love openly even today. Women and men, who violate the code of caste, chastity or religion, are chased, hunted down, beaten up publicly, ostracized, house-arrested, forcibly remarried, brutalized, and killed.