Overall, it’s been a bad week for Indian couples who hope to live together without having to first get married. (Express file photo)
Jan 31, 2025 18:05 IST First published on: Jan 31, 2025 at 18:05 IST
It appears that Men in Authority have a bee in their bonnet about love. The president of a housing society board in Noida, Uttar Pradesh — Man in Authority No. 1— has sent out a letter to residents that tenants living with members of the opposite sex must have letters of consent from their families. Alternatively, these “bachelor” tenants must produce a marriage certificate, the letter says, showing the same disregard for semantics that young lovers often have for social conventions. The letter was prompted by the death by suicide of a 23-year-old in the society, who was allegedly upset over the end of a relationship. The reasonable question to ask at this point is, what does this tragedy have to do with unmarried couples living together? But no Man in Authority would, in fact, be a Man in Authority if he allowed himself to be fazed by reason.
Overall, it’s been a bad week for Indian couples who hope to live together without having to first get married. One Man in Authority in Noida does not spell doom for young lovers, of course, but it is part of a larger pattern of social censure that is, increasingly — and alarmingly — receiving official backing, even when it isn’t couched in exactly those terms. There is now a more sophisticated — and sophistic — approach where intrusive measures are taken in the guise of protection or empowerment of a vulnerable section of the population. Take the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code Rules for regulating live-in relationships that were rolled out on January 27: Pushkar Singh Dhami, Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and Man in Authority No. 2, has said that such regulation is necessary to avoid domestic crimes outside of marriage (Another reasonable question: Is there any government worried about the crime of rape when it happens in a marriage?). “We aim to ensure that an Aaftab never commits brutality against our daughters or sisters like Shraddha Walkar,” Dhami said, referring to the 2022 murder of a young woman in Delhi, allegedly by her partner. A similar logic was applied on January 29 by Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand of the Rajasthan High Court (Man in Authority No. 3), when he directed the state to establish an authority that could register live-in relationships until a law is enacted to regulate them. Here, the wellbeing of children that may be born to unmarried couples was invoked.
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If once there was outright condemnation of those who dared to imagine love and companionship beyond the tight restrictions of tradition, the new trend of seeking to “ensure equal rights for our sisters” (Uttarakhand Chief Secretary Radha Raturi, a Woman in Authority) while actually undermining rights like the right to privacy and autonomy seems more insidious. The progressive words are a cover for the fact that attempts to “regulate” cohabitation of unmarried couples are merely the 21st century incarnation of the far older, deeply-ingrained urge to control the lives of individuals, particularly women. Because none of this is really even about love, and the myriad forms it can take. That bee buzzing about in the bonnets of Men (and Women) in Authority? It’s called power — and it’s all they can hear.
pooja.pillai@expressindia.com
