But the marriage was short-lived. Village elders declared the relationship incestuous, a violation of ancient Hindu rules of marriage because the two were descendants of a common ancestor who lived thousands of years ago. As the couple tried to flee town, the young woman's family chased them down and dragged them out of a bus on a busy highway. The groom, Manoj, was strangled, and his bride, Babli, was forced to drink pesticide. Their bodies were dumped in a canal.
"My son did the honorable thing by marrying the girl he loved. But the village council said the boy and girl belong to the same clan and are siblings. They said the couple had brought dishonor," said Banwala, sitting on her porch kneading dough. "It has been three years, nobody invites us to marriages or funerals, and no shop sells us groceries."
Despite pressure from villagers to remain quiet, Banwala took the case to court here in the northern state of Haryana. In March, five defendants were sentenced to death, the first time in India that capital punishment has been ordered in an honor killing.
The case has sparked ire on both sides of the issue, forcing lawmakers to revisit India's complicated system of marriage restrictions. Some Indians say the strict taboos are outdated in a rapidly urbanizing country, where old identities are fragmenting and young couples are asserting their right to choose whom they marry.
But many others are demanding new laws that ban marriages like Manoj and Babli's. In villages across northern India, the landmark verdict sparked an uproar, with clan councils fiercely defending prohibitions on unions within the same clan, or gotra, a Sanskrit word, which each clan uses to trace its lineage. To these villagers, romantic love breaches codes passed down many generations.
"Manoj and Babli rubbed our village's name in mud," said Gulab Singh, a 60-year-old farmer, inhaling on a gurgling water pipe in a cattle shelter with other men in Banwala's village. "For thousands of years, we have followed strict marriage rules. If my son transgresses these rules, I will kill him without a thought."
At a recent clan council meeting, members raised money to pay for the appeal of those convicted in the killing.
The popular practice of arranged marriages perpetuates these social codes in India. Suitable matches must be from the same caste but not the same clan. The residents of a village and adjoining areas are considered siblings, so no matches can be found in these areas as well. People who do not follow tradition are often shunned and sometimes killed.
"They are using culture to stifle self-choice marriages," said Kirti Singh, a lawyer in New Delhi. "Each gotra consists of millions of people who are in no way related, except in the minds of certain elders. It is not borne out by reality. It is a long battle, but it has to be fought because we are a society in transition."
Singh said that in 1945, Bombay's high court had already ruled that same-gotra marriages valid.
