The Sunday Story: Love Commandos
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I just got back from my really good friend's wedding, and IT really made me think about love, because I got to see my friend and her partner join together. And IT was all about their connection. They found each other.

They really comply each other. And then IT was also like a joining of families, right? That's a thing that you can kind of forget that it's not just these two people, but you have these two families in a whole community coming together to lift up this in this new step in life.

This is a sunday story. I A shark o weddings based on love, like my friends, are a very western tradition. But in the world's most popular nation, india, love marriages are very rare. Metal league learn fryer is here to talk about this.

He spent five years as imperial india corresponded, and she's here to talk about her new series, love commanders on the rough translation podcast, it's about love, marriage and a vigilante group in india. IT just a heads up. This episode does include a brief mention of suicide laun. Welcome to the show.

Hi, you should thank you for .

having me so laun. Let's talk about this podcast because there's a lot in this. Marriage without love, for the most part, is not how we do IT in the U.

S. Or not how we think about IT. Of course, some people might be like what love got to do with IT becomes to the right.

Love actually has very, very little to do with marriage. In india, at least the beginning of a marriage. More than ninety percent of marriages in india are arranged by families.

There's a spectrum of that. So it's anything from on one end your parents managing dating profile and like lining up perspective spouses for you. And on the other end of the spectrum is there is a small percentage people in india who do not meet their spouse until their wedding day.

And you know, IT leads to these misconceptions that people have in the west about india. India has a booming economy, is this emerging global power. And yet development doesn't mean adopting western style, traditions and values.

I mean that that's really interesting. What major decide to start reporting on this topic?

So I moved to mumbai in two thousand eighteen to become np as india correspondent. And in my research for that assignment, I read about this group called the love commanders.

So that sounds like, I don't know what this sounds like an amazing band, or like some super, super. Yeah.

I thought I would MIT. The name was catchy. I was intrigued, and I looked into this.

And the love commanders are a vigilante group that rescues lovers who are running away from arranged marriages. There's a small percentage indians who want to marry a person of their own choice. Most of them are able to convince their families to agree to that.

However, a really small minority of them face violence and threats for that choice, and that's where this vigilante group comes in. But this is a group that helps people escape from those threats and run away and a love with a person of their own choice. The group also manages their marriage paperwork, helps them get a marriage license, register their marriage, gives them a place to stay in a safe house in delhi to start their life as newlyweds s away from threats from their families.

And in the summer of two thousand and eighteen, I went to this secret safe house in delhi, and I did a piece on IT for npr morning edition. And then I stayed in touch with some of the couples that I met in that shelter. And I also stayed in touch with the .

commanders themselves. Okay, step back a second. How does a group like this, the love commanders? How do they get started .

in two thousand and twelve, the love commanders make this huge splash by going on the largest, most popular TV talk show, like think aba like ten times bigger.

The host is a guy named amy or con. He's a bollywood actor, and he has this reputation for like social justice and highlighting political causes. Let me just play a little bit of this two thousand and twelve episode of this T V show called satur .

of jai prime car vesco. Bring me, bring me come to free food free. And the voice you're hearing there, free food, free stay, voluntary .

initiative. That is the voice of the head of the love commanders. His name is sn joy, such death. And you know, he's a man in his fifties. At that point he kind of looks like everybody's parent, but he's actually saying something totally the opposite of what most parents in india are saying.

I'm not about me. They just of what he's saying in .

this TV appearance is, yes, run away. Marry the love of your life and the crowd just eats IT up. And youtube clips of this two thousand and twelve talk show appearance are still circulating in india.

They've gone viral. And I that's how you can really resonate with Young people or with anyone who ends up in the position where they're like, oh, you know what? I met this person. I fall in love. Maybe I don't want to do, you know, have an arranged .

marriage and here is an adult killing you. It's okay. Yes, you can do that yeah.

to go against what everyone else is doing. And so you said you went to one of these secret safe houses run by the love commanders. Like, what was that like?

I met the head of the commandos on a street corner outside of a metro stop in delhi, and he wouldn't tell me where the safe house was. I had to follow him, he hopes, on a motorbike. I have been an auto rickshaw with my producer, and he literally does everything short of like blind folding us.

So we wouldn't see where we were going. We wind through these narrow alias. We did like five or six terms.

So we would lose track of where we were going. And eventually we end up at the heart of her lunch. And this is a delhi neighborhood is famous for backpacker hotel.

It's near a train station. There are also some. There's like a tangle of power lines and Richard w. Zoom ming around kids playing cricket in the street. And we pull up next to this nondescript four story building and opens the door to this secret safe.

我 刚 IT is our best shelter， the shelter of the love commanders. Here we have a matter detector checking to .

see if i've come in with weapons inside the shelter, I met couples. Some of them hadn't been outdoors in two months. They said. Part of the deal of this shelter protection is you put your safety in these man's hands so they confiscate your cell phones. You'd have no contact with your family. You wait weeks, sometimes months, for the commanders to get you a marriage license, register that marriage license with police, and get you police protection if you need that. And only after they're confident that you will be safe on the outside do they let you go.

Wow, I mean, that's incredibly intense. Just to get married, that can be a big pard chip. But to have to give everything up, it's hard to imagine him. I mean, what did the couples they are tell you?

Some of them had these dramatic escape stories, and like, keep in mind, i'm a foreign lady coming in with a microphone asking them to share their trauma. And I had to be respectful of that, but they actually did want to to share IT. And while they were polite and quiet, they described these like harrowing escapes from threats on their lives.

They had come from every corner of the country to reach the safe house in the capital, and they were really frightened about what the future held. And so in the shelter, you know, I hand out my phone number, I say, look, i'm doing a story for npr. If you would like to keep in touch, please reach out.

Here's my email. And a couple months later, I started to hear from them, and I heard, you know, even more dramatic versions of their escape stories and violence. They phased. And I also started to hear different versions of life in that shelter, versions that I, and pretty troubling wall. So IT .

sounds like the safe house may not have been so safe for them after all. Like, what did they tell you?

They describe long days of cleaning and cooking and running the shelter themselves, being asked to walk over large sums of money to the commanders, and even being asked to give foot massages to some of the love commandos. And then the real shocker came of Angel. Love commanders has been arrested for allegedly harassing and black nAiling interfaith couples who sought help at his shelter home in delhi. So the love commanders who are supposed to be protecting these couples in their most vulnerable moments, they end up getting arrested.

You know, maybe i'm a bit cynical because I was taking, now, what do the commanders get out of this? What do they get at the help? So maybe I need a little more love in my life. What actually happened?

Well, the love commanders got thrown in jail. There was a whistle blower and a police rate and a whole lot of drama. I mean, I thought I was reporting a story about love and escape, and, you know, about culture and tradition and marriage in india.

And I ended up reporting a true crime story that became a podcast for npr. And I reported this for five years. These were couples that I met in the shelter I kept in touch with. After they left the shelter, I kept in touch with the love commanders through their rise and fall. And this whole thing ended up Murphy, from like a love story to a story about broken trust.

To be clear, the love commandos are charged with six offences, including extortion for demanding and taking money from couples in their care, and with wrongful confined for allegedly keeping couples longer than was necessary in the shelter for safety. Sanchez active and his colleagues have repeatedly said they are not guilty. They have entered a not guilty plea in court. They're still awaiting trial, but satis says he is the victim here of a big understanding and of a political conspiracy.

Wow, so how did the couples that you spoke to? How did they react? His arrest?

I mean, on that day, my phone was ringing off the hook as all the couples were like, did you hear? Did you hear? And they were really divided because some of them saw that coming and others were like, that is just not the SAndra save and the love commanders that we know he's a hero.

The love commanders are a target for a lot of powerful people. Sandag was helping people defy their parents and go against deeply held norms in their country. There's also a political backdrop here because prime minister and reno is a hindu nationalist, and under him, forces of tradition have been really embolden. Santa active has been affiliated ated with a few different opposition parties. And when he was arrested, he said, this is a political conspiracy against me.

Why was such that even doing this, I was so much back against term? Why did he say he was really putting himself on the line to help these other people? I mean.

I ve spent years thinking about that, about his motivations. And I think what he would say that he just believes is right. He just believes that Young people should have a right to marry who they choose.

And one of those couples were syria and a contra. And for safety reasons, that will become clear later in the story. I'm only going to use their first names here. But syrian, a conca, grew up as neighbors. And what happened was what happens to two, a lot of teenagers.

Love is a beautiful feeling, Peter, but the fly like Better.

There are fifteen and seventeen.

and they fall in love. And what was wrong with that? That sounds pretty Normal.

It's totally Normal, average teenage behavior, right? The difference is that syrian a contra are from different casts. And many people in india feel that you should marry within your cast, and you should also marry the person that your parents arranged for you to marry.

And so a conscia is from a dominant cast. That's a cast that's sort of considered higher in this hierarchy. Syria is from a more opprest cast, and other families were close friends.

Having your kids get married is a totally different story. And syrian a, so that very well. And so they date in secret.

And sria told me how he, like, deliberated long and hard about when and how to confess his love for a conk shop. Because it's not like, oh, let's just, you know, date a little bit. Let's have a flame. Where teenagers, both of them had to accept they were going to go against all of these traditions in their society and against the path that pretty much everyone they knew had taken.

That's a lot for a teenager in love to have to deal with. How do they figure this out?

They come up with three plans. Plan a will convince our parents they'll accept our relationship, will win them over the love that we're together. Plan b is if our parents don't accept our relationship, we're going to have to run away and we're going to have to allow pe and plan, see is .

suicide my and they .

hope IT doesn't reach that. But they say if we are not allowed to be together, we're going to send a drastic signal to everyone in our community, to other parents in this situation.

So this is like romeo and Juliet. Yeah, like, this is that sort of thing?

My is, yeah, like teenage romance. No longer looks river, less right? This is serious stuff. sirian. A conscious sneak around for years, and then on a conscious twenty first birthday, her parents call her into the living room and they say, congratulations, we're so proud of the Young woman you've become. We've done our duty as parents because we love you so much.

And we've arranged a marriage for you to a guy on the other side of the country, a conscious, horrified. And he gives them a surprise of their own by saying, well, I can't marry that. I I want to marry the nights or, sorry.

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We're back with the sunday story. We're talking to laun freer about her new series with imperious rough translation paccard love commandos. Lord picks up the story right after a Young woman, a cocker, tells her parents SHE doesn't want to mars. They've arrange SHE wants to marry her childhood friend syria. So how do her parents react to that news?

They're pretty added that SHE doesn't get to choose. They say, no, don't be silly. You're not marrying the newborn son.

syria. We've found a perfectly good match for you within our cast. And they take away a conscious phone so that he can no longer text syria.

But the couple find ways to communicate. They start slipping notes back in, forth through a window in the bathroom, so they ve right notes on paper, slip them through the window. They flooded down outside the other, retrieved them.

And one day syria slips a note with just one letter. And a conscience is exactly what IT means. The letter b.

Plan b, right? Plan b, but in this case, that means let's run away together. That's very romantic. That's like very romantic.

And so the version of a night shining armour in this story is syria. On a motorbike, a conscia gets permission to attend computer class, and he leaves her computer class. One morning, syria pulls up on a motor by outside SHE, hops on the back of the bike, wrapped her arms around his whistle, and they ran away together.

It's actually the first time they've alone together because they've always been surrounded by their families. And suddenly it's the two of them, and they don't really know where to go. But they go to the train station and they bought a train, and they start zigging across india.

A conscious father and syria's mother start to chase them. They are. They go to brunch, turning the phone on briefly and then off again in each city, because he knows that his parents will be able to track his phone. They are trying to me.

I do, I do that, I do so.

And so he's trying to throw them off. And the parents eventually get them on the phone. And syria's mother says, we need to write this wrong.

The whole community is watching. If we don't return a consequence to her parents, this is going to be a stain on our families forever. And so SHE says, just come home.

I promise we will get you married. And actually, four years later, I SAT down with serious mom. Her name is puna.

M. I asked, did you intend to get them married or IT? Was that .

a trick?

No, no. And he laughs and says, IT was definite a trick. And IT worked syrian account, decide to go back to their parents. But just to be safe, they take out an insurance policy. And that is, they decide to married.

They get married. So just like that, like what do they have to do to do that?

yes. So they think their parents will have less chance of separating them if they get married. And so they quickly arrange a temple, they borrow close and it's a done deal.

And then they they reunite with their parents. And a conscious, as her father is livid, sarana count immediately recognize their parents have no interest in allowing them to stay together. And then IT gets worse. A conscious says her extended family takes her away and locked her up.

But I mean, he wasn't married at that point, right? They really just take her away.

She's married yeah and you're a to live with your spouse when you're married but a conscious as her parents are having trouble accepting that and they still see her as their property as far as they're concerned, they tell her this development has to be on done because it's a stain on them and their honor and that of their whole community. Now I just want to be clear. I am telling you a conscious ous side of the story.

I did not reach out to her parents to verify this. I did verify IT with syria and members of india's family and the love commanders, which helps document their escape. But I have not reached out to a conscious parents out of consideration for her continued safety and well being, a conscious as her family takes her to their ancestral village, is where her extended family comes from, and it's where her grandmother still lives.

It's a place that SHE associated with happy childhood summer vacations. But this time he gets there, SHE says she's locked up and SHE says her family beats her, even her grandmother. And he told me he remembers the feeling of the rings on her father's fingers as his fist hit her face.

My good news. And at some point into this ordeal, a function manages to steal her once phone and send a text off to syria. She's able to send us one line of text.

The text says, I am alive. I'm in this village, but I think they might kill me. And syria, he doesn't dare respond, but he makes one phone call to the only group y things can help them, and that's the love commanders.

And so the love commanders help syria get a conscious ancestral village and try to rescue her. And at the same time, as the love commanders in syria are trying to get to that village, a conscious family is telling her, he's not coming for you. He's never coming for you.

You need to file rape and kidnapping charges against syria is the only way to save our family honor. You need to say he tricked you into marry him and that everything that happened was against your will. In a conch spends eight days locked up, SHE says, being beaten by her family.

And finally, she's at the point of collapse. And after more than a week of this, she's is fine. Take me to the police station. I will literally say, whatever you want. I will file charges .

against syria. Oh, no. So she's going to betray him.

They sit her down in a police station, one parent on each side, and the police officer turns on a tape record and says, do you know a man named syria? What did he do to you and a conscious families right there? And they're expecting her to do as they've asked and accuse.

And it's not what he does. And he says, yes, I know a man. Name syria. He's my husband and I want to be with him.

Oh, SHE was not going for that. This was her man and he is sticking with him.

And the police are like, well, that on what you're supposed to say, he said, as the police stop the tape, rewind IT, turn IT on again. Do you know a man named syria and a picture repeats? He's my husband and I want to be with him.

This is so dramatic, it's like a movie. Like.

how do our parents react? Well, her parents are like, we're on, like we are washing our hands of this daughter that we can no longer control. And they walk out and they abandon a contract at this police station.

She's there all by herself. SHE is no idea where storia is. Her family's been telling her, forget him, he's not coming for you.

He's a bad guy, and she's left at this police station with only the clothes on her back. No phone, no nothing. It's getting dark. And then syria walks and and I asked them later about that moment and what IT felt like. And syria told me I was like putting a fish back in water, like coming back to life.

That's really romantic. IT makes sure your heart go put a pea a little bit. When he showed up at the police station, a country was there. And so then after he comes in, is the love commanders who have come to help, right?

The love commanders help, sorry, a get there and help both of them get to delhi into their safe house and .

and this is where you visited yeah.

this is the same safe house I visited and they're there for several months and they've never lived down their own. You know, they've always lived to their family, so in the elder is where they learn to grow up and be adults and such of registers their marriage with local police.

He arranges police protection, and they start the healing process, and they meet other couples for the first time who are in their shoes, other couples who've helped like they did. And it's exhilarating ating to realize they're not alone and that there are other Young lovers in india who've taken the path they did and they bond. And eventually syrian a.

Ona leave the shelter and his family welcomes them home. They have yet to reconcile with a conscious parents. You still strange from them, but you know, after all, they've been through.

They go back to the village where they grew up to be with his family. And they, for me, is an example of how it's conch are just really reluctant at rebels. They never wanted to rebel.

They never wanted to leave home. They just happen to fall in love. And for them, family is still everything. It's true of so many of the couples that I met in the love commander shelter.

They're all just trying to play the cards they've been dealt in life, and they feel a duty to their families and to their parents. They didn't want to be in this situation. They also happen to have fAllen in love, and they don't want to have to choose. And so there are lives are about reconciling these two values, a duty to their family, but also a desire to to follow their hearts.

What you're describing that is a love story, definitely, with a bollywood ending, a hollywood ending, you could see IT on the big screen of Young lovers overcoming all these obstacles. And IT sounds like in this story that the love commanders in such dev is doing something noble, right? So how did he come to be portrayed as a villain and arrested?

So in the shelter, I told you there was bonding among the couples, but IT was also pretty intense. It's this like crazy spartan boot camp with no contact with the outside world and rifts arguments start to form among the couples. Syrian, a country were very happy with the treatment they received from the love commanders.

But a lot of other couples, in most other couples that I have spoken with, they started doubt the love commanders. They started doubt how long their documents are taking to be processed, how rude amenti the conditions are in the shelter where the money that contributed is actually going. And they start to see the love commanders in a completely different light.

And when serving a contact, leave the shelter. Other couples, more disgruntled ones, they decide to become whistleblowers, and they actually turn such deve in, and the tide just completely turns on him. He was charged with criminal intimidation, extortion, wrongful confinement, holding couples against their will.

No, saaf has pleaded not guilty. He denies any wrongdoing, and so do his code defendants cy, the other love commanders. And so in our podcast, I spend a lot of time expLoring who sandag dev really is, what life was like in this safe house, and the stories behind all those headlines. You know, whether he is a hero .

or a woman. Okay, so you've hook me in because i'm not much on love. I'm definite a lot on scans and potential mean, and is this person really who they say they are? So I wanna know what's going on with such A, I wanna know, is he the hero? Is he avan?

I'm going to tell you to listen to the podcast honestly, five years later, i'm still trying to figure out that myself. I mean, e maybe both.

Most people are though, right? Most people a little bit of to the hero in the villa.

That's true. Well, I don't know about you. Are you sure .

i'm only a hero, but you know everyone else?

But really quick, before we sign off, I just want to come full circle to your friend's wedding and the love you saw that wedding last weekend because even though this story ended up being like a juicy, true crime, it's really just all about love and about how much couples in door to be together. I spent five years in india, and on one of my very last days in the country, I went to the movies. I actually went to see a classic bollywood room com.

And IT was at this iconic theater in mumbai, has been playing the same ninety ninety rcm, literally since one thousand ninety five. Every day there's a matti. The movie is called del valle del hania ligia.

I am so sorry for that. Hindi prunty ation. That's what you get from five years. Undue a lingo. But basically everybody who knows this movie because IT D D L J for short, the acronym. And this is like the iconic RAM com, its stars, shaogang, who's like the heartthrob of all heartthrobs in bollywood ood 一 多头。

And in this theatre, the whole audience dances and sings and recites the dialogue from memory. And is this joyful experience totally cheesy? Is a RAM calm what you expect? But IT was the perfect ending to my india time and the perfect baLance after having made this podcast, which started as a love story and turn to suspicions and police rates and criminal allegations. And yeah, like back to love, IT reminded me of how much a great love story can grip people and grip people's imaginations, even if it's not part of their tradition in real life.

Laura, thank you so much for talking with us. Today is really an incredible story.

Thank you so much for having me a you.

You can hear Lawrence reporting and the full series on the rough translation podcast love commanders is available on epr one apple podcast or where are you git your podcast if you or someone you know maybe considering suicide or is in crisis? Color text nine eighty to reach a suiciding Prices lifeline. This episode of the sunday story was produced by kimberley y isr, a anti c, and Justin yan IT was edited by iran, a gucci.

Our engineer is Robert music from ROM team of a blue first calm music, universal music productions and audio network. The sundays story team includes Jenny smidt, Andrew mambo. And in ridi, our supervising producer is leona sim strom, and our executive producer is ironed, the gucci we'd love to hear from you.

So senders an email at the sunday story at in P. R. Dot org.

Am I shara? Go up first will be back tomorrow with all the news, you need to start a week. Until then, I will be your weekend.

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