In my 2005 book, Love’s Rite (to be reissued shortly with an updated list of couples), I documented scores of such unions, which continue unabated today. After 2005, I continued to collect reports, and I found that their frequency increased, with more reports of male couples committing suicide than there had been in the 1980s and ’90s. For every reported case, there were dozens reported only in local papers, and dozens more not reported at all. These rural and small-town couples included Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Dalits, adivasis, factory and farm workers, fisherwomen and students, but had no connection with any LGBT or feminist movement. Homosexuality was illegal in India and most of these young Indians had never heard words such as “homosexual”, “lesbian” or “gay”. They acted on their irresistible feelings as a way of claiming the rights they were denied—the rights to liberty, equality and justice that are guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.