A retired Orissa college lecturer who has been promoting inter-caste, dowryless marriages for more than two decades launched a political party on Monday.
The new party, called Lovers' Green-Globalist Godfree-Humanist Party of India, will give all lovers a platform. This alone can bring change in society, said the party's founder Biswanath Ramachandra Champa Swapnaji Taslima Voltaire, 58.
Ramachandra, a resident of Orissa's capital Bhubaneswar, had formed the Anti-caste Marriage One-child Family Organisation of India in 1980, which has so far solemnised 1,693 inter-caste marriages.
All the marriages were performed in a simple manner, with the couples exchanging garlands in the presence of AMOFOI members.
Ramachandra told rediff.com that his party was launched by Orissa Planning Commission member Professor Radhamohan and will act as the political wing of AMOFOI.
The party, he said, will give election tickets only to those who have married, or plan to marry, only for love.
Those who love and get married are courageous, Ramachandra explained. Love has power. Only those who marry after first falling in love can bring changes in society.
Ramachandra himself had what is commonly called a love marriage in India in 1966. He has two sons, one a doctor and another an engineer, who also found their own mates.
A person who joins the AMOFOI has to change her/his name in such a way that nobody can figure out to which religion/caste s/he belongs. "I and members of my family have also changed our names," Ramchandra said.
The LGGPI's ideology will be the same as that of AMOFOI, said Ramachandra, who has received several awards from state organisations for his contribution to society.
