The Slow Evolutn of Gay Culture India | The MIT Prs Rear

Contents:

• EXPLAED | HOW WE GOT HERE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF LGBT RIGHTS AND LAWS INDIAFROM ANCIENT INDIA TO THE 21ST CENTURY, THE LGBT MUNY HAS FOUND REPRENTATN, FACED OPPRSN MANY FORMS.VISHNU GOPATHPUBLISHED: 06 SEP 2022, 12:39 PM ISTEXPLAERS6 M READISHARE THE QUT DAILY
• THE SLOW EVOLUTN OF GAY CULTURE INDIA
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• GAY RIGHTS

EXPLAED | HOW WE GOT HERE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF LGBT RIGHTS AND LAWS INDIAFROM ANCIENT INDIA TO THE 21ST CENTURY, THE LGBT MUNY HAS FOUND REPRENTATN, FACED OPPRSN MANY FORMS.VISHNU GOPATHPUBLISHED: 06 SEP 2022, 12:39 PM ISTEXPLAERS6 M READISHARE THE QUT DAILY

Jt 30 years before this, the same India that now allows people to take lovers of the same sex, was an India that persecuted openly gay people and an India where if you me out as gay or queer, you uld lose your, how did the untry make this transn? But today, on the anniversary of India's own LGBT rights day, we walk you through a brief history of LGBT laws Ancient & Medieval IndiaBefore the imposn of lonial-era laws unr Brish le, India had s own texts, which tailed the practice of homosexualy and same-sex terurse. The Manmri, for example, tailed punishments like shavg the head of a woman or cuttg off her fgers, as punishment for engagg lbian om the texts, the walls of ancient archecture are the send source of rmatn about ancient India's thoughts on sexualy, wrote thor and mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik a 2008 article tled 'Did Homosexualy exist ancient India?

The two together would lay the groundwork for the legal chang of the next 20 Dawn of a New Millennium for LGBT RightsIndian LGBT activists holdg an LGBT rights 2009, the Delhi High Court, Naz Foundatn vs NCT of Delhi, led that Sectn 377, which crimalised same-sex relatnships, was unnstutnal, and stck the law down, crimalisg homosexualy India for the first time. Dog so was also found to fall foul of the right to equal treatment (Article 14) and the prohibn of discrimatn (Article 15) verdict, which was hailed as a victory for LGBT rights, was challenged by several anti-gay rights groups on relig, polil, and social grounds, who claimed that the right to privacy did not clu the right to m an offence, and that crimalisg homosexualy would affect the stutn of marriage. "This cisn would lead to protts across the untry, wh the Aam Aadmi Party, the Indian Natnal Congrs, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), makg the crimalisatn of homosexualy a part of their electn manifto the 2014 general Assembly to 2018, and a five-judge SC bench, which clud the then-Chief Jtice Dipak Misra, would pass a historic orr.

(File photo: Getty Imag)Ne years after the Delhi High Court crimalised homosexual acts among nsentg adults by readg down Sectn 377 of the Indian Penal Co (IPC), the Supreme Court today began hearg the matter. A bunch of petns challenged the wordgs Sectn 377, "whoever voluntarily has rnal terurse agast the orr of nature wh any man, woman or animal" sayg vlated the rights of a sectn of society reprented by lbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenrs (LGBT). The nth chapter of the Kamasutra of Vatsyayana -- posed around 4th century BC, talks about oral sexual acts (Auparistaka), homosexualy and also of siar activi among transgenrs (triya prakri).

THE SLOW EVOLUTN OF GAY CULTURE INDIA

Later the eveng, Bobby explas that India homosexualy is characterized, as often is Asia, by the classil try: crimalizatn, social disapproval, and the police’s nonenforcement of the law.

”The ia of “ntament” — an Amerin diplomatic term referrg to the limatn of the Communist ntagn — is que a relative notn a untry whose Natnal AIDS Control Organizatn rmally timat has at least 70 ln India, as often Asia, the issue is not jt about the law: a whole culture helps make homosexualy yet thgs evolve. “This article [Sectn 377] was very rarely ed India, but was a sword of Damocl hangg over our heads, and ntributed to the nonregnn of homosexuals India, ” explas Rajeev, a gay activist om the Naz Foundatn Tst, an anizatn that fought for the crimalizatn of homosexualy and was supported by many Bollywood wrers and actors as well as by Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize wner enomics, and by the famo Manvendra Sgh Gohil, the only royal prce to be openly gay. When I met him 2015 his prtig New Delhi office, he nfirmed that he would “file a new bill on behalf of the Left [the Congrs Party] to reverse the cisn of the Court and fally crimalize homosexualy India once and for all.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

” This great secular lady, like many of my terlocutors New Delhi, criciz the lg party of the Right that is currently power — Prime Mister Narendra Modi’s Indian People’s Party — for havg renewed ti wh an “archaic and anachronistic” Hdu natnalism that she unhatgly characteriz as sexist, homophobic, and antifemist. Beg a gay-iendly figure, this Bollywood producer neverthels believ that India needs to evolve on the gay India, as often Asia, the issue is not jt about the law: a whole culture helps make homosexualy taboo. “There are now Gay Pri celebratns some major ci, ” Rajeev ntu; “there are ‘pk nights’ nightclubs, a Queer Ink gay bookstore here Mumbai, and Bollywood stars who sometim perform gay characters.

”Frédéric Martel, a rearcher at Scienc-Po Paris and ZHdK Zurich, is the host and producer of the French rad show Soft Power, and foreign affairs lumnist at He is the thor of ne books, cludg “Global Gay, ” om which this article is excerpted.

GAY RIGHTS

Outsi the police headquarters the ITO area of Delhi, the first known prott for gay rights India was beg was sparked off by the police pickg up men om Central Park Connght Place on spicn of homosexualy — those days, this kd of harassment was still a ‘normal’ practice. Tihar cid to al wh the “menace of homosexualy”, as Bedi termed , by mandatorily ttg mat for HIV and segregatg those found 1994, ABVA filed a public tert ligatn (PIL) Delhi High Court, challengg the nstutnal validy of Sectn 377 — was one of the first legal protts agast ernment reprsn of the LGBTQ and prcientThe PIL also gave India s first champn of gay rights -- the ABVA, which had published 1991 a ground-breakg pamphlet, ‘Ls Than Gay’, a cizens’ report on the discrimatn faced by the muny India.