India’s first and olst gay rights activist is also on the extreme right of RSS

Contents:

• WHY AN OPENLY GAY PM SUCH AS LEO VARADKAR IS AN IMPOSSIBILY INDIA
• OPN THE SHAMEFUL WARDICE OF INDIA’S POLICIANS ON GAY RIGHTS
• INDIA’S FIRST AND OLST GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST IS ALSO ON THE EXTREME RIGHT OF RSS
• THE POLICS OF GAY RIGHTS INDIA

WHY AN OPENLY GAY PM SUCH AS LEO VARADKAR IS AN IMPOSSIBILY INDIA

Markets open 2 hours 52 mutS&P Futur Dow Futur Nasdaq Futur Rsell 2000 Futur C Oil Gold Silver EUR/USD 10-Yr Bond Vix GBP/USD USD/JPY B USD CMC Crypto 200 FTSE 100 Nikkei 225 Here’s a list of Indian policians backg the LGBTQ munyIndia Gay PriPolicians and public figur India have long hogged the limelight for all the wrong reasons when to LGBTQ issu. Outspoken alli: Those who have gone out of their way, eher through public statements on social media or through terviews or through remarks parliament, to monstrate their support for LGBTQ+ rightsAlli: Policians who silently supported LGBTQ+ rights through small statements or actns wh parliament—primarily those who supported Tharoor’s private member’s bill to scrap sectn 377 the Lok Sabha—feature this sectnAlthough September 2018, a five-judge bench scrapped sectn 377, a law that crimalised gay sex India, many stris are yet to be ma to end discrimatn agast queer folk the untry. Jun 03, 2017 02:01 PM IST There are no openly gay policians India, maly bee non-normative sexual or genr orientatn is nsired a ath knell for one’s reer January 2015, Dubl, Ireland: The untry’s health mister Leo Varadkar has jt ma history by g out as gay on a live natnal rad broadst.

OPN THE SHAMEFUL WARDICE OF INDIA’S POLICIANS ON GAY RIGHTS

But among the adulatns showered on the 38-year-old li one liberate omissn: The shameful way which Indian society and polil learship treats Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr (LGBT) populatn. But a far more sid form of discrimatn fli unr the radar: The refal of our polil learship to discs, let alone reform, India’s outdated laws that outlaw homosexual people and crimalise the liv of LGBT folks. But there are no openly gay policians India, and the few transgenr reprentativ have found difficult to break to larger than a lol arena – maly bee non-normative sexual or genr orientatn is nsired a ath knell for one’s reer.

INDIA’S FIRST AND OLST GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST IS ALSO ON THE EXTREME RIGHT OF RSS

Y ChandrachudPhotographer: Prodip Guha/Getty ImagA judge who uld pave the way to legalizg gay marriage India took charge Wednday as chief jtice at a time when Prime Mister Narendra Modi’s Hdu-natnalist agenda domat polics and throws up challeng for the a judge on the top urt Jtice D.

Through photos and text, the book follows several queer Indians as they navigate their daily liv, such as closeted men wh wiv and children who go cisg secret, and openly gay upl who fear that one day they will be persecuted for their spoke wh the two thors about how they approached the procs of documentg LGBTQ Indians, and how the queer muny has changed over the years wh creasg and Ranjan are among the few openly gay upl Delhi. And so I beme a fashnable young gay liberatn activist at a very early a ltle while, occurred to me that I wanted to know if siar thgs were happeng India. When I got there, I was relyg on a batn of gog to cisg s, and also relyg on a social work of gay men that I'd enuntered, which I found was very efficient terms of passg me on om person to, a graphic signer, om an affluent fay.

That's how I experienced Sgh: To add to what Sunil said about how the scene has changed or really hasn't changed: Gay men are all still married.

THE POLICS OF GAY RIGHTS INDIA

Back the 1980, when I was takg the pictur meetg the people at the parks, they were claimg to be gay, and I ed to say, "Well, you're not gay bee you're married wh five children. " They're not gay the sense that the Wt knows—that you walked of your hoe, left your blogil fay home, and didn't get married to the oppose sex and had children.

The word "trans" don't que get the nuanc of India, and s range of more on queer culture India, watch the GAYCATION doc 'Hijras, the Third Genr India. Some of India's more recent gay liberatn and the polics of om the 90s, early 2000s, emerged om the women's what directn do you see the future of LGBT life India gog? They don't want to wa for some later time to be eed, so they're much more mandg of their theory is that gay liberatn was born rich Wtern plac like New York and London bee tak money.

India is on the cp of makg a historic — and long overdue — cisn on equaly for the untry’s gay and lbian rponse to a seri of public-tert petns, the Supreme Court is set to crimalize homosexualy and scrap a Victorian-era law that remends imprisonment for same-sex is no thanks to Indian policians. The offensive legal sectn (known as Sectn 377) not only effectively outlaws every Indian who is gay; also mak anal sex between heterosexuals illegal.

” The grotque law has lagged behd cultural and social shifts a society that has now seen the emergence of a robt and well-loved LGBTQ muny many major metropolan while many cizens are able to live openly gay liv whout social stigma, lns of other Indians, pecially small towns and villag, bear the bnt of the discrimatn.

No surprise then that the Supreme Court asserted this week that did not want “two gay men walkg on Mare Drive (Mumbai’s ma seasi road) holdg hands to be arrted. But 2012, when a more nservative bench of the Supreme Court upheld the grossly humane law and dismissed gays, lbians, bisexuals and transgenr dividuals as a “mcule actn” of India’s populatn, the Congrs uld have simply passed a law Parliament that the urt virtually dared to. Now, as the Supreme Court gets ready to overturn s own verdict and has revealed s tent to treat the issue of gay rights as human rights, one mt ask: What is the pot of Indian mocracy if the men and women we vote to power n’t even do their basic jobs?

But when to a basic issue of fundamental rights, our policians have buried their sp swath of legal black rob, hopg that the judg will do what they themselv don’t have the urage to isn’t jt polil and social doublpeak that the gay rights movement has exposed; the bate has also revealed that Indian policians do not have any unrstandg of the notn of nsent or privacy adult relatns — whether homosexual or heterosexual. But they will protect you if you rape your though cled to take any posn on gay rights, the ernment sisted that adultery mt rema a crime (punishable wh a sentence that n extend to five years jail) to prerve the sancty of marriage.

“We are talented enough to get a job but we are lookg for a safe and clive place, ” she is part of a growg number of activists advotg for India’s lbian and gay muny, which has grown bolr the past year.

”“In the first six months after the Supreme Court lg, we handled about 64 crisis suatns, ” says Vivek Anand, 58-year-old chief executive officer of The Humsafar Tst, a non-prof that has been advotg for gay rights for 25 ced an cint om earlier this year when a gay man om Nagpur, a small town central India, was acsted by a group of men one eveng on the street, and asked to perform sexual acts for them. Row Kavi, India’s olst and most vol gay rights activist, is optimistic — he believ “ is gog to go our way” has been slapped the face by Saif Ali Khan, got Nikki Bedi’s talk show kicked off the air by Star TV 1995, and been taken to urt by the RSS.

The swami, whom Row Kavi nsirs to be a mentor, guid him to “help my people” the says homophobic laws were brought by the Brish when they lonised India, and fd their roots the bible.

”The mother of gay activism rri referenc to the scriptur, folklore, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, on his fgertips — always ready to be ployed fence of “the clive nature” of his fah. Row Kavi, who believ Christiany to be the root of homophobic evil, was schooled Bombay Sttish School, which has Christian wh a diploma relign and parative theology om Ramakrishna, he also has a bachelors and masters Chemistry om the Universy of Bombay. In 1984, at the age of 37, Row Kavi featured an exclive terview wh Savvy magaze, which he beme the first Indian man to ever publicly clare his Row Kavi (send om R) started the Humsafar Tst 1994 – India’s first ernment fund NGO that advoted for gay rights | Humsafar Tst Facebook Page“When I me out ’84, they ed to lgh at me, sayg why are you people askg for rights.

There has always been a hierarchy of rights, and gay rights is always at the end, ” he Kavi says was then that he set out to create a space which homosexualy was taken serly. But acrdg to Row Kavi, the real reason was bee of his observatns of the film ‘Ma Khiladi Tu Anadi’ — Row says that he had said that Saif and Akshay were so much love the movie that should have been an entry the San Francis gay and lbian film the 1970s, Row Kavi says that he was even threatened by the RSS wh a urt se, after he published an article advisg Hd to start eatg beef. ” His retweets reflect his strange mix of right-wg liberalism — foced on champng the liberatn of homosexuals — while simultaneoly highlightg the orthodoxy of the movie Fire created public outrage amongst the Shiv Saiks 1998, Row Kavi had wrten that ‘Shiv Sena activists are actually the Taliban who are falsely claimg to be Hd’.

Before that I was aaid to buy a py of a men’s magaze bee I was aaid the shopkeeper would fd out I was gay, ” Anand tells everyone however, shar the same warm experienc. Queer activist Vikramadya Sahai, one of the ‘Delhi left-liberals’ Row Kavi referred to by name, rells a systematic smear mpaign agast Labia — a Mumbai-based lbian and bisexual women and transperson llective — by gay men, cludg Row Kavi.