Decriminalizing homosexuality a landmark for India after long-drawn legal fight
Earlier this month, India’s Supreme Court overturned a law that criminalized gay sex , ruling that consensual sexual acts by adults in private is not unconstitutional any more. It is a landmark verdict in the history of India.
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that India’s Supreme Court struck down could be traced back to the colonial era British rule in 1860s. The article has remained intact in spite of the passage of time and massive changes the society has gone through. It describes gay relationships as “unnatural offence” and “against the order of nature,” and says that those who engage in it break the law and could face imprisonment for life.
The implementation of this law not only violated the fundamental rights of India’s LGBTQ community but also hindered social development and civilization progress.
With homosexual acts criminalized, legitimacy was provided to society to carry out physical and psychological violence against the LGBTQ community, who are brutally deprived of economic, social and cultural rights etc. With social stigma tightly attached，members of those sexual minority groups have been suffering relentless unfair treatment, harassment, blackmail, violence and even lynching.
Discrimination and prejudice against the LGBTQ community has been hampering the development potential of the society in terms of economy and health care. Among the 1.3 billion people in India, 140 million may fall into the LGBTQ community. They may find truly hard to get suitable jobs and do their part for the society. LGBTQ people who leave the country for better prospects are hardly in short supply. Lower productivity arising therefrom is self-evident. When LGBTQ people could not settle down in a job, the government has to spend extra due to lower returns on its investment in human resources development like education, training, medical care etc. The petition filed together by the Indian Institutes of Technology’s alumni and other prominent Indians also analyzed the harm the law was doing.
Many factors contributed to the abolition of Section 377. Social organizations and activists have been fighting for its revocation for years. The younger generation in India is more tolerant about sexuality and gender diversity. In addition, the LGBTQ group has become increasingly exposed to the public and become less stereotyped. They have found more acceptability in Indian society.
It is not ancient Indian culture that generates homophobia. In most cases, homosexuality is disliked as it goes against society’s traditional values, religious doctrine, cultural psyche, and so on. But India’s ancient society and dominant religion (Hinduism) was flexible about the phenomenon.
In Hindu culture, the infusion of religion with sexuality was not rare. Some hold that sexual acts have religious meaning and represent the union of the individual soul with the Supreme Soul. Hinduism’s sacred texts don’t distinguish between heterosexual and homosexual acts.
Hinduism’s religious texts emphasize procreative sexual acts within marriage, so homosexual acts that do not affect the ability to marry and procreate should not be a source of conflict. There is solid evidence that mainstream culture in ancient India was relatively open to homosexuality. Ruth Vanita, famed gender expert, said bluntly “Under colonial rule, what was a minor strain of homophobia in Indian tradition became the dominant ideology” in her book Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West.
India’s success in decriminalizing gay sex this time is a big step forward not only for the country but also for the LGBTQ group and other minority groups worldwide that have been fighting for their rights. But it is just the first step. The LGBTQ community in India still needs to fight for their rights to marriage, adoption, inheritance, and so on.
There is a long way to go. But the sexual minority group will press forward with indomitable will. Just as Indian Supreme Court Chief Justice Dipak Misra quoted German writer Goethe, “I am what I am. So take me as I am... Denial of self-expression is like death.”