Recalling India’s first gay pride with 15 participants
As India celebrated Supreme Court’s verdict decriminalising homosexuality, activists from LGBTQ community in Kolkata recalled how the first pride walk of the country against section 377 was held in the city in July 1999 with just 15 participants.
On July 2 , wearing yellow Tshirts and blue trousers, the handful walked from Park Circus grounds to Esplanade, a distance of about 6 km. They were holding aloft just a few handwritten posters.
“It was around 2-2:30 in the afternoon. We walked for barely an hour,” recalled Pawan Dhall, one of the pioneers of the same sex rights movement in Kolkata.
From the 15 participants, the walk has grown into a gathering of thousands that is known as Kolkata Rainbow Pride Walk (KRPW).
“Last year, the number of participants crossed a few thousands. Several people who are not from the community participated
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in the walk to express solidarity,” said Dhall, founder of Varta Trust, which runs India’s first LGBTQ health and legal helpline portal, “Reach Out”.
Now tableaux are taken out and dances held in the walks.
When the walk started in 1999, there was no requirement for police permission.
But over the years, as the crowd has grown, permission from the police has become mandatory.
The route is also fixed taking advice from police.
“As a legal professional, I feel that this is the second Independence of all Indian citizens, and not just from the people from the community, from a draconian law that carried the baggage of colonial legacy,” said Kaushik Gupta, a Calcutta High Court lawyer, who takes part in these walks regularly.