BackThe Love Issue | Tough love
This Valentine's Day our roses are for queer love, deemed criminal by the Supreme Court
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Love is a risky business this Valentine’s Day in India—and not just because of the resident hooligans who want to abolish its celebration for being a “Western import" to this country.
About two weeks ago, the Supreme Court sent back a petition to review an order passed by one of its benches last year. In December, the ruling had reversed a 2009 verdict by the Delhi high court striking down the regressive Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which criminalizes sexual relations against “the order of nature" among consenting adults. Largely used against homosexual, transsexual and other queer people, the law also applies to heterosexuals who indulge in anything other than procreative sex. Our ancestors, who codified their sexual practices in treatises like the Kama Sutra, would have deplored such a perversion of Indian culture.
That Section 377 of the IPC, framed by Lord Macaulay in the 1860s, has managed to survive into the 21st century is enough to brand India as the world’s largest homophobic democracy. Its persistence speaks of our country’s obsession with imperial prudery, long after the societies that advocated such values have moved on. Same-sex marriage or civil union is a routine affair in many parts of the West now, though their former colonies continue to crack down on citizens for choosing to love differently.
Yet, like most other Asian nations, India is also riddled with contradictions. It is unthinkingly permissive of homoerotic bonds, alternative lifestyle choices, and individual self-expressions. As you will read in this issue, an Australian national not only had his first gay encounter in India but also discovered his sexual orientation in the country three decades ago, when the level of homophobia was much higher. Every year the transgender community gathers in a village in Tamil Nadu to enact a ritual of love, marriage, consumption and widowhood, not only under the gaze of the public at large but also with its full encouragement and participation.
Over the years, Indians have become more sensitized to queerness. There is more awareness of sexual health. Protests against Section 377 are held in public spaces in urban centres, our film and fashion industries are more accepting of sexual choices (though even the most empowered and successful members in these professions are still uneasy about coming out publicly), and the middle class can no longer wish away other sexual choices. Yet our political establishment, the faces that represent our country to the world at large, remains shamefully divided. In a country with a growing backlog of injustices, we can certainly do without this one.
We have tried to bring together stories of love, or rather the quest for love, covering the entire spectrum of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identities in India and beyond. If there are tragic tales of heartbreak, there are also equally moving accounts of happiness, resilience and fortitude—of families, friends and other allies coming together in support of rights that belong to every human being. Expression of sexual identity is not just about practising safe sex and sensible family planning. It is also deeply tied to our psychological well-being and, by extension, to the health of the nation.
Law, poet W.H. Auden wrote in 1939, is like love: “Like love we don’t know where or why,/Like love we can’t compel or fly,/Like love we often weep,/Like love we seldom keep." Section 377 of the IPC is anti-love. It demeans every one of us who values pleasure, dignity and equality. It is never too late to change—to become more human.
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