India legalised gay sex amogg consenting adults

Historical breakthrough:

New Delhi.
In a breakthrough judgment, the Delhi High Court on Thursday legalised gay sex among consenting adults holding that the law making it a criminal offence violates fundamental rights.

However, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalises homosexuality, will continue for non-consensual and non-vaginal sex.

"We declare section 377 of IPC in so far as it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private is violative of Articles 14, 21 and 15 of the Constitution," a Bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Murlidhar said.

The High Court said 'the provision of section 377 IPC will continue to govern non-consensual penile non-vaginal sex and penile non vaginal sex involving minors'.

The court clarified that "by adults we mean everyone who is 18 years of age or above".

It further said that this judgement will hold till Parliament chooses to amend the law.

"In our view Indian Constitutional Law does not permit the statutory criminal law to be held captive by the popular misconception of who the LGBTs (lesbian gay bisexual transgender) are.

"It cannot be forgotten that discrimination is antithesis of equality and that it is the recognition of equality which will foster dignity of every individual," the Bench said in its 105-page judgment.

The UPA was initially in favour of repealing Section 377 with Law Minister Veerappa Moily calling the law тАЬoutdated.тАЭ

But the Centre later backtracked with both Moily and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad calling for тАЬconsensus.тАЭ Section 377 criminalises тАЬcarnal intercourse against the order of nature,тАЭ a phrase interpreted to ban homosexuality.

The petitioners Naz Foundation (along with an activist group тАШVoices Against 377тАЩ) argued that the law violated the constitutional rights of homosexuals and that the section should be тАЬread downтАЭ to exclude тАЬconsensual sex between adultsтАЭ from its ambit, in effect decriminalising homosexuality in India.

The previous UPA government had opposed the petition. Former MP B P Singhal, who тАЬintervenedтАЭ to oppose the petition, said that if the HC decided to тАЬread downтАЭ Section 377, he would go to the Supreme Court in appeal.

(with PTI inputs)

[Art]

Activists danced in the streets after the Delhi High Court ruled that "consensual sex amongst adults is legal which includes even gay sex and sex among the same sexes". The judgment, which technically only applies to the country's capital but which will have national implications, will boost the small but increasingly vocal gay rights movement.
"The mood inside the court was electric, it was incredible,"said Gautam Bhan, who has been campaigning for the repeal of so-called "Section 377" for 10 years. "The judges quoted from a speech by Jawaharlal Nehru about India's inclusiveness. We were in tears, we were openly crying in court."

Wikipedia: Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (with additional very fresh links) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_377_of_the_Indian_Penal_Code)
Delhi High Court judgement overturning Section 377 of India's Penal Code (105 p.) (http://lobis.nic.in/dhc/APS/judgement/02-07-2009/APS02072009CW74552001.pdf)
Wikipedia: Homosexuality in India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_India)

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Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai, eds. Same-Sex Love
in India: Readings from Literature and History.
New York: Palgrave, 2001. 370 p.

Publisher: Same-Sex Love in India presents a stunning array of writings on same-sex love from over 2000 years of Indian literature. Translated from more than a dozen languages and drawn from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and modern fictional traditions, these writings testify to the presence of same-sex love in various forms since ancient times, without overt persecution. This collection defies both stereotypes of Indian culture and Foucault's definition of homosexuality as a nineteenth-century invention, uncovering instead complex discourses of Indian homosexuality, rich metaphorical traditions to represent it, and the use of names and terms as early as medieval times to distinguish same-sex from cross-sex love. An eminent group of scholars have translated these writings for the first time or have re-translated well-known texts to correctly make evident previously underplayed homoerotic content. Selections range from religious books, legal and erotic treatises, story cycles, medieval histories and biographies, modern novels, short stories, letters, memoirs, plays and poems. From the Rigveda to Vikram Seth, this anthology will become a staple in courses on gender and queer studies, Asian studies, and world literature.

Reviews: Same-Sex Love in India: Readings in Indian Literature is truly a labour of love. It is also an extremely useful compilation of material on same-sex love in India, accompanied by insightful analyses of contemporary social mores at the time that the poems, stories and novels were written.' - Ritu Menon, India Today

Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai have offered readers a vast and sumptuous feast in their diverse selection of South Asian texts ranging from the ancient Sanskrit epics, the Pali Jatakas and the Kamasutra through medieval puranic narratives and Urdu poetry to Mahatma Gandhi and contemporary fiction. The collection spans not only an immense chronological sweep but also includes work from many of the classical and regional languages of ancient, medieval, and modern India. This rich collection, accompanied by the authors' informative commentary, is a powerful corrective to the often expressed opinion that the Indian tradition is either unaware of or openly hostile to same sex love. This volume will be welcomed by scholarly and general audiences alike.' - Dr Robert Goldman, Sarah Kailath Professor of India Studies, University of California at Berkeley

This remarkable volume brings together an encyclopedic collection of writings on the subjects of love between women and love between men in India from ancient times to the present. Vanita and Kidwai's introductory essays to each section are works of outstanding scholarship. This book will long be considered the definitive anthology of documents on same-sex love in India.' - Lillian Faderman, author of To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done for America - A History

This path-breaking volume presents the English-reading public with an imposing array of texts relating to an important but little-studied aspect of Indian life and literature. While accessible to the lay reader, it ranges impressively over three millennia and a dozen languages and will certainly excite scholars across many disciplines.' - Sumit Guha, Professor of History, Brown University

An age that has specialized in assembly-line violence and death factories must celebrate every form of love as an affirmation of life. This enchanting collection is a tribute to an ancient civilization which has always cherished love that defies conventional ideas of sanity and normality.' - Ashis Nandy, author, The Intimate Enemy, Director, Center for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi

Source: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=264467

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The editors: Arguably, the crushing of the 1857 rebellion, followed by the official incorporation of India into the British Empire with Queen Victoria replacing the East India Company, signaled the violent end of medieval India. For same-sex love, that end was signaled by the 1861 law that criminalized homosexuality.

The texts we have compiled thus far indicate a set of generally tolerant traditions in pre-colonial India. As far as we know, not a single person has ever been executed for homosexual behavior in India. On the other hand, in many parts of Europe, men found engaging in homosexual acts were vilified, tortured, or legally executed. [...]

In 1895, in Britain, poet Oscar Wilde was convicted under a new law that criminalized ┬╗indecency┬л between men (as distinct from ┬╗sodomy┬л) and his sufferings in prison led directly to his death. This widely reported case functioned to instill fear into homosexually inclined men in England and could not but have similar effects in India, where newspapers in English and in other Indian languages picked up reports of the case. [...]

British educators and missionaries often denounced Indian marital, familial, and sexual arrangements as primitive тАУ demeaning to women and permissive for men. Arranged marriage, child marriage, dowry, polygamy, polyandry, and matriliny were treated as evidence of Indian culture's degeneracy. Hindu gods were seen as licentious, and Indian monarchs, both Hindu and Muslim, as decadent hedonists, equally given to heterosexual and homosexual behavior but indifferent to their subjects' welfare. Brahmans came in for similar stereotyping as greedy sensualists. In contrast, British monarchs, especially Queen Victoria, were held up as models of family propriety. These overgeneralizations were intended to justify the imperial enterprise. Educated Indians, defending Indian culture, did not altogether reject Victorian values but rather insisted that Indian culture was originally very similar to Victorian culture and had been corrupted during the medieval period. They tended to accept British stereotypes as adequate depictions of Indian princely rulers and priests.

All of these vies of Indian sexual practices, propagated in the context of colonial rule and Victorian puritanism with its deep antipleasure and antisex bias, had a major influence on the social reform movements that developed in many Indian communities in the nineteenth century and later on nationalist movements as well. While doing laudable work for women's education and against women's oppression, social reformers tried to form an ideal Indian man, woman, child, and family, largely on the model of the British Victorian nuclear family. Monogamous heterosexual marriage came to be idealized as the only acceptable form of sexual coupling, within which the woman was to be the educated companion of the male head of the household. [...]

This situation leads many to argue that homosexuals actually have an easier time than heterosexuals in India, because they can more easily be alone together without social suspicion. However, this invisibility also has a downsize. A same-sex relationship is tolerated and approved only as long as it masquerades as nonsexual friendship and does not conflict with marriage and parenthood. [...]

Although we are aware of the limitations of an analysis that blames all modern ills on colonialism, the evidence available to us forces us provisionally to conclude that a homophobia of virulent proportions came into being in India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and continues to flourish today. (194-200)

[quote="A reader (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinions/3342815.cms#top0)":1bnnkgcd]
Sami Uddin,Kuwait,says: Mr. Health Minister of India, please do not think you are ushering our motherland into the 21st century by legalizing homosexuality in India. Do not blindly follow west and US, be sensible and keep in mind Indian culture, values, traditions and decency. You have better areas to concentrate such educating citizens of the bad effects of smoking, drugs and alcohol etc. Do not think what west or US does is always THE BEST, they have their own problems and look to east for solutions. You are moving back!! [9 Aug, 2008 1157hrs IST]



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Gopika Vaidya: Indian homosexuals: when gays marry lesbians

B27: I am Male, 28 yrs old Indian Muslim and it is difficult for me to live without marriage with a girl due to social pressures one encounters in the Indian social structure. I am gay by sexual orientation. That's why I am looking to get married to a gay/bisexual Muslim girl of preferably Indian origin. I am very comfortable with my sexuality and have no hang-ups about being gayтАж though the social pressures in India do not allow one to be totally open about it. I am masculine in appearance and demeanourтАж I wish to have children through this marriage. I don't want physical intimacy, except that what is necessary for bearing children. I am looking for an honest, outgoing person who would like to bear children through the marriageтАж I am looking for a marriage-of-convenience as soon as possible.

G8: I'm a 21-year-old lesbian woman who is currently in a long-term relationship with another woman. I am very comfortable about my sexuality and am "out" to all except my family. I'm tall, attractive, neither "butch" nor "femme". I live in Philadelphia. I do wish to have children but am unsure as to the extent I wish to involve this potential partner in raising childrenтАжI have very loving parents who are simply unable to accept my sexuality. They have found out in the past and have forbidden it completely on penalty of severing our relationship completely. I feel a commitment to my parents to ensure their happiness. I genuinely feel that there will be no reconciliation if I come out to my parents. Therefore, I don't see the purpose of hurting them. I want to make it very clear that I am not doing this out of fear. This would be a decision based on extensive long-term commitment to the contract of a marriage of convenience.

Welcome to AMALG India, the dating service with a difference. 'Are you a Man who has Sex with Men (MSM) or a Woman who has Sex with Women (WSW)?', reads the introductory passage on the site's homepage. 'Under pressure to get married? Look up an understanding MSM / WSW person faced with a similar situation and explore the possibility of a marriage of convenience with him / her.'

Indian gays and lesbians have always had it tough. Most are forced into doomed marriages and few have the courage to admit their sexuality to even their spouses. The principle that AMALG India works on is clear: if you cannot come out, get into a marriage of convenience.

AMALG India actually operates like a matrimonial for lesbians and gays. It follows a strict privacy policy and has a disclaimer that reads: 'AMALG does not take any responsibility of any event arising from the meeting of two people through this websiteтАж It respects individual privacy.'
http://members.tripod.com/~Dating_Service/index.html

Source: http://www.geocities.com/gaybombaygroup/marriage_of_convinience.htm

[quote:1bnnkgcd]
An interesting idea for the unfortunate members of the armed forces of the United States of America as well! Don't Ask, Don't Tell:
http://www.sldn.org/pages/about-dadt

[/quote:1bnnkgcd][/quote:1bnnkgcd]

Smart comments, indeed. Thank you .. :flower:

[giggsy]

does this mean the bollywood version of brokeback mountain will be out soon ?

does this mean the bollywood version of brokeback mountain will be out soon ?

Yeah, it's going to be called Hairback Mountain.

[Khor tose]

does this mean the bollywood version of brokeback mountain will be out soon ?

Yeah, it's going to be called Hairback Mountain.

:thumbright:

[Smiles]

" ... Yeah, it's going to be called Hairback Mountain ... "
Ditto :blackeye: :blackeye:
That one's good enough for me to take the slimy troll off Ignore. :salute:

I doubt an Indian gogo bar would pack the punters in.

[anakot]

does this mean the bollywood version of brokeback mountain will be out soon ?

Yeah, it's going to be called Hairback Mountain.

More like Bigback Mounting...

By the way the 'legalisation' only covers New Delhi although is expected to be adopted around India. I notice the religios are out protesting (too mucheth) so it will be interesting to see how it all goes. All in all a great bit of progress since the elected reps are a spineless lot. At least better than in China which repealed the law covering homos ('hooliganism'... go figure!) in ?1999 and left male rape decriminalised into the bargain.

I spent some time in India. I don't recall meeting seeing any more hairy backs (possibly fewer) there than in Britain. Go to any Indian beach is you don't believe me. Such a statement is pure racist stereotyping. Look at gayromeo.com/jack_cute4u for example.