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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Say it out (fairly) loud

Indian Express

Say it out (fairly) loud

Sagnik Dutta Posted online: Tuesday , Jun 16, 2009 at 0048 hrs

Come June 28 this year and the “queer” community shall throng the bustling streets of major Indian cities once again; this time Chennai will join Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata. Timed to coincide with the anniversary of the historical Stonewall riots — a vehement 1969 protest by New York City’s LGBT community following a police raid at a gay bar in Greenwich Village — the Indian gay pride parade attempts to counter prejudice against the queer community through an enthusiastic and strident — some would say paradoxical — celebration and affirmation of sexual diversity.

A post in the official blog of Delhi Queer Pride reads: “Queer Pride is a celebration. It is about loving who we are, whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, hijra or straight, and affirming everyone’s right to be respected.” Celebration of what is still perceived by some moralists as “deviant” sexuality is indeed a unique form of protest. Also, a closer examination of the preparations for the parade and the subtle symbolism associated with it gives us a window into the complex concerns of the gay rights movement in India.

Consider the parade’s organising committee. It tries to reflect the heterogeneity of the queer community, as well as the diverse concerns that are inextricably linked to the gay rights movement in India. Members of the committee are associated with several other organisations; and yet there is a conscious effort to organise the event as a collective effort of various individuals rather than as tied into any specific organisation. That could be seen as an attempt to voice the movement’s varying concerns without prioritising one concern over any other. As one committee member, Ponni Arasu, also a researcher with the Alternative Law Forum observes, “Each of the causes that these organisations are fighting for is equally important for the larger movement. While Nigaah is initiating discussions on representations of sexuality in the media in the intellectual social space, Sangama and Naa [work] closely with hijras and kothis. It is important to see that none of these voices of dissent are marginalised.” The decision to organise the first LGBT pride march in Chennai — preceded by a series of events to increase community awareness, including the launch of a Human Rights Watch Report on sodomy laws on June 20 — also implies a gradual expansion of the horizons of the movement. Arasu again: “The plan is to gradually reach out to even the small towns of the country where the exposure to the media and therefore to contemporary debates about sexuality is limited.”

The organiser’s ambitious aspirations notwithstanding, the pride parade has to be firmly grounded in contemporary reality. This is amply borne out by the choice made by several participants last year to wear a mask that conceals their identity. Isn’t the donning of a mask in a procession which aims at affirmation in a sense self-defeating? One activist, Aditya Bandopadhyay, thinks otherwise: “The mask can emerge as a poignant symbol of protest, a concrete representation of the claustrophobia that homosexuals feel.” Besides, some straight men sympathetic to the gay cause could also prefer to wear masks while taking part in a pride parade. After all, says one organiser, Rahul Singh, “the comfort level of individuals with their orientation varies considerably, which is why we respect the decision of people preferring to wear a mask.”

Another prominent area of debate within the queer community has been around the distribution of HIV leaflets, condoms and lubes in a gay pride parade. True, there are multiple implications as well as symbolic associations of this act of distribution, in this specific social context; and putting safe sex front-and-centre can counter any stereotypes about the promiscuous in the queer community and its vulnerability to HIV-AIDS. However, it could also be read as an act of sensationalism, instead reinforcing the fallacious notion that the LGBT community is primarily responsible for HIV’s spread.

Thus the problematic nature of specific aspects of, and concerns within, the gay rights movement can be seen to surface during the organisation of the pride parade. There’s criticism of public “bandying about” one’s orientation, something which is essentially “personal” to an individual. But in the context of the queer community, the pride parade is an effort to gradually reclaim public social spaces that have been historically denied to a marginalised community.

sagnik.dutta@expressindia.com

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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090613/jsp/opinion/story_11100934.jsp

Monday, June 15, 2009

NEVER READY FOR IT

NEVER READY FOR IT

In India, the State now speaks in many tongues on homosexuality. Different ministries have come up with bafflingly different positions on the matter. So far, on the ‘reading down’ of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (the archaic law that ends up criminalizing adult consensual homosexuality in India), the courts have sounded progressive, the health ministry encouraging, and the law and home ministries regressive. The regressiveness is alarming, not only because of the astonishing ignorance, indeed blindness, of its “India is not ready for it yet” position, but also because of the schizophrenic divide regarding sex and sexuality within the State that shows up when the health ministry’s view is compared with those of the law and home ministries. Yet the health ministry’s ‘positive’ stance is founded on fear and caution rather than principled thinking — on the same sort of logic that underlies action against swine ’flu or SARS: if the law is not changed, then it will be difficult to stop people from dying of AIDS. So when the law minister makes vague public noises to the effect that some bits of the IPC “may be” outdated, and Section 377 “could be” one of these bits, then it really does not amount to very much. But by now, hanging on to every word that the State lets fall on the matter, and then trying to make sense of them, have become part of the entire struggle for legal and social change that the movement against Section 377 has become in India.

This movement remains largely confined, though, to those who are victimized by Section 377 — that is, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community, mostly among urban (and sometimes provincial), middle-class Indians. Annual parades and candle-lit vigils, again mostly in the big cities and often (though not always) associated with HIV/AIDS, are when this community is given some visibility in the media, although of a stereotypically colourful kind. Or when big-budget Bollywood indulges in a bit of innocuous same-sex fun, people talk about it for a while, usually with light-hearted titters, as if chatting about exotic lifestyle options. But with food, weddings, cricket and elections being the nation’s chief obsessions, the closet rather than the courtroom is where the matter is invariably laid to rest.

Why does it remain virtually impossible to figure out what the nation’s leaders think about men having sex with men, or women having sex with women? Does the Rashtrapati Bhavan or the Prime Minister’s Office have a view on homosexuality? Would the Gandhis, particularly the younger ones, speak up for it? What does Agatha Sangma, the Lok Sabha’s youngest minister, think about it? How does Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee feel about the sexual orientation of his beloved Proust? All these right-thinking people would not think twice before speaking up against untouchability, apartheid or female circumcision. So why this silence, or slipperiness, about this other, universally acknowledged, form of discrimination?

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Celina: Giving rights to gays doesn't diminish your own

Celina: Giving rights to gays doesn’t diminish your own

15 Jun 2009, 0000 hrs IST, TNN

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Section 377, introduced by Lord Macaulay in 1860 as a part of the IPC, reads, “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of

Celina Jaitley More Pics

nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

Bollywood actress and Miss World Celina Jaitley, a strong supporter of gay rights, is fighting for the amendment of this law. She has written three blogs on the subject in iTimes for which there have been lively feedback, both for and against. Here are some comments from bloggers about Celina's views on gays in India...

V Malhotra
Everybody has different ways of finding happiness and enjoying it. If someone is gay, does it really matter if you are not?

John Smith
To all the retards arguing that gays are normal and their being attracted to their own sex is normal, would you agree that someone attracted to kids or animals and having sex with them is normal, too!

Shreya Bhandary
Parents, forcing heterosexuality on your kids will make their lives a living torture. Instead, let them be, and if possible, support them in their quest for equal rights in society.

Alok Kumar
All so-called modern and educated youth should come forward and support Celina. Today or tomorrow there can be a gay or lesbian in your own homes. Will you kill them in the name of moral values and ethics? Think friends, think and set an example of live and let live. If people think that they have the right to laugh and make fun of gays only because they are straight, they are wrong. Please stop this harassment of gays because all these things are natural, made by God. And nobody has any right to say no to the creation of God.

Kiran Varanasi
I am a heterosexual male, but I consider this fight for gay rights to be my own fight because it is ultimately a fight for individual liberties. We should not sacrifice the freedom of the individual, and as a society, we should strive to be tolerant and accepting. If not, ultimately we will become a monolithic, conformist society with one single language and one single religion and that will be a nightmare.

Radha Krishnan
Denouncing, abusing, hurting and even killing others just because they don’t look like or behave like ‘us’ is so last century. Every such act has been justified through history by invoking God or nature. Apartheid was born thus, the caste system was perpetuated thus. And when nobody speaks out, it becomes ‘what everybody wants’, which is far from the truth.

Vinayak Kamath
My problem is not with giving them equal rights. My problem is not with accepting them as a part of society. My problem is not in socialising with them. My problem is in considering them as an oppressed class. Making them a national issue. Wasting precious time and money on them. My problem is with glorifying them.

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India: 'Sodomy' Laws Perpetuate Colonial Prejudices

India: ‘Sodomy’ Laws Perpetuate Colonial Prejudices

Courts Should Decriminalize Adult, Consensual Same-Sex Acts

June 14, 2009

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“Why would a country that prides itself on being the world’s largest democracy keep laws on the books that blatantly violate human rights? And why would a nation with a thriving civil society, including a vibrant LGBT human rights movement, hold on to colonial morality codes?”

Dipika Nath, Researcher for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights Program at Human Rights Watch

(Delhi) - As the High Court in Delhi prepares to rule on whether adult, consensual homosexual conduct should continue to be illegal in India, the nation's new government should drop its opposition to law reform, Human Rights Watch said today. The organization today issued the Hindi translation of a report documenting how the majority of the world's "sodomy laws" are outworn relics of British colonial rule.

The 90-page report, "This Alien Legacy: The Origins of "Sodomy" Laws in British Colonialism," details how Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which criminalizes "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" with up to life imprisonment, was imposed on India by the British as an instrument of social control. Human Rights Watch called on Indian authorities to support reforming the discredited provision. It also called on other governments retaining these archaic laws to move quickly toward their abolition. By criminalizing adult, consensual same-sex acts, Section 377 violates individuals' fundamental rights to privacy and freedom from non-discrimination.

"Why would a country that prides itself on being the world's largest democracy keep laws on the books that blatantly violate human rights?" said Dipika Nath, a researcher for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "And why would a nation with a thriving civil society, including a vibrant LGBT human rights movement, hold on to colonial morality codes?"

Indian LGBT rights organizations in Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, and Bangalore have organized discussions and events around the report and the High Court case between June 12 and June 25, 2009. The groups organizing the events are: Pratyay Gender Trust and Sappho for Equality in Kolkata; the Shakti Center in Chennai; LABIA in Mumbai; and Alternative Law Forum, Sangama, and LesBiT in Bangalore. The Delhi High Court is expected to deliver its ruling on the case this summer.

The Indian Penal Code was the first comprehensive criminal code Britain drafted for its colonies; it served as a model for similar codes forced on jurisdictions throughout the British Empire. Versions of Section 377 also served as the model for similar laws across Asia and Africa. A majority of the countries that continue to criminalize adult, consensual same-sex relations inherited these laws from their colonizers, though several now claim them as a part of their pre-colonial tradition and national identity.

In the Delhi High Court case aimed at decriminalizing homosexual conduct, the Indian government has claimed that sodomy laws defend traditional cultural values. In stark contrast to these assertions, the Human Rights Watch report shows that homophobic laws, not homosexual conduct, are a Western import. Colonial morals laws categorized entire classes of people, such as hijras (working-class, male-to-female transgender individuals), as "criminal tribes" who could be arrested simply for appearing in public.

"Section 377, like its sibling laws in other formerly colonized countries, is a legacy of British rule," Nath said. "It is disturbing that post-colonial democratic states like India treat these undemocratic, discriminatory laws as traditions, not impositions."

Moreover, Section 377 and other British-era sodomy laws make no distinction between consensual and non-consensual sex, or between sex among adults and sexual abuse of children. As a result, these surviving laws leave many rape victims and child victims of abuse without effective legal protection.

A 2001 fact-finding report by the People's Union for Civil Liberties-Karnataka found that police use Section 377 to blackmail gay and bisexual men, to detain individuals illegally, and to intimidate lesbians and other women in same-sex relationships. The petitioners in the ongoing case in the Delhi High Court have also argued that Section 377 is used to harass and abuse HIV/AIDS workers and particularly to target members of already-marginalized communities, such as hijras.

In 1994, the UN Human Rights Committee - which authoritatively interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) - held that sodomy laws violate the rights to privacy and to non-discrimination.

"From Malaysia to Uganda, governments use these laws to harass civil society, restrict freedom of speech, discredit political enemies, and destroy lives," Nath said.

Colonies and countries that retain versions of this British sodomy law include:

· In Asia and the Pacific: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Burma, India, Kiribati, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Western Samoa. (Governments that inherited the same British law, but have abolished it since include: Australia, Fiji, Hong Kong, and New Zealand.)

· In Africa: Botswana, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Eleven former British colonies in the Caribbean also retain sodomy laws derived from a different British model than the one imposed on India.

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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Stigma against Nagpur gay couple in India

Stigma against Nagpur gay couple

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Yeh Jeevan Hai.............

Thousands join gay pride parades in Europe

15 hours ago

PARIS (AFP) — Thousands of people across Europe on Saturday took part in colourful gay pride parades to protest against anti-gay prejudice.

In Rome, organisers said an estimated 200,000 people took part while in the French city of Strasbourg the turnout was put at between 2,800 and 3,500 by police and organisers.

Around 2,000 Greek gay and lesbian people also marked the annual gay pride event in Athens, with an estimated 1,000 taking to the streets in Warsaw and several hundred in Zagreb.

Gay rights activist Rossana Traitano in Rome said the country had more in common with "Russia than with France" in its attitude to gays and lesbians.

In Zagreb, special police accompanied the marchers and a few dozen anti-gay protesters carrying banners with slogans including "gay pride the shame of our city" booed and shouted insults.

"Despite our presence there is still a lack of freedom, a restrictedness," Marko Jurcic, a gay activist, told journalists before a 30-minute-long march through central Zagreb.

"We want that the city of Zagreb, its institutions and citizens recognise our existence and our support for an open and better Zagreb," he added.

"They (gays) are endangering the freedom of normal, heterosexual people who want to raise their families ... and live according to God's and natural laws," said Josip Miljak, head of the extreme-right Croatian Pure Party of Rights that organised the anti-gay protest.

Polish activist Tomasz Baczkowski said attitudes were changing slowly in the largely Catholic country.

"But the intolerance is still omnipresent, so much so that our parades are always useful," he said.

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