By Teesta Dasgupta
Straight allies – That is what this movement needs. We might have written the Kamasutra but a treatise on sex positions doesnt make us authorities on gender and sexuality. Honestly, to most Indians the concept of gender and sexuality is a big blur.
On the question of gender, Chaz Bono put it best when he said your gender is between your ears not between your legs. On the question of Sexuality, what we should realize is that the world is not based on binaries. To tie up gender to sexuality is making a faulty assumption that might knowingly or unknowingly hurt people. We have in every aspect tried to separate love from sex. Yet when it comes to a boy loving a boy or a girl wanting to marry a girl – it is unnatural because thats not how our sex works. If you are boy you stick your penis up a vagina and if you are a girl you part your legs let the man in. Doesnt sound like love to me at all.
However this article isnt on how homosexuality and all its derivatives are completely normal and acceptable. Here, I would like to take things a step further. The need of the hour is awareness. People should be educated in schools, colleges, work places about the LGBT community. Maybe come in contact with their families, with their kids. Discrimination is hard to pursue when you put a face on it. Parents of gay kids should be counselled and told that their child deserves a happy healthy life like anybody else. That there is nothing wrong with them and they should be encouraged to step out of the closet and embrace their identities rather than try to fit into a hetero-normative lifestyle that will obviously push him/her deeper into depression. In India this is a far cry but when accomplished it would see a drop in teenage suicides, in hate-crimes, honour-killings, work-place humiliation and see the rise of a happier, socially active gay community.
So what is the problem? The problem is the Draconian Law that goes by the name IPC 377. You have obviously heard about it but you dont clearly know what it is. This is what it looks like
My friends in law school helped me throw some light on it. I will try my best to communicate what I learnt. If your placards read Down with IPC 377. Change them. The law is a very important one and cannot be done away with. It is the only law in the Constitution that is against necrophilia and bestiality. The fight however, is over the interpretation of the law. As mentioned intercourse against order of nature with a man or woman (rape), animal (bestiality) or corpses (necrophilia) or a child (paedophilia) is punishable. Do you see a pattern here? I do. I think none of the sexual partners in the manner are willing. I mean I dont think any man or woman would consent to rape. A child barely knows what he/she is up against. Corpses for that matter are well, pretty dead already. As for beasts or animals, how would a horse say yes sir, I would love to have sex with you a loud neigh? All the partners here, are non-consenting unless you speak horse. It is non-consensual. That is what makes it unnatural. It is forced upon. But two people who are consenting, most probably in love can do anything in the privacy of their bed-rooms. This is where it gets interesting. If it were a hetero-sexual couple would questions be asked? Would eye-brows be raised? NO. Then this is a clear case of discrimination. It is open and it is blatant. The courts interpretation is unconstitutional and coloured by bigotry. The law symbolizes the discrimination and domination of the straight majority on the gay, lesbian, transgender minority. Sadly, had this minority issue been good enough to promise a big raise in the vote-bank all our politicians would be climbing over one another to get a piece of it. They would be walking in queer prides and donning rainbow garlands. But the LGBT community doesnt live in communes. They are spread out and possess their own very separate political views. They are in themselves a mixed community bound by the intolerance they face. A political voice hence is nothing but a hopeless dream as of now.
You may say you love each other, but I do not care. No, I cannot turn away and simply let you live your life in peace and happiness. I must do something about it. I will indeed do something about it. No, you have not harmed me, but I will harm you. I will disown you, I will treat you with contempt, I will make you an outcaste or a criminal, I will lock you up. I will break your legs, I will fling acid in your face, I will hang you from a crane, and I will stone you to death.
If the mob helps me, so much the better. If the law helps me, so much the better. If I can wrap myself in a flag, so much the better. If I can drape religion around myself, so much the better. But by one means or another, I will tear the two of you apart. It is fit and proper that I should do this.
I will do this because my Clan tells me to, my Panchayat tells me to, this Book tells me to, this Section of this Act tells me to, Civilisation itself tells me to, God himself tells me to.
No appeal to reason will touch me. No appeal to humanity will touch me. No appeal to Indian history or modern science will touch me. My brain is a science-free zone. My brain is a history-free zone. My brain is a fact-free zone.
This, at its core, is a simple matter. My love is right. Your love is wrong.”
-Vikram Seth, My love is right, your love is wrong.
Teesta Dasgupta is an avid blogger, food-buff, incorrigible bibliophile and given to hair-splitting analysis of everything under the sun. She is finishing her degree at St. Stephens College, Delhi and works part-time as a volunteer for a SWO (Siliguri Welfare organization) in her scenic hometown of Siliguri, Darjeeling. She swears by Oscar Wilde, Ayn Rand, Coldplay, The Big Bang Theory (TBBT) and pizza. Feel free to contact her at owruleth@gmail.com or Twitter.