One of the points made by the petitioners challenging Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises homosexuality is that the law is an outcome of Victorian morality of the 1860s. “As society changes, so should values,” argued the petitioners’ lawyer, Mukul Rohatgi.
Nothing indicates this change in society more sharply than an e-mail I received last week. It came from a PR professional writing on behalf of Keshav Suri, the scion of the Lalit Suri Hospitality Group. The writer announced that Suri, who is openly and proudly gay and one of the challengers of Section 377, would “be open for reactions” post the Tuesday SC hearing.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I know Suri is gay. I’ve heard him speak on the subject and read an authored piece on the difficult growing up years that preceded his “self-realisation, acceptance, and coming out”. And yet I was taken aback. Imagine a scion of a prominent Indian business house not just coming out in public but suing the government for not celebrating his status, even a decade ago. It’s not as if homosexuality didn’t exist earlier. I can think of many eminent Indian business leaders of a previous generation who were or are gay. But I’d be hard-pressed to think of anyone who didn’t play down his preferences or stood up for his clan in public. If they did anything at all, it was to marry the maiden of mummy’s choice and play daddy to a few babies (whom they did or didn’t father) before scurrying back into the shadows of forbidden love.
I can understand why they did that. Being “different” is the most difficult thing in the world, especially when you are part of a regimented life, like those in school or the military, the corporate world and even the government are. The message of conformity is so pervasive, you have to hide your “difference” with the determination of a worker bee. Or else, do what gay icon and filmmaker Karan Johar does, hide in plain sight, as the closeted butt of jokes—his own and others’.
It’s an odd time in this country. On one hand, the LGBT community has burst upon us. Gay dating apps do brisk business, and pretty boys brush against each other at parties. Celebrity homosexuals adopting babies, or having them through surrogacy, are being embraced by their families. Most of the challengers of Section 377, who include a Bharatnatyam dancer, a celebrity chef, a hotelier and a journalist, live the lives of their choice. You might think it’s easy for them, coming as they do from backgrounds of privilege and power.
But that’s only privately, semi-socially. Legally, as Rohatgi said in court, same-sex love remains “against the order of nature”, vulnerable to police abuse and public disdain. If you’re rich and caught, you’re mocked and blackmailed; if poor, you’re forced to perform sexual favours for your oppressors. Suri puts it best when he says: “There’s a law in this country that gives homophobes the power to be homophobic. That needs to change.” Time to give same-sex love the power to speak its name.
Shampa Dhar-Kamath
shampa@newindianexpress.com