India’s Supreme Court to rule on gay sex

“Members of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups held tearful celebrations in cities across the South Asian nation of 1.25 billion people as the historic verdict was read out”, Agence France Presse, a Paris-based newswire. Gay sex was punishable by up to 10 years in jail.

India’s Supreme Court is due to deliver a landmark verdict on Thursday, when it will decide if gay sex should remain a criminal offence in the country.

The court ruled that the colonial-era law criminalising homosexuality is unconstitutional. “Now we can walk toward equality in this country”. “These relationships are not natural, so we do not support this kind of relationship”. It had become a weapon for the harassment of LGBT and subject them to discrimination.

Justice Chandrachud, while reading out the operative portion of his verdict, said members of LGBTQ community were targeted and exploited due to Section 377. “I am really speechless”. The draconian law, which was penned down by the British in 1861, had been under implementation in India long after the British left the country and long after the United Kingdom had decriminalised it themselves.

Bhuwan Kathuria and Bismaya Kumar Raulo are overjoyed after hearing the verdict. All the five judges unanimoulsy passed the judgement.

Justice Indu Malhotra says, “History owes the members of this community redressal for past persecution and ignorance of the majority”.

Thursday’s judgement is a shot in the arm for India’s gay community.

Among those who joined the petitioners were students and alumni of some of India’s most prestigious colleges. The netizens too took to several social media to express their happiness over the Supreme Court’s decision to legalise gay sex.

Maintaining the anonymity of themselves, a government functionary said, “Decriminalisation of same-sex acts was fine but the government would oppose any demand to legalise same-sex marriage”.

In his separate judgment, Justice Chandrachud also said that due to Section 377 IPC, the LGBT people were forced to live in hiding and as second-class citizens even as others enjoyed the right of sexual orientation. A change in legislation “creates a space of freedom where you can start expecting justice”, Danish Sheikh, a law professor at Jindal Global Law School and LGBT advocate, told CNN.

Homosexuality has a tangled history in India, with some of Hinduism’s most ancient texts accepting of gay sex.

Activists in Muslim-majority Bangladesh and Pakistan said they planned to push for reform of the laws that their countries also inherited from colonial Britain. “It’s a long journey we need to tread”.

“Finally I can appeal to the courts by showing them the Supreme Court judgement and I can be free at last”, Jafar said. “They calls us names, they tease us, they bully us, so it is still very prevalent”.

But while the justices are rightly being praised for the verdict, the overturning of Section 377 is really the result of years of activism by India’s LGBT community.