Daily Times

India’s top court began reviewing Tuesday petitions against a colonial-era ban on homosexuality, in the latest chapter of a legal tussle between social and religious conservatives and more liberal-minded Indians.

Section 377 of the penal code, a relic from 1860s British legislation, bans gay acts as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and allows for jail terms of up to life, although prosecutions are rare.

In 2009 the Delhi High Court effectively decriminalised gay sex, saying a ban violated fundamental rights, but the Supreme Court reinstated it in 2013 after religious groups successfully appealed.

The Supreme Court said the High Court had overstepped its authority and that the responsibility for changing the law rested with lawmakers not the courts. Efforts to introduce legislation however came to nothing.

In January this year however, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge by a clutch of high-profile Indians who said the law created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in the world’s largest democracy.

One of them, Keshav Suri, a hotelier, told AFP last month he wanted “an inclusive and diverse India.”

“I am a proud gay man, I want to live with dignity. I want to have the right to live with dignity,” he said.

“I want to be able to make sure that every citizen in this country has the right to choose their sexual orientation as a consenting adult.”

The gay community was emboldened last year when the Supreme Court referred explicitly to the issue in a landmark ruling upholding the right to privacy.

Gay sex has long been taboo in conservative India, particularly in rural areas where nearly 70 percent of people live, with homophobia widespread. Some still regarding homosexuality as a mental illness.

Published in Daily Times, July 11^th 2018.