[Bhubaneswar’s gay pride parade came days before a landmark Supreme Court ruling, expected Thursday, which is likely to decriminalize gay sex in this country of 1.3 billion people. But in some ways, the historic ruling is merely catching up with significant shifts in Indian society, where taboos around gay identity are rapidly changing.]
By
Vidhi Doshi
 |
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Transgender
and other college students painted their faces and carried awareness
placards as
they marched in the eastern India on Saturday.
(NurPhoto/Getty Images)
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BHUBANESWAR,
India — Aditya Das traveled
six hours on a bus to this eastern Indian city to attend his first gay pride
parade on Saturday.
He looked around at the crowd as people wove
past traffic and temples, holding rainbow flags and glittery signs in an
exuberant celebration of gay identity.
“I am gay,” a loudspeaker blared. “That’s
okay!” the crowd chanted back.
He had found his own people, said Das, 31. “I
felt I had reached heaven,” he exulted after the parade.
Bhubaneswar’s gay pride parade came days
before a landmark Supreme Court ruling, expected Thursday, which is likely to
decriminalize gay sex in this country of 1.3 billion people. But in some ways,
the historic ruling is merely catching up with significant shifts in Indian
society, where taboos around gay identity are rapidly changing.
In recent years, more than 30 Indian cities —
including Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha state — have held their first gay
pride parades. Gay stereotypes are being challenged in film and mass culture,
too — a handful of recent blockbuster Bollywood films have shown gay characters
not just as caricatures or comedy figures, but as layered protagonists or
supporting actors.
Coming out in India remains difficult,
however. In Bhubaneswar — a town where girls’ colleges lock their doors at 6
p.m. and where public kissing is frowned upon — gay men meet secretly in the
unused bathrooms of the city’s park or on dating apps. Some of those who come
out to their families are forced to take medication, shock therapy or fake cures
peddled by quack doctors and ascetics. Even the movement’s most vocal champions
— some of the organizers of the city’s first pride march — have not told their
parents they are gay or that they attended the event.
But change is afoot. Das is now openly gay in
his remote town of Baripada, about 150 miles northeast of Bhubaneswar, and he
estimates about a third of its residents support him. Five years ago, that
would have been inconceivable, he said.
He volunteers with an underground
organization that tries to identify lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender
people and teach them about sexual health and overcoming bullying. “We tell
them that being gay is natural, that you won’t be able to change. We tell them
that the government will support us, someday; something will change.”
Access to smartphones and cheap Internet has
opened India up to worldwide trends, while the growth of large IT outsourcing
firms in smaller cities has increased financial independence for some young
people, giving many the courage to come out. Dating apps such as Grindr and
Tinder have allowed gay people to discover one another and explore their own
sexuality.
The parade was a novelty in this city — most
of the marchers and organizers had previously seen pride events only on YouTube
or in photographs online.
“I have cried a lot in hiding,” said Sanju,
who was marching for the first time in Bhubaneswar and wanted to be identified
only by his nickname. “Now I am proud. God has made me different. I am one out
of 10.”
[Gay activists in India push top court to end ban on homosexuality — in part for the economy’s sake]
India has flip-flopped on gay rights. In
2009, Delhi’s High Court abolished Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which
outlaws voluntary “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,”
effectively legalizing gay sex. But that verdict was overturned by the Supreme
Court in 2013.
Since then, gay activists have created a huge
public movement against the ban, which on rare occasions has been used to
prosecute gay people but is frequently used by police and vigilante groups to
blackmail and threaten closeted members of the gay community.
“We now have a group of parents filing
petitions to the Supreme Court against 377,” said Arvind Narrain, a lawyer and
activist, referring to one of six petitions the court heard to scrap Section
377. “We have a mother, dressed quite conservatively in a sari, sitting next to
her gay child on national television and making the most radical argument —
that Section 377 goes against family values. You look at that and say, ‘Wow,
the country has changed.’ ”
Part of the movement’s success in India is
due to centuries-long recognition of gender-fluid identities. Ancient Hindu
texts portray characters who identify as being in between male and female.
India has recognized the marginalized intersex or trans “hijra” community for
centuries — a community that is mocked but also associated with mysticism and
power. Because of the hijras’ prominence, government forms have a separate box
for those who identify as “third gender,” and many states provide welfare
programs such as subsidized education for trans people.
But many here have never encountered openly
gay, lesbian or bisexual people and still do not believe they exist in
Bhubaneswar, said Bijaya Biswal, one of the organizers of the pride event.
“People here are not very political,” said the 23-year-old doctor. “It is not
easy to update their thinking.”
Many watching the modest pride parade in
Bhubaneswar did not understand what the slogans and posters meant. “This is
against society,” said Benudhar Baliavsingh, upon learning the purpose of the
march. “What’s good about this?”
Another puzzled onlooker was more positive
when he was told the meaning of the rainbow flag. “This is good. If people love
each other freely, they will live together happily. They won’t fight,” he said.
“This is the start of something huge,” said
one activist who took the microphone, referring to the coming Supreme Court
verdict. Many who attended talked about the need for further legal protections
and rights to protect the LGBTQ community, and the next steps for the gay
movement — such as rights to marriage and adoption.
“A new fight begins now,” said Venkatesh
Kodukula, 26, who travels around the country attending pride marches and has
been to nine this year.
For Das, the visitor attending his first
pride march, being able to walk in the streets and shout about his gay identity
represents a sign of progress. “To see so many people screaming, supporting us
— when I think about it, I cry,” he said.
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