http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/love-and-gender-according-to-the-hindu-epics/?_r=0
December 13, 2013, 1:18 am 13 Comments<http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/love-and-gender-according-to-the-hindu-epics/#postComment> Love and Gender, According to the Hindu EpicsBy DILIP D'SOUZA<http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/author/dilip-dsouza/> Courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan“Same Sex Love in India” edited by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai. Now that the Supreme Court has restored<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/world/asia/court-restores-indias-ban-on-gay-sex.html?hp>the 19th-century ban on homosexuality, when all the arguments are done, when we Indians have heard everything about freedom over our bodies and homosexuality being a Western import and the right to privacy and more, maybe it’s time to remember our traditions. Perhaps there are lessons there about homosexuality too. Back in July 2009, the Delhi High Court declared that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which made illegal homosexuality as well as some kinds of consensual heterosexual sex, was unconstitutional. The language the court used then is remarkable, even in its formal legal decorum, for its humanity. These famous lines moved me then and move me still: “If there is one constitutional tenet that can be said to be the underlying theme of the Indian Constitution, it is that of ‘inclusiveness.’ This court believes that Indian Constitution reflects this value, deeply ingrained in Indian society, nurtured over several generations. The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspect of life, is manifest in recognizing a role in society for everyone. Those perceived by the majority as ‘deviants’ or ‘different’ are not on that score excluded or ostracized.” Understandably, that was a euphoric moment for plenty of Indians – plenty of ordinary men and women who had, until that moment, been living lives crammed with daily crimes. In contrast, Dec. 11, 2013, has been called a day of mourning by many in India. In overturning the 2009 ruling, the Supreme Court declared that Section 377 “does not suffer from the vice of unconstitutionality and the declaration made by the Division Bench of the High Court is legally unsustainable.” Because of these words, plenty of Indian men and women have returned to living lives crammed with daily crimes. There is much that is questionable here. There’s the baffling Supreme Court claim that only a “minuscule fraction” of India is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, and of that fraction, only 200 have ever been prosecuted under Section 377. Therefore, Section 377 cannot be called unconstitutional. (Yes, brows shall furrow: Is the Constitution decided by numbers?). There’s the attempt to divide people into “different classes” based on the kind of intercourse they indulge in – the “ordinary course” kind or the “against the order of nature” kind. (Brows shall furrow some more: one more reason to draw lines.) There’s also the court’s “grave doubts about the expediency of transplanting Western experience in this country.” On this point, it’s worth reminding the Supreme Court of our very own Indian experience, homegrown stuff never transplanted. For example, there’s one of our most famous pilgrimage sites, the temple to Ayyappan in Sabarimala, Kerala. Some 30 million men travel there for an annual festival, their austere black and blue clothing familiar to everyone in south India. Ayyappan was the son born of a legendary union between the gods Shiva and Vishnu. Vishnu was in the form of a woman, Mohini, his only female avatar. Even so, the essential maleness of the gods is manifest in even Ayyappan’s other name: Hari Hara Putra, or the son of the male couple Hari (a name for Vishnu) and Hara (a name for Shiva). The gender ambiguity is itself an ancient tradition that says things about how casually we once viewed these themes. In a Tamil Nadu temple, for example, it is Shiva who is worshipped as a woman: a mother who comes to help a daughter in need. In this form, he is called Tayumanavar (“He who became a mother too”). And there’s the remarkable story of same-sex love in the god Ram’s ancestry. We owe one version of the Ramayana, the story of Ram, to a 15th-century Bengali poet, Krittibas Ojha. His Krittivasi Ramayana is easily the most popular rendering of the story among Bengalis. In her book “Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West,” Ruth Vanita explains what this version tells us about one of Ram’s ancestors, the King Dilipa (after whom, for what it’s worth, I am named). Dilipa had two wives. Unfortunately, he could not bear children. When he died, he left his queens devastated and his kingdom heirless. In their grief, the queens turned to each other in love. Their lovemaking had the gods’ blessings; Shiva assured them that they would produce a “lovely child.” The Krittivasi description of what happened next is moving and tender: *Bhage bhage sambhog je tathe upagata* *Brahmadev thuilen nam bhagiratha.* “Born of the mutual enjoyment between two vulvas, the god Brahma named him Bhagiratha.” In other words, the very name of Ram’s ancestor, Bhagiratha, is a reminder of, and a tribute to, the love – the “mutual enjoyment” – his parents, the two queens, shared. Ms. Vanita underlines the Bhagiratha story with an intriguing analogy: “Like Leonardo da Vinci imagining the airplane long before it could be constructed, the Bhagiratha narratives imagine women producing a child together.” Airplanes, of course, are now just part of the scenery. Not even my cats pay attention when one roars overhead. Ms. Vanita suggests that in much the same way, there will come a time when we Indians pay no attention to women in love. To men in love. To children born of such love, even. All of it will be just part of the scenery too, like it once was in India. *Dilip D’Souza is a writer based in **Mumbai**. He has written four books, most recently “The Curious Case of Binayak Sen**.**” Find him on Twitter at@DeathEndsFun <https://twitter.com/DeathEndsFun>.* -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
