Read what S Gurumurthy has to say on the issue by clicking the link provided
or reading the content herein given
Best regards,
Dr. U. G. Barad
Dated: 05 Jul 2009
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/print.aspx?artid=|h1DXfUW5DY=
Homosexuals displaced the Economic Survey for the year 2008-09 from the
headlines of most media on July 3, 2009. "Historic bench mark"; "Sexual
equality"; "Landmark Judgement". This is how the media had headlined the
Delhi High Court judgment holding Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which
makes homosexual acts offences in law, partly unconstitutional.
Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code was not Manu's code. It was Macaulay's.
This colonial law made homo sexuality punishable. In Judo-Christian
tradition, homosexuality was seen an act against the law of God, punishable
even with death. The Islamic rules also prescribed capital punishment for
the offence. In all Abrahamic traditions, the hostility to homosexuality
originated in the story associated with a city as Sodom (the etymological
source of the world 'sodomy') where the sexual sin was first committed
according to their texts, though the respective accounts varied. This is the
philosophy of the law against homosexuals in Abrahamic societies. Macaulay's
law reflected their theological position. Earlier, there was no state law in
India to punish homosexuality. Does that mean that the Hindu - read Indian -
tradition approved of homosexuality? Read on.
What was the position of the state and state enacted laws in India such
matters? The king or the state in India had refrained from handling most
issues which the society or families could handle. It is the colonial state,
with its laws and courts, that began to intrude the sovereign domain of the
family and society. The Indian discipline was always built around unenforced
social and family norms; not state laws.
Self-restraint and shyness were the tools to regulate the deviants from the
norms, not the police or courts. Even today, it is this non-formal moral
order - read dharma - not the laws of parliament or state assemblies, that
largely governs this society. India is otherwise ungovernable; just some
12000 plus police stations in some 7 lakh towns and villages cannot regulate
over 110 crore people. Thanks to this moral order, the Indian society had
handled, and even now handles, such sensitive issues with great finesse than
does state law. It is in stark contrast to the gross state law and media
discourse of today. Historian Devdutt Pattanaik says that in Hindu
literature 'though not part of the mainstream, the existence of
homosexuality was recognised, but, not approved'. Narada smiriti prohibited
marriage of homo sexual men with women. Manu did suggest mild punishments
for homos, but of an extreme type. The Indian tradition therefore neither
encouraged nor punished lesbians or gays; nor did it celebrate them or
despise them. It regarded them as a small, marginal fact of life, preferring
to ignore them; and treating them as not worthy of public discussion for or
against that might disturb the rest of the society.
Homosexuals are, in numbers, marginal even in the West. In the US where the
gay-lesbians are aggressive in the public discourse, the 2000 US Census data
reveals that only 0.42% households are same-sex households.
Studies in US or France and Canada show just some 1-2% admit to be gays or
lesbians. The deviation from the mainstream behaviour is as marginal as
that. Yet it is the geo-Christian hostility to even such marginal groups
that turns them into vociferous action groups in the West.
In the Indian - read Hindu - civilisational ethos, humans had never been
seen as belonging to one uniform behavioural class. The Indian civilisation
had recognised diversity in behaviour and morals. It therefore never
imposed one moral value or rule for all. But it believed in a hierarchy of
moral principles. It held out right conduct as ideal for the rest to imbibe
and follow, but on their own volition. Even as it had evolved normative
moral principles for the mainline society, it had subtly ignored, rather
than focus on or punish, the deviants. Those who could not follow an ideal
were never held as illustration for others to follow.
For example, the Indian society had evo lved one man-one wife as the ideal
model for life, but never made it the law. It had indeed celebrated
monogamy; but had never prohibited or punished polygamy. It did not even
outlaw polyandry. Even today, regardless of the law, polygamy prevails in
different parts of India. Even polyandry exists in certain communities in
North India. It is neither proscribed nor accepted by others. But even those
who did not follow the ideal of monogamy never disputed its virtue; nor did
those who followed that virtue look down upon those who did not. Sri Rama
was monogamous, but his father, Dasharatha, was polygamous. Yet, Rama
revered him; obeyed him totally. Rama is therefore rega rded, besides an
ideal being, an ideal son
