Old wine in very old bottles http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1564147,00300006.htm
Here we go again! Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code cannot be abolished or read down because (1) It protects our children. (2) To protect public morality. (3) To prevent obscenity. Choose any, or all, of the three to stop those nasty homosexuals from over-running the country. After ten years of consistent campaigning, the country's sexual minorities, who include the very visible hijras and the very invisible bisexual men and women, have been included willy-nilly in the government's programmes. Hijras have just got a separate column in passport forms courtesy the External Affairs Ministry and the very invisible bisexuals have been included in the contact-tracing forms at the thousands of voluntary confidential counselling testing centres (VCCTCs) supported by the Health Ministry, down to every district hospital. But here we have the Home Ministry lecturing to us, yet again, about "morality" even as the HIV graph shows a rock-steady climb despite years of work by the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) since the early 1990s. In fact, NACO circulated its latest "Budgetary Guidelines for Targeted Interventions" in February this year, to every official State AIDS Control Society (SACS) stating that the "Core Populations" each SACS must compulsorily fund are IVDU (Intravenous Drug Users), Sex Workers (both male and female), and the rather perplexing MSM, whose full form is Men- Having-Sex-With-Men (MSM). Read behaviourally homosexual males. Obviously, the left hand of the government does not know what the right hand is doing. It's like the Indian Rope Trick: you see the rope rising in the air but not the person who is pulling it upwards! If the most important health programme of the government accepts homosexuals as a vulnerable group, how on earth does the very important Home Ministry, which has just told us the earth shattering news that it cannot curb Naxalism, go about policing something as private as sexuality? And wasn't it public morality that says child marriage is right? The Home Ministry hasn't been able to police Parliament's decision to stop them anywhere in India. Nor has it been able to prevent Sati that whole swathes of people in Rajasthan think is very moral act for a Hindu widow. Is it not true that the very Constitution of India was written so that each individual Indian's basic rights were protected against the "morality" of the majority? Argued another way, if the state really wished to encroach on private space, why is it not trying to stop domestic violence? Why, for example, does it not punish marital rape, which is the lot of women in India? Why are police not given enough powers to stop the bashing of women and the sexual violence against within their very homes? Surely there is merit in that argument when they have got as far as reservations for them from the Panchayats upwards? But then the very important State, our very Mai-Baap-Sarkar, hasn't been able to stop child labour, assure each able man or woman some gainful work, stop bride burning across the land, maintains silence when a father-in-law rapes a hapless women alone at home and gets a fatwa to marry her, is silent on talaqs by phone and email and even insists that Christian women be proved adulteress's to get a simple divorce. Why does it take such a stand now? What's so important about homosexuals that we get picked upon every time? If this is `Hindu morality" the BJP better know that Section 377 of the IPC was brought in from Britain where it percolated into common law from Ecclesiastical Law, more specifically the St. James Bible where Leviticus rants and raves against same-sex relations. Britain threw out its anti-Sodomy statutes in 1968. But obviously, it is all right to defend a law that Christian evangelists keep on selectively quoting as the main floodgate against morality. Which goes to show that all fundamentalists have something in common, I suppose. It is a trifle puzzling that it should come from as liberal a party as the Congress that has always stood for reformation and welcomed change through progressive movements. Maybe homosexuals do not form a constituency who can vote and insist on their rights being defended on consensual relations in private between two adults. This profoundly disturbing repetition of an old argument has to be brought to a logical end. Maybe the World Health Organisation (WHO), which has removed homosexuality from its list of "mental disorders", can impress upon the Government the following argument which is now a "guideline" in the Health Ministry's budgetary books to every State Health Ministry: Each of the "core populations", that have been mentioned as very seriously "infected and affected by HIV" IVDU, sex workers and MSM are criminal in the eyes of the law in India. The Narcotics and Psychotropic Drug Control Act criminalise the IVDUs, the Prevention of Immoral Traffics Act criminalises Sex Workers and Section 377 of the IPC criminalises MSM. So how does the Indian Health Ministry expect any organization to work with these groups? Even doctors treating them can be arrested for becoming accessories to the crime for abetment. In other words, HIV prevention programs in India can go for a six if these laws were ever to be imposed in letter and spirit. A program that however haphazardly it has been executed, prevented millions of new infections and deaths? And does that mean, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered communities in India want Section 377 thrown out of the window. In fact, so civic minded are we that we want stricter laws against rape of women and men. Children too need to be brought under separate laws for molestation of minors. Presently, Section 377 is applied rather crudely for molestation of minors. Also sexual abuse of men or women also implicates the victims too. A whole slew of laws have to be created whereas rape now can be only proved by penetration. The disgusting verbal and physical abuse of women in public spaces goes under the mild term, "eve teasing", when it should be punished under rape laws. But obviously, this is not public morality! Are we to then conclude that the Indian government will stop its HIV prevention program? Or can we now be a bit serious and have some structural changes in these archaic acts to give these populations a little air to breathe the fresh air of freedom? The choice is not for the government because we intend to fight to the end for the right to be ourselves! There is little choice in this matter anymore. The very Constitution of India gives me that right to be what I am; even if I am termed as a public nuisance. In fact, neither the judiciary nor the government has any choice in the matter. Looking around it is obvious that the only countries and nation states that have any kind of anti-sodomy laws are outright dictatorships or theocracies. Even China seems to be relaxing its laws against homosexual relations in private. Along with Iran,Saudi Arabia and Mugabes Zambia, India possibly shares its anti-sodomy with very few countries now sitting in the United Nations. Besides, we Indian homosexuals are organising and very much present within your midst. Were in your face and we are ready for India! Even if India is not ready for us. (The writer is the chairperson, Humsafar Trust, and a well-known gay rights activist) ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> DonorsChoose.org helps at-risk students succeed. Fund a student project today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/LeSULA/FpQLAA/E2hLAA/WfTolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Group Site: http://www.gaybombay.info ========================== This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address. 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