Why India’s Gays Have it Coming
Jul 9th, 2008 by ashwin
Everyday, around mid-afternoon, a current of neatly dressed school boys pour over the sidewalks of New Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta. Groups of friends stay close to each other, playing affectionately. Some have their arms around each other’s waists, others in each other’s hair, and still others with their hands clasped, fingers laced between fingers.
Grown men around them, too, are laughing and singing and swinging their locked arms like they’re on stage at the Birdcage.
Yeh dosti hum nahi chorenghe.
There is no audience, nobody stares and nobody whispers. This is normal. This is called dosti, friendship, and it is nothing more than a heterosexual expression of male bonding. Straight as an arrow.
Except, of course, if you’re gay. Then, its a sort of crooked and clandestine enjoyment taking place behind the opaque veil of socially acceptable touching.
Either way, it flies; one of the few remnants of a culture whose definitions of masculinity, affection and sexuality predate the prevailing, parochial notions of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Dammed up in the years since the British came and left, that ancient culture is finally resurfacing. And they’re not just holding hands and singing Kumbaya.
For the first time in its history, India celebrated Gay Pride Week with a series of parades across several major cities. Transgender hijras joined ranks with masked men and lesbians, marching in front of millions, hoping to bring a culture out of hibernation.
The London-based Economist saw it as an interesting departure for such a “conservative country.”
Yet historically, India has been a vastly tolerant place for sexual experimentation and homosexuality. Kamasutra aside, ancient Hindu texts and penal codes made similar provisions for hetero- and homosexuals. Both were acknowledged as acceptable forms of intercourse.
It was, in fact, British moral code that transmogrified that tradition. Indian Penal Code, Section 377, implemented under British rule, states:
Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment…
Today, that very code is being fought, one day to be stricken from the record and washed over by welled-up ancient culture unafraid to intertwine fingers.
Yeh dosti hum nahi chorenghe - This friendship: we will never let go.
Wow, I’ve always just assumed it was more deeply rooted in the culture. I guess it shows just how little time it takes for a culture to make a 180. Hopefully that’s a good thing for at least the current and next few generations of gays in India.
It’s fascinating — but it’s just the beginning of the gay movement, so it’ll be interesting to see how they manage to keep up the pace over the long run.