‘Public
discussion of homosexuality in India has been inhibited by the fact that
sexuality in any form is rarely discussed openly.’
I
read this line on Wikipedia when I googled ‘Homosexuality in India’. (We really
have a Wikipedia page for everything today, don’t we?) The reason behind me, googling
this is the fact that it just isn't talked about in this country.
Recently, I saw this interview of Saif Ali
Khan on The Front Row. And it jogged my thought process switching it onto a
completely different lane. He talked in the interview, about how we Indians aren’t
honest. That we portray this image of our country being progressive because the people are now more
open about affection, love and sex, all of which are inter-related and that we
are a power house because of our technology and our dwindling economy. This
image is an illusion. We aren’t allowed to talk about sex in public and are definitely
not allowed to make public our affection for one another, what with all the
cops tapping on our car windows. He talked about how our cinema isn’t honest
about what love and compassion are about. We live in a society which doesn't accept people for who they are.
In
such a society, is it really a surprise that there’s a law which makes
homosexuality illegal? When the straight ones aren't given the right to hold
hands in public peacefully, the sexuality that is apparently ‘correct’ and ‘natural’
(according to the cuckoos), how can we expect this to be ‘tolerated’? Love, sex and freedom, is tabooed in our
country.
I
was part of this ridiculous incident once, something which hasn’t really been
talked about or thought about in the way I have recently. My friends and I were
one afternoon sitting in a coffee shop in Pune. We had newspapers on the table
and had just looked through an article about an adult star being part of a new
film. This led to a discussion about her involvement and whether this was
something the public wanted to watch. Now my friends, including me, have a
tendency to get a little passionate in the midst of a discussion and as a
result, our voices were a little louder than they should have been. As a
result, the table behind us, with three people, overheard us. One man on the
table started to talk very loudly, so as to make a point, about adult starts
and making comments that linked them to my friends and me. There were specific
comments that were made, intentionally directed at us. Our male counterparts on
the table, protective as they are, realized this and turned around to address
them. This led to a completely unnecessary and heated argument which comprised
of the man telling my friend that she looked like a bedbug and her parents
would be ashamed of her if they knew she was part of a discussion such as this.
There were threats made to us that they knew Sharad Powar and we were asked
where we lived and so on and so forth. This ended with us all being told to
leave the shop.
In
such a situation, where our freedom of speech is being taken away by our own
people because the subject at hand is not deemed ‘decent’, what is one to do?
The problem lies within us, within our society. Our concept of love, passion
and what it entails is flawed. And this avoidance has led to ignorance. People
are misinformed and misguided. We grow up believing that everyone is not equal.
We find reasons to discriminate. If we, the people of India, cannot find our
humanity and gain perspective, what is the government going to do? If the way
of thought isn’t changing, how will the law?
Did you know that our most beloved and cherished
historical texts support homosexuality? Hinduism has taken various
positions, ranging from positive to neutral or antagonistic. Rigveda, one of the four
canonical sacred texts of Hinduism says ‘Vikriti Evam Prakriti’, which means ‘what
seems un-natural is also natural’ which some scholars believe recognizes the
cyclical constancy of homosexual/transsexual dimensions of human life, like all
forms of universal diversities. The classic Indian text Kama Sutra deals without ambiguity or
hypocrisy with all aspects of sexual life—including marriage, adultery,
prostitution, group sex, sadomasochism, male and female homosexuality, and
transvestism.
There
is a basic rule book, which everyone is supposed to follow. A rule book written
by all the wrong sorts of people. This rule book is not dictated by our
government, it’s dictated by society, by us. We make the government. We are the
government. So what are we doing? We need to sit down and question our humanity
and our principles. Question your parents and your grand-parents; let us figure
out the problem here. Figure out why this is happening to our country and to
our people. Didn’t God make all humans to be equal and have equal rights? Aren't we all his children? They are not mistakes! And if they are, then we all are.
