Press
Release
Around the 4th anniversary of
the partial repeal of Section 377 Indian Penal Code, a reception was hosted by
the British High Commission, New Delhi. But how about the British government
formally apologizing to the LGBTQIA community in India- as also in all other
countries colonized by it. After all the colonial masters had bulldozed the sexuality
culture of the natives and everywhere thrust an alien culture including anti-sodomy
laws on those ruled. It brought centuries of trauma and torture to the sexual
minorities who were targeted by the police and administration; extortion of
money was the norm. Victims were jailed.
The British High Commissioner should
have had the grace to assure that he would set in motion the process of a
formal apology right from up to the Queen. The reception hosted at the British
High Commission residence looked politically fake and devoid of any moral force
in the absence of an apology.
The
invitation to the Indian NGOs was ostensibly with a view to let it be known
that more foreign funding of the NGOs for a future campaign is in the offing. (Funded
work globally subverts peoples’ movements.) Besides how about the British
government compensating the LGBTQIA community in India for destroying their culture,
identity, life and forcing them to live in ignominy since 1860.
It needs to be stressed that partial
repeal of Section 377 Indian Penal Code in India is akin to a concession
called, Home Rule conceded by British colonial rulers decades before independence
in 1947. (Adult consensual homosexual act in the privacy of one’s home has been
wrested from the Indian Supreme Court in 2018; in this judgement the apex court
had tendered an apology to the gay community.)
Since 1988-89 ABVA has been demanding in
toto repeal of the anti-sodomy law which alone represents full freedom and
liberation from colonial yoke. The full Gay Manifesto has been enunciated in ‘Less than Gay’ – A
citizens’ report on the status of homosexuality in India publicly released in November
1991 by ABVA.
AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan Collective
Email: aidsbhedbhavvirodhiandolan@gmail.com
