Jewish Diaspora - Speak Up For Palestinians

 “When crime becomes authority

And hunts down people branding them criminals

Everyone with a voice and keeps silent

Becomes criminal himself.” (Poet Varavara Rao)

 

About time middle class Jews

Spread across the world

Break their silence

And speak up.

 

While you sought greener pastures in the west

Got exposed to democratic, secular ideals

Your elected government back home

Created a monstrous, theocratic state.

 

Of what use then

Your exposure to progressive, liberal ideas

While fundamentalism rules the roost

In Israel.

 

Enterprising and economically well off

Jewish establishments control the world media

Brutally manipulating news and views

To serve its political interests.

 

Judiciary - the last bastion of justice

Being systematically subverted

Under pressure

From ultra-right wing coalition partners.

 

Courts regularly legitimise

Demolition of Palestinian houses

And hand over vacant land

To right wing Israeli settlers.

 

In Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’

Shylock demanded his pound of flesh

Ensure this politically incorrect image of Jews

Remains buried six fathoms deep.

 

Let Netanyahu not exhume it

And revive it by revengeful acts

Jews abroad break your silence

Speak up before it is too late.

 

Netanyahu now demands his pound of flesh

Total elimination of Hamas, the fighters

Can he assure that it will be just a pound of flesh?

No more, no less; not a drop of civilian blood?

 

Present turbulent times cry out

That middle class Jews world-wide

Should collectively don the role

Of a Daniel come to judgement.

 

By roaring publicly for a ceasefire in Gaza

Urging for immediate lifting of siege of millions

And ensuring peaceful return of land

To its rightful owners, the Palestinians.

 

P.S. Sahni 

ABVA's work acknowledged in the same-sex marriage judgement

 

The Chief Justice of India in his judgement on same-sex marriage refers to ABVA and its report “Less than Gay” on page 87 para 89 of the judgement. Full judgement is available here.

On 27.04.2023 ABVA sent an open letter to the Chief Justice of India and his companion judges stating:

 

“The organization ABVA (AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan) was formed in 1988-89 and has spearheaded the gay rights movement in India since then. All our activities have been documented and can be accessed at http://aidsbhedbhavvirodhiandolan.blogspot.com/….

 

Our experience of over three decades indicates that irrespective of the party in power at the Centre there is no intention to address the LGBTQIA issues.

 

So ABVA was forced to bring out another document in 2021 titled “The Struggle Will Continue Till Parliament Debates – Nay Concedes – The Gay Manifesto, 1991 New Delhi, India” which can be accessed here.

 

Through this letter we wish to appeal to you that gay rights movement in India be not ignored when the final judgement in the pending petitions is pronounced by the Hon’ble Court.”

 

Full letter is available here.

Press Release: Same-sex marriage judgement by Supreme Court – A Damp Squib

 

Courtesy: Pravartak Isssue No. 1 (2.12 - 15.12.91)

 

While rejecting the prayer for same-sex marriage the Supreme Court of India through its judgements made the following points:

1.     This court cannot legislate.

2.     There is no fundamental right to marry.

3.     This judgement has not touched the Special Marriage Act and all personal (religious) laws.

4.     Split opinion on adoption by same-sex couples.

5.     Transgender can marry.*

 

This Supreme Court judgement on same-sex marriage does not change the ground situation at all till the Parliament brings a legislation. Same-sex marriages were taking place in India for a long long time and have been documented extensively in the 1980s and 1990s. Same-sex marriages will continue to take place in future as well. Same-sex couples certainly do not need this SC judgement to take the leap. Effectively the SC has taken the LQBTQIA community for a long ride by building up hopes but without delivering the needed marriage equality for the simple reason that the judiciary does not have the mandate to legislate. These are matters to be debated and decided upon by the legislature. Halfway through the final arguments the constitution bench judges realised their folly and even confessed that it is for the Parliament to make a law on the issue!!! It was a pathetic sight indeed then to see lawyers plead for peripheral issues like same-sex couples being allowed joint bank accounts etc! The Court then went on to request the Solicitor General to come forward with what the government would do for welfarism of same-sex couples.

 

Another negative of this judgement is that it has effectively subverted ongoing efforts viz campaign, movement for same-sex marriage. Besides, the tempo will have to be built up all over again. Street level protest politics will have to be started anew and it will have to be a long drawn out struggle with lots of sacrifices.

 

ABVA’s Role

 

ABVA had made the demand for same-sex marriage in 1991 through its path breaking report - ‘Less than Gay’. This report detailed same-sex marriages in India in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999 ABVA documented the attempted suicide of a lesbian couple in Orissa through its report titled ‘For People Like Us’. ABVA made the demand before any country in the whole world had legalised same-sex marriage. ABVA has been petitioning since 1991 for legislation on same-sex marriage. The SC took up the issue 32 years later but as expected failed to deliver.

 

Much Ado About Nothing

 

This academic exercise undertaken by the SC has provided free publicity (live telecast proceedings for days) to the foreign funded NGOs; foreign funded PIL lawyers; the judges who were able to hog the limelight; and Gay & lesbian people who had deserted the LGBTQIA community by leaving India for greener pastures abroad and dramatically reappeared in the 21^st century at the Supreme Court of India to get their same-sex marriage with foreign spouses legalised through the ongoing cases. Thus they piggy rode on genuine petitioners. In fact halfway through the final arguments the judges made it clear that they are not amending the Foreign Marriage Act. Considerable court time got wasted because of such petitions.

 

ABVA in May 2023 had opined that the LGBTQIA community should withdraw the cases from the court. We wrote:

 

“If these 5 judges of the constitution bench declare in their judgement that Parliament alone can legislate on same-sex marriage, it will create a problem for future generations (again the section which opts for judicial route rather than parliament for their liberation) who will then have to ensure a larger bench of more than 5 judges to reverse the judgement awaited in the present case. A Herculean task indeed!

In such a scenario withdrawing cases from the court is a tactical retreat dictated by one’s conscience and wisdom; then at least the petitioners and their lawyers will come out with their self-respect and dignity intact and their heads held high.”

 

Shobha Aggarwal

On behalf of AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan Collective

Blog: http://aidsbhedbhavvirodhiandolan.blogspot.com/

 

* Madras High Court in 2019 has already ruled that a man and a transgender woman can marry.

Feminism, Patriarchy & Equal Marriage Rights for LGBTQ – A Personal Dilemma

 

 

The Supreme Court of India is likely to pronounce judgement on the same-sex marriage petitions this week on or before 20^th October 2023 as one of the judges on the bench is retiring on that day. Before the matter reached the Supreme Court in November 2022 many petitions on the marriage equality issue were filed in various State High Courts. It would have been in the fitness of things if the High Courts had first deliberated on the issue. But the Supreme Court peremptorily transferred all the petitions to itself.

 

In 2018 when the judgement on Section 377, Indian Penal Code was expected the mainstream media blitzkrieg on the issue started months before the judgement. I was also interviewed by Indian Express and Los Angeles Times as I was the first person in India to file a case on behalf of AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) for striking down of S. 377, IPC.  ABVA’s struggle for gay rights in the twentieth century got wide coverage in the media then. This time around the mainstream media is unusually silent on the same-sex marriage issue. Is it an indication of the kind of judgement expected?

 

For me personally as a feminist marriage is a patriarchal institution. The institution of marriage thrives and survives on inequality and subjugation of women. I have spent most of my life fighting patriarchy in both my personal and political life. Some success that I have achieved in my personal life has come at a very high cost. At the same time, as a life-long member of ABVA, I have supported marriage equality for the LGBTQ community. ABVA in 1991 came out with a Charter of Demands in its citizens’ report ‘Less than Gay’ which included the right to marry. It for the first time in India demanded that the Special Marriage Act should be amended to allow for marriages between people of the same-sex. Not surprisingly the Supreme Court while hearing the arguments categorically stated that it will confine itself to the Special Marriage Act and not the other personal laws which were also under challenge before it. However, as a lawyer I think that it is for the parliament to debate and legislate on the issue.

 

Once briefly married, now as a single woman about to soon become a senior citizen I have been grappling with the same problems faced by the LGBTQ community. How to nominate someone who is not a blood relative in bank accounts etc. What to do with my worldly possessions after I pass on? Could I give it to someone outside my blood relatives? What legal hassles will be faced by the person or institution I Will my worldly possessions to later on? The deep-seated patriarchal notions don’t recognize any relationships outside blood and marriage. This needs to change not just for the LGBTQ community but for the entire society.

 

LGBTQ couples have been getting married for decades even without legal sanction. ABVA has recorded many such instances in its seminal report ‘Less than Gay’. Over two decades ago I attended a wedding ceremony of two of my lesbian friends.  It was a different kind of wedding. They asked friends from different religions to perform some ritual from their respective religion related to a wedding ceremony. So Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Christian rituals were performed at their wedding albeit in a truncated way. It was not a legal marriage but socially it was accepted among their friends and relatives. A Hindu and Muslim lesbian couple I knew adopted a child in the name of the Hindu woman partner. These are some of the ways in which LGBTQ community has managed to circumvent unequal laws.

 

However, there are times when at a personal level I find it difficult to accept that the LGBTQ community also wants to emulate the patriarchal institution of marriage. But legally and constitutionally I firmly believe that all citizens of India should have the right to marry. Once all have equal rights only then the question of choice arises. But in my heart I do hope for a different kind of social structure based on equality with the help of my LGBTQ friends and not a perpetuation of the patriarchal institution of marriage.

 

[Shobha Aggarwal is an independent legal researcher, advocate, Delhi High Court; activist, feminist, has had a brush with socialism. She has authored the path-breaking report “The Public Interest Litigation Hoax in India – Truth Before the Nation” published in 2005 which stays uncontested till date. She has done the ‘Advanced International Study Program in Peace and Conflict Transformation’ from the European University Center for Peace Studies, Austria.]