Answer to the question: “What are the living conditions for homosexuals in India. Socially, culturally and politically?”
Homosexuality is a crime in India and that’s an old Colonial law the government won’t abolish. This law forces millions of people to live in lack of legal rights and with a fear for the police.
“Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine”.
That’s the law and although it’s vague that’s the law used when pointing at homosexuality as something forbidden. According to this law it’s basically the sexual activity between men that’s wrong. And even though it’s not per definition illegal to be lesbian it’s considered as very abnormal.
Homosexuality can refer to sexual attraction, sexual activity between two people of the same sex or a sexual preference. But you could also say that it’s the love towards someone of the same sex and not necessarily the sexual act. If you look at it from that perspective it’s actually not forbidden by law although there’s a huge lack of acceptance within the society.
The punishments for this “crime” range from ten years in prison to lifetime. The hardest punishment though are probably the once from the family and community.
Just like in many other issues in this country the living conditions for homosexuals depends a lot on who you are. If you have the money and if you come from the right family you can probably get away with it but if you’re poor you’re on your own.
Here in Mumbai I’ve got the impression that there is an active gay community but that it’s very locked and not spoken about. The conditions in the country side is more problematic. There are a lot of homosexuals facing both harassments and violence. At the same time the countryside has its own way of following the law. If a whole village is ok with two people (of the same sex) getting married they can, if the village don’t agree then they can face horrifying consequences.
When writing this I’m also thinking of the fact that this is India and that nothing is easy to either compare or explain. It’s a society so far from our own and it’s run by completely different systems.
Just discussing homosexuality is hard because of the fact that people don’t discus sexuality as we do in the western society. You don’t discus it and you won’t see even heterosexual couples express their feelings to each other in public.
And then there’s the fact that marriage comes before love in this country. To get involved with someone of the same sex is not only to break against the conventional way of falling in love it’s also to go against a whole society system.
To close this question down I will quote one of the workers at our hotel, who with a confused face looked at me and said:
-It doesn’t exist!
