Guest Post by INDER SALIM
Dear Supreme Court,
I am personally glad that your recent verdict on Article 377 has sparked a debate on the nature of “SEX “in India.
Queering Christianity: Janice Lazarus
Guest Post by JANICE LAZARUS
While there have been several writings, posts and comments on the web and in the print about the connection between homosexuality and Hinduism, there has been almost nothing said about the outlook of Christianity on homosexuality. One of the petitioners in Kaushal vs. Naz case is the Utkal Christian Council represented by its Secretary; and so I feel that it is crucial to write about Christianity and the way in which in many parts of the world a Queer Theology is embracing those previously deemed sinful by the Church. While I am in no way a theologian, I do feel that the Bible is open to be read by all and can be interpreted differently by many (as do the different sects within Christianity).
An Incomplete Reunion – Ruining the Post-Partition Party: Archit Guha
Guest post by ARCHIT GUHA
By this point, every Indian, Pakistani, and their grandfathers has watched the Google Partition ad, tears welled up in their eyes. For the uninitiated, Google’s recent advertisement tugs at heartstrings, telling the tale of two chaddi buddies, separated by Partition, and reunited by their grandchildren nearly seventy years later. When the ad went viral via Facebook, sitting thousands of miles away in America, I bawled as I watched the granddaughter listening to her grandfather’s nostalgic retelling of the idyllic life he led in Lahore, eating jhajhariya, with his buddy Yusuf, and his granddaughter’s instant Google fixes to reunite him with Yusuf in Delhi. Continue reading An Incomplete Reunion – Ruining the Post-Partition Party: Archit Guha
People’s Participation in Planning Mumbai?: Hussain Indorewala and Shweta Wagh
This is a guest post by Hussain Indorewala and Shweta Wagh
Since the past six months in Mumbai, there has been an unusual convergence between urban activists, community groups, rights groups, unions, Non-Governmental Organizations and academics, who have come together to provide a theoretical critique of the city’s neoliberal development model, to formulate a more diverse and hopeful vision for the city than the one proclaimed by its power elite, and to present practical alternatives to plans and projects promulgated by faceless state bureaucracies and unaccountable private consultants.
On 22nd October 2013, more than 1500 people gathered at Azad Maidan to formally present “The People’s Vision Document for Mumbai’s Development Plan (2014-2034)” to the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM).[1] The People’s Vision Document (PVD)[2] is a remarkable collective vision statement, an outcome of discussions focused around specific issues in the city with more than a hundred grassroots and community groups, along with activists, experts and academics who participated in them. With this movement, the less advantaged residents of the city have announced and forced themselves into an exclusionary and secretive Development Plan process; refusing to be silent spectators, in a striking example of initiative, organizational ability and creative agency, they have asserted their right to the city’s future, whose owners and managers have done much to keep them out. To use the language of other social urban movements around the world, some of the most marginalized groups of the city are fighting for spatial justice, urban democracy, and have claimed their ‘right to be equal in diversity.’[3] Continue reading People’s Participation in Planning Mumbai?: Hussain Indorewala and Shweta Wagh
As a religious minority, I empathize with sexual minorities: M Reyaz
This is a guest post by M. REYAZ
The Apex Court judgment of December 11, putting aside the Delhi High Court order on decriminalisation of homosexuality, pertaining to Section 377 of the IPC has clearly divided into two ‘queer’ camps, where on one side besides LGBTS are those liberals extending their support to the LGBT cause, and on the other side, there are religious leaders and groups, who otherwise would not even see eye to eye with each other (what is ‘queer’ about this second camp is not so much its sexual orientation, as the strangeness of its banding together against queer people despite their antagonism toward each other).
Continue reading As a religious minority, I empathize with sexual minorities: M Reyaz
Ganguly Must Go – Chairs of Rights Bodies Must be Above Reproach
Statement from Women’s Groups Across India on 16 December 2013
Exactly one year ago, the gang-rape of a young woman triggered immense outrage across the board, putting freedom from rape and sexual assault at the forefront of public debate. From law reform to overhaul of institutions of justice delivery, from media sensitization to public awareness, women’s safety is now squarely on the public agenda, thanks to mass protests. Ironically, during those very protests, on 24 December 2012, a young lawyer revealed that a retired judge of the highest court in land had sexually harassed her while she was working with him as an intern, and that she was unable to speak about it only ten months later.
According to her statement, Justice (Retd) A.K. Ganguly currently the Chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission said, “’You know that I’m attracted to you, don’t you? You must be thinking, what, this old man is getting drunk and saying such things. But I really like you, I love you’. When I tried to move away, he kissed my arm and repeated that he loved me.” This is not merely inappropriate behavior by a senior over junior staff or interns; it is not merely over-stepping of boundaries; it is not merely friendly overtures: such acts constitute a clear case of abuse of power and sexual harassment at the workplace. Continue reading Ganguly Must Go – Chairs of Rights Bodies Must be Above Reproach
JTSA extends support to the LGBT community, calls for committed judicial activism: JTSA
Guest Post by JAMIA TEACHERS’ SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION
On 11 December, 2013 a two judge bench of the Supreme Court of India (SC) ruled that section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which considers homosexuality a criminal offence, does not ‘suffer from the vice of unconstitutionality’ and hence, legally valid. By this highly regrettable ruling the apex court astounded and disappointed not only the LGBT community but the wider public at large.
Size does matter your lordships – A letter to the Supreme Court: Siddharth Narrain
SIDDHARTH NARRAIN based on his legal and extra legal expertise arrives at the conclusion that size does matter
A LETTER TO YOUR LORDSHIPS
Your Lordships have called us, LGBT Indians, a “miniscule minority”. Never mind that statistically we constitute at least four per cent of the population, which are over four million people. Your Lordships say that there are only 200 persons impacted by section 377 over the last 150 years. Never mind that there are millions of LGBT persons who have been under the shadow of this law over the last 150 years, discriminated against, blackmailed, harassed, outed to their families, driven to suicide, forcibly married, diagnosed as mentally ill, raped, assaulted, and disinherited.
Your Lordships say we are a “miniscule minority”. Since you are so fond of dictionaries, lets flip one open.
Miniscule: The adjective miniscule is etymologically related to minus, but associations with mini have produced the spelling variant miniscule. Continue reading Size does matter your lordships – A letter to the Supreme Court: Siddharth Narrain
Suresh Koushal v. Naz Foundation: Pratiksha Baxi
Suresh Koushal v. Naz Foundation directs law’s violence on the body of the Constitution of India. Proclaiming colonial law as constitutional, the Supreme Court negates its role in the making of postcolonial constitutionalism. It departs from the theatres of comparative constitutionalism in the post–colonies, which used Naz to strengthen their battles against Macaulay’s legacies. Today the Supreme Court is cited amongst the infamous precedents of injustice that mark Indian legal history. Dubbed as ADM Jabalpur 2, the judgment declares sexual emergency on LGBT communities. By breathing life into s. 377, the Supreme Court attaches a badge of stigma on the body of Constitution.
Taking a jurispathic turn, the Supreme Court asserts that equality is subservient to scale by claiming that the LGBT community is a “miniscule fraction of the country’s population”. Inventing the category of a miniscule minority, the Supreme Court implies that equality provisions will apply only to numerically preponderant body populations. Thereby, overwriting equality jurisprudence by the insidious politics of numbers. Continue reading Suresh Koushal v. Naz Foundation: Pratiksha Baxi
The Anti-Rape Movement -The Political Vision of ‘Naari Mukti/Sabki Mukti’: Kavita Krishnan
Guest Post by KAVITA KRISHNAN
A year ago, a massive movement erupted on the streets of Delhi and the country – against the brutal gangrape of a young woman on a bus, leading to her death. Looking back at that movement a year later, it is clear that the questions, concerns and above all the tensions and debates embedded in that movement are with us still – and are quite crucial to the political discourse around us.
AAP’s Rise and Congress Rout – Some Obvious but Unconventional Questions: Sanjay Kumar
Guest post by SANJAY KUMAR
A Congress rout and the AAP success are the most obvious results of recent polls. Both are spectacular, in their own ways. Even BJP’s landslide victory in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh pales in comparison, for these two open up new possibilities.
Why a party whose legacy of anti-colonial struggle had lost sheen generations ago, whose top leadership is in the grip of a seemingly disinterested and incompetent dynasty, that lacks any organised cadre, coherent ideology, social base, and whose average leader appears more of a wheeler-dealer, and scamster, should continue to get close to thirty percent of votes from Indians even in worst of times, is a genuine mystery. That the Indian social analyses, barring a few exceptions, have tried little to unravel this mystery, is not only an indication of their intellectual limitations, but also of their ideological biases. The enduring success of Congress indicates seamier side of liberal democracy in general, which bourgeois social sciences try more to paper over than explore.
From voters’ perspective elections under liberal democracy are an exercise in choice, but not in freedom. When people vote, they are not acting as citizens shaping their social world, but as little men and women facing pre-existing structures of social power. The magic of elections under liberal democracy is precisely this. They offer a choice, the choice is not fake, its collective outcome is uncertain, yet the choice is already pre-determined in ways that by and large reproduce pre-existing power structures. That is why, exercising franchise is not necessarily a marker of democratic exercise, and leaders of fascist persuasion are often the loudest votaries of compulsory voting. But that is not all. If elections were mere gears in a machine that simply revolved on and on, they would be quickly become a ritual, like those under state socialism in which the Party and leaders always got more than 95% approvals. Elections under liberal democracy in contrast provide flexible adjustment of state political functionaries to changing social conditions. They allow reflection of changes in public opinion, demography, gender politics, caste equations and balance of class forces, whose origins lie somewhere else, onto state politics. Punctuated adjustment with a time lag produces a sense of drama. Personae on stage appear as victors and losers, for voters there is enough stage space to allow their hope, vengeance or gratitude to play their part. For a time, and only for a time, the impersonal structure of state power becomes humanly palpable. Continue reading AAP’s Rise and Congress Rout – Some Obvious but Unconventional Questions: Sanjay Kumar
Section 377 and India Shining: Pronoy Rai
Guest Post by PRONOY RAI
It is 2004 all over again. India is shining. Such a difference a decade can make. BJP is on the verge of returning to power, Modi could be India’s next Prime Minister, and the many failures of the UPA could give a new lease of life to Hindutva, if it was dead at all. As India shines, the state (its judicial arm, in this case) has abandoned the queers, questioning their claim to the status of “minority”, rendering them vulnerable to brutality at the hands of the hetero-normative society and other arms of the state (police, for instance), in equal measures. Other minority groups, strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, fought against the claim to citizenship of a (sexual) minority group, decisively defeating them at the altar of justice.
Some of us queers, who stuck to every single word that was written in 2004 that went on to show how agrarian distress, farmer suicides, and saffronization of education didn’t quite add up to a shining India, were left puzzled by the reaction of the BJP to the Supreme Court verdict upholding section 377 in its original, pristine self. You’d think that the shrewd right-wing would take on the first opportunity to invoke a very obvious ancient Indian “culture of homosexuality” to make a progressive argument in favor of decriminalization. You’d assume that in a ravaging hunger to return to power, they would try to bring on board every single group that they can, maybe only later to abandon them, but at least carry them along through elections. Alas, no. For the BJP, India is still shining, and this shining confidence is perhaps sufficient to help them march into 7 Race Course Road, next year. Continue reading Section 377 and India Shining: Pronoy Rai
No Going Back: Siddharth Narrain
No Going Back
The Supreme Court’s decision in Suresh Kumar Kaushal v Naz Foundation has re-criminalized millions of LGBT persons, putting their lives at risk and subjecting them to the threat of violence, harassment and arrest. Despite this loss in court, we should not see this as a defeat. It is not a defeat because the mood of the country has changed, rising up in anger against prejudice masquerading as law. The public backlash against this decision has caught even LGBT activists by surprise. It is not a defeat because finally voices from the political establishment of this country have come out in support of LGBT rights. The top leadership of the Congress party, Cabinet Ministers, and spokespersons across the political spectrum have spoken out against the judgment. The BJP’s official stance supporting 377 appears out of step with reality, and there is a section of the party that does not support this view.
It is not a defeat because parents of LGBT persons have rallied around their children in this hour of crisis. It is not a defeat because friends, colleagues, students, teachers, and classmates have been shaken up by the injustice of this moment. The outrage and anger, the public show of solidarity and small gestures of support, has been overwhelming. The 377 judgment is not a defeat because commentators across the political spectrum have criticised the logic of the judgment. It is not a defeat because the legal community including the Advocate General of this country has questioned the rationale of this decision. Described as a judgment devoid of humanity and compassion, the Supreme Court’s decision has prompted many comparisons – A.D.M. Jabalpur, A.K. Gopalan, Mathura, Gian Kaur, Dred Scott, Plessy, and Bowers. It is not a defeat because this judgment has spawned a new generation of activism.
The Supreme Court’s decision has emboldened the human rights movement in this country, brought together diverse groups on a common platform. The Delhi High Court’s 2009 judgment affirmed the constitutional rights of millions of Indian citizens. The Supreme Court verdict has reversed this, but it can never erase that moment of freedom from our past. The mood of this country has changed. Public discourse has changed. People have changed. The law must change. There is no going back.
In cities across the world, people are mobilizing protests against the judgment. Join the Global Day of Rage on Sunday, 15th December.
An anti-constitutional judgement: Johannes Manjrekar
Guest Post by JOHANNES MANJREKAR
The ruling by a two-member bench of the Supreme Court, striking down the judgement of the Delhi high Court which had held that Article 377 – a pre-Constitution, 19th century colonial-era law – violated the spirit and directive principles of the Indian Constitution, seems to break new ground in jurisprudence. In an era where governments worldwide have been engaged in systematically rolling back hard-won civil liberties and individual rights and violating constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and principles, one might be excused for believing that the most urgent duty of an independent judiciary endowed with a reasonable degree of conviction and courage, would be to curb the transgressions of governments against the principles laid down in their own constitutions. The recent ruling of the SC does little to encourage such a belief. Continue reading An anti-constitutional judgement: Johannes Manjrekar
Contempt of Citizens: Mayur Suresh
MAYUR SURESH finds the Supreme Court guilty of contempt (of citizens)
Contempt: – The word ‘contempt’ comes from the Latin word “contemptus” and much like its modern counterpart, is the feeling that a person or a thing is worthless or deserving scorn.
Contempt is a feeling that is often felt by Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in India. It’s been meted out to LGBT people equally by the British who aimed to civilise us, and those today who seek to ‘preserve our culture’. An 1838 report on the Draft Penal Code called homosexual acts a “revolting subject” and said that the “frequency” of homosexuality in India “remained a stain on this land.” In 1934, the High Court of Sindh called a man who had consensual sex with another man “a despicable specimen of humanity”. Not to be left behind, those appellants who approached the Supreme Court reserved the choicest of contemptuous words for LGBT people in India: “disgusting”, “filthy”, “delinquents”.
On the SC judgement on Sec 377: Statement from TISS teachers
It is with deep shock and disappointment that we received the regressive judgment of the Supreme Court dated 11-12-13, on the reading down of Section 377 of the IPC related to the rights of queer (lesbian bisexual gay and transgender…) people in this country, which reverted the decriminalisation of non-normative sexualities following the Delhi High Court judgement in 2009.
The Delhi High Court had based its expansive judgement on the eloquent discussion of constitutional morality by the framers of our Constitution, especially Dr. Ambedkar. Constitutional morality, they argued is the basis for equality of citizens since public morality which is largely the morality of the dominant forces in society can never guarantee democracy, and perhaps even more importantly equality and dignity to its citizens, especially its most marginal citizens. Additionally, The Delhi High Court judgement evoked the spirit of dignity, inclusiveness and non-discrimination, thereby emphasizing equality of all citizens that Nehru spoke of during the Constituent Assembly debates, so necessary for the deeply hierarchical social fabric that our country represents. Continue reading On the SC judgement on Sec 377: Statement from TISS teachers
Crimes of Unreason: Danish Sheikh
A post on the cowardly judgment of the Supreme Court by DANISH SHEIKH. I term it a cowardly decision because if it had said that we are homophobic then it would at least have been admirable for its honesty if not for its belief. It instead chooses to mask its homophobia with crimes of unreason
Now you’re legal – Now you’re not!
With the ease of a particularly sadistic magic trick, a 98 page document has sent millions of LGBT individuals time-warping back into pre-2009 criminality. If there were any constitutional justifications for this act, they are not to be found lurking in the pages of this shockingly poorly reasoned decision. The Supreme Court has taken a chainsaw to one of the most beloved court decisions of our time, and surgically extracted everything that made it such an important verdict. Besides, of course, that little side business of equal-moral-citizenship granting. A broader walkthrough the shoddiness of the judgment can be found here, (http://kafila.org/2013/12/12/we-dissent-siddharth-narrain/) I’m presently looking at some of the more egregious of its violations. Continue reading Crimes of Unreason: Danish Sheikh
We Dissent: Siddharth Narrain
A preliminary walk through the unreason of the Supreme Court in the 377 judgment by SIDDHARTH NARRAIN
We hope to see many more pieces which exposes the judgment for what it is- an example of judicial non application of mind. I have also written a short piece looking at the judgment in the context of the Mandela moment
The Supreme Court’s decision in Suresh Kumar Kaushal & Another v. Naz Foundation & Others is an unprecedented ruling, deciding to turn the clock back to pre-July 2009, when LGBT persons were criminalized by section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. On close reading, the judgment is based on a narrow and blindfolded interpretation of the law, ignoring the momentous changes in society and notions of morality that India is witnessing. Further, the judgment, in many parts, relies on shaky precedent, does not explain the logic of its conclusions, and is surprisingly dismissive of substantial evidence that was placed before it. Continue reading We Dissent: Siddharth Narrain
Justice will prevail
Sometimes one needs to write pieces while breaking down into tears. That is the only way we can stay true to the fact that words are not enough to express our anguish and our disbelief but also our strength.
It isn’t surprising. In the land where the struggles of Soni Sori and Irom Sharmila not only continue but often go unnoticed, a regressive Supreme Court Judgment which sets the bar low for legality, constitutionality, justice and social morality isn’t out of the ordinary- all in a days work for some.
I spent the week articulating my loving critique of our movement. I thought we were past the idiosyncrasy of fighting an archaic law- one among the many scars of colonialism- being repeated with gusto by whom we can safely call the loony-right wing who claimed to represent all kinds of Gods and worse- many people. We all thought we could move on to fight the many fights that would give us the opportunity to fully shine bright in our creativity and vibrance. But here we are again- having to scream out loud the bare necessities of human existence to voices that have long forgotten the act of listening. Continue reading Justice will prevail
We Are All Queer – Assemble at Jantar Mantar against Reactionary Judgement
Shocking! Shameful!! Disgusting!!!
The Supreme Court has struck down the Delhi High Court decision decriminalizing gay sex in what might go down as the most retrograde judgement in India’s history. While the details of the Court’s reasoning are still not available, we can perhaps easily imagine what they might be. This is time of civil disobedience. Time for protest.
Assemble at Jantar Mantar at 4.30 pm, today 11 December to announce to the world that ‘We Are All Queer’. To announce that this is not a struggle of just the ‘gay-lesbian community’ but a struggle for our most fundamental rights and cherished values.
The State Manufactures Terrorism: KP Sasi
An Interview with activist-film-maker, K.P. SASI by Md. Eisa, Badre Alam Khan and Abhay Kumar.
K.P. Sasi is a well-known social activist and filmmaker. In his several decades of activism, he has been associated with a number of social movements ranging from anti-globalisation and anti-nuclear movement to anti-death penalty struggles and the movements led by environmentalists and marginalised social groups such as Dalits, Adivasis, and Muslims etc. He has expressed his activism through making more than two dozen documentaries and a few feature films. But his two music videos —America, America and Gaon Chhodab Nahin, watched by lakhs of people, continue to motivate social and political activists standing against injustice and inequality. The lean and thin Sasi, who spots thick grey beard, is again in controversies for his latest spell of activism. Early in this year he screened a 94-minute long documentary Fabricated based on the life of Muslim leader from Kerala Abdul Nasar Madani, accused in Coimbatore and Bangalore serial bomb blasts. Fabricated has been the fruit of Sasi’s two years of hard work during which he did an extensive research, met a number of people and travelled thousands of miles and received threats as well. Why did he take so much pain and risk his life? Fabricated, in Sasi’s words, is an attempt to bring a ray of hope to thousands of innocent people, mostly Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis, oppressed nationalities, workers and others languishing in jails for years and decades under draconian laws such as Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Fabricated is mostly woven around the story of Madani, making a strong case that the Muslim leader of Kerala is innocent and has been jailed for years simply because has been framed. He has a charisma, a great skill of oratory and above all a vision of the uplift of the marginalised sections. In the early week of November, Sasi was in Delhi where Fabricated was screened at many places. After watching the documentary at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Md. Eisa, Badre Alam Khan and Abhay Kumar had a detailed interview with K.P. Sasi during which he went on a great length about a host of issues from state terror, human rights, Hindu right, caste, and class to the Muslim politics. The excerpts of the interview are as follows: Continue reading The State Manufactures Terrorism: KP Sasi
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 