:: Antara Dev Sen

Govt gets personal, enters bedrooms

Antara Dev Sen

Strange how our grand process of democracy — from preparing electoral planks and vote-banks to giving a spin to poll results — leaves you feeling like a Neanderthal on a hunt. The whiff of votes is in the air, and you can almost feel the rustle of unkempt bodyhair, the stink in your teeth, the long, curved nails on your fingers. The season of primal passions is upon us.

So we lip-synch grand ideas and mutter pre-poll mantras. Prepare to hear more about terrorism. And brace yourself for mind-numbing moralising. For smothering attempts at curbing our flamboyant double standards in dealing with terrorism, where Muslim goons are punished and Hindu goons protected. All this as the body politic steadily chips away at the basic pillars of democracy, and at our fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

For the moment, let’s step away from the clamour about terrorism and look at less dramatic but equally terrifying dangers we live with. Like crushing the right to equality irrespective of gender, religion, caste, beliefs. In reality, discrimination and violence against women, religious minorities and the lower castes flourish, watched unworriedly by a callous nation. Or like the right to freedom of expression, which has almost become a joke. Practically everything you say or do is challenged by some interest group as an affront to their sentiment and a provocation for mindless brutality.

We can justify tormenting and even killing citizens because of their gender, caste or religion. For example, about 170 million Dalits in India still face discrimination in housing, education, livelihood and access to public services and justice. The State protects the perpetrators of routine caste-based violence, including murder and rape.

In an increasingly illiberal State, we often control who will be born (boys, not girls), who they marry (someone within their own religion, caste and sub-caste), who they worship (Hindu gods rule, worshipping other gods could get you killed), what they eat (not beef — the mere accusation of cow slaughter could get you lynched), what they wear (Muslim women not in burqa and Hindu women not in purdah have been attacked by fundamentalists), what they paint or draw (M.F. Husain has been driven out of the country by fundamentalist Hindus) and even how they have sex (only procreative sex is allowed).

This culture of controlling private lives would be alarming for any nation, and for a nation like ours, founded on the finest principles of equality and justice, it is tragic. Especially since the State is complicit in the crime, either by not being energetic enough to stop it, or by not punishing the culprits. Or, in some cases, by helping the process, like in the ruthless killing of Christians in Orissa that is going on now or the slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. It is horrifying that with persistent repetitions and bizarre justification, murdering neighbours because they worship another god is gaining social acceptance. Thankfully, state involvement in such criminal acts is still clandestine. It may be an open secret, but it is not admitted in a court of law. The fig leaf of equality and democracy is kept in place.

Unlike the discrimination against gays, which is backed by archaic Victorian laws so our government can shove aside democratic values in court and call gays evil perverts who must be penalised. The recent arguments of additional solicitor-general P.P. Malhotra before Chief Justice A.P. Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar in the Delhi court make you cringe. Homosexuality is not merely a "reflection of a perverse mind", it is in fact a "social vice", our government has argued, which "disturbs public peace". If same-sex love was allowed, it would "create breach of peace" and "open the floodgates for delinquent behaviour."

"If it is allowed then evils of AIDS and HIV would further spread and harm the people," the government argued. "It would lead to a big health hazard. It would degrade the moral values of society." The court, thankfully, refused to be swayed by moral rhetoric and asked for hard facts instead. Substantiate this stand, it said. Prove that decriminalising gay sex leads to the spread of HIV/AIDS.

It is mortifying that we can forget our democratic commitments and pull out moth-eaten values to justify a 150-year-old law that permanently criminalises otherwise law-abiding citizens for their bedroom habits. Social discrimination against gays leads to scores of suicides every year, and legal discrimination cuts off their access to proper healthcare, as they cannot be honest with their doctors without incriminating themselves.

Admirably, health minister Anbumani Ramadoss has been publicly rooting for decriminalising homosexuality, going against the will of his own government. The idea is to tone down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to legalise private consensual sex between adults. This ancient law seeks to punish "whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal". Though it applies not only to homosexuals, but also to heterosexuals who may engage in sodomy or oral sex, Section 377 is used only against homosexual men, transsexuals and hijras. It is used almost exclusively by the police to exploit sexual minorities. There have also been cases like that of the Uttar Pradesh police imprisoning activists without bail because they were distributing condoms among homosexual men to combat HIV/AIDS.

In a functioning democracy, such criminal discrimination against sexual minorities is unacceptable. Section 377 should remain only to prevent the sexual abuse of children, but must be amended to decriminalise homosexuality. (Even Britain, the source of it all, repealed it 40 years ago.) The law is unconstitutional in many respects, including violating our fundamental freedoms and rights to privacy and equality before the law. Besides, the labelling of homosexuality as "unnatural" is absurd, since science has suggested that same-sex orientation can be a genetic trait, not a lifestyle aberration.

Contrary to the legal arguments of our government, decriminalising homosexuality would help in public health management, especially in containing HIV/AIDS. Besides, accepting sexual minorities is essential in a pluralistic culture, especially in India where same-sex love has been known for centuries. Freedom of choice is the cornerstone of democracy. The right to equality guaranteed by the Constitution to all minorities must apply to sexual minorities as well.

We must close the yawning gap between promises of freedom and equality and their manifestation. We don’t really need the primal passions of the election season. As voters in our proud democracy we have a much bigger responsibility.

Antara Dev Sen is editor of The Little Magazine. She can be contacted at:

sen@littlemag.com