The shameful cowardice of India’s politicians on gay rights
Barkha Dutt, in her column for The Washington Post writes that India is on the cusp of making a historic — and long overdue — decision on equality for the country’s gay and lesbian community. In response to a series of public-interest petitions, the Supreme Court is set to decriminalize homosexuality and scrap a Victorian-era law that recommends imprisonment for same-sex relations.
This is no thanks to Indian politicians. There may have been some honorable exceptions, but for the most part, the country’s politicians have been shamefully unwilling to stand up for democracy’s fundamental principle of equality for all its citizens. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) refusal to take a clear position on the anachronistic and discriminatory law is as expected. The party neither wants to be seen as homophobic in the eyes of the world nor does it want to risk offending its more conservative base.
But while many citizens are able to live openly gay lives without social stigma, millions of other Indians, especially in small towns and villages, bear the brunt of the discrimination. Apart from the pressure to “fit in” under pressure from a dominant narrative of heterosexuality, police are also able to use the provisions of the penal code as an excuse for blackmail and extortion
Now, as the Supreme Court gets ready to overturn its own verdict and has revealed its intent to treat the issue of gay rights as human rights, one must ask: What is the point of Indian democracy if the men and women we vote into power can’t even do their basic jobs?
The uniform code
Commenting on the under-representation of Muslims in Indian army and police, Christophe Jaffrelot and Shweta Bhutada write in their column for The Indian Express that according to the report, ‘Status of Policing in India Report, 2018’ published by the Centre, while all minorities fear the police more than Hindus, the apprehension is more acute in the case of Muslims: Sixty-four per cent of them are “highly” or “somewhat” fearful of the police.
The main reason for this fear appears to be the fact that “police often implicates Muslims under false terrorism charges”. Indeed, there are many cases of young Muslims who have been to jail and even spent years behind the bars for this “reason”, before the judiciary, at long last, released them. Never had the gap between the share of Muslims in the population and their share in the IPS been so wide.
That Muslims are not wearing the police uniform increases their vulnerability, but that they have been even more under-represented in the army since 1947 reflects a larger issue: By excluding the largest minority from the institution in charge of defending the nation, the state has undermined the project of a multicultural India enshrined in the Constitution and prepared the ground for the saffronisation of the public sphere.
The absurdity of adultery law
In his column for Scroll.in, Ajaz Ashraf says that Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has been praised for the dignity and quiet elegance with which she shamed those who criticised her viciously for intervening in a passport matter involving an inter-faith couple in Uttar Pradesh last month. Singed by the fury of Hindu radicals – luckily only on social media – Swaraj should now script a fight against the politics of hate, which has been gathering intensity across India every passing week.
Swaraj no longer has the option of remaining silent on hate crimes occurring around the country. Her silence would imply that she is either indifferent to the goings on, or lacks the empathy to feel the pain of those who are attacked, even lynched by groups who share the ideology of those who have abused her on social media.
Philosophically then, Swaraj’s silence on hate crimes in the country can be seen as an example of double standards. Politically, her silence does not fit in with her party’s growing extremism and will not win her support among the BJP cadres. Personally, her silence will erode her image as a sensitive and caring politician.
When Papa was lynched
Priya Ramani shares the story of two unrelated boys, who were linked by faith in her column for The Mint. She writes that on a Karwan-e-Mohabbat journey to Mangaluru last fortnight, we visited families—Hindu and Muslim—who had lost a father, a son, a brother to mob violence and bovine-related killings. In recent weeks, we have been forced to face the reality of lynchings—the searing image of villagers dragging the body of a victim in Hapur as if he were a carcass as three policemen walk alongside nonchalantly was added last month to the New India Lynching Memorial whose growing collection our children will inherit.
Abdul Hamid, 20, enjoys watching football but these days the television stays off as the family is in mourning. “Papa died na,” he says. Gau-rakshaks (cow vigilantes) and policemen colluded in the death of the civil engineering student’s father, a cattle trader who had been buying old and sick animals from Hindu families and selling them to Muslim families for 35 years. Hussainabba was murdered in May while transporting cattle, and several people, including a police sub-inspector, were arrested.
It was a communal revenge killing—a group of Hindus wanted to avenge the murder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker Deepak Rao, 31 (we visited the home of the unmarried RSS worker who lived with his mother and hearing-impaired brother and who was murdered over a trivial dispute about erecting political buntings), and Bashir was a random Muslim target. Both men were killed on the same day.
Imraz never got a chance to say bye to her father in the ICU. Instead of drowning in their grief, the day Bashir died her eldest brother Imran appealed to his community to stay calm and not continue Mangaluru’s cycle of revenge.