Delhi has not always been kind to me. It has, in fact, at times been quite ruthless to me and my fellow Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender friends. I have been dragged into cars by careless men who thought I was easy. I have been beaten up by the protectors of Indian culture.
But it’s also the city that encouraged me to come out to the world as an openly gay person. That became possible in 2009, when the Delhi High Court ruled as unconstitutional Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalised homosexuality. This encouraged LGBT groups and other progressive forces to start initiatives to deepen the nascent sexual rights movement in India. I witnessed Delhi being transformed into a hub of activism, protest, performance and expression, a space where I could own up to my sexuality without shame, with my head held high. This Delhi became my home. I lived, breathed and thrived in it.
For every experience of horror, I also found burgeoning support. Delhi was becoming more open to our queerness. In 2013, I became the first openly gay candidate to contest the student union elections at Jawaharlal Nehru University. I received huge support from the most unexpected quarters. The campus had already known me as a gay man, and now I found that my city knew me too.
It has been exactly a year since the Supreme Court overruled the Delhi High Court, making criminals of my friends and me again. But the verdict has not been successful in pushing me back into the closet. I am still out, walking in the streets of Delhi with pride.
However, it’s given others the chance to air their prejudices again. I witnessed the homophobic face of the JNU administration in March when I organised the university’s first queer film festival. The university cultural coordinator called me “abnormal’', accused me of spreading a “disease" and tried to stop the financial aid sanctioned to the festival. She claimed that with the Supreme Court verdict, it was not possible for JNU to openly support such an event. The verdict made this possible, and I wonder how many more we will have to face, all for the simple reason of existing.
"Shame is like everything else,” Salman Rushdie has written. “Live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture." Queer people live with this shame everyday, thanks to a regressive, colonial-era law that denies us the basic human rights we are entitled to. The cosmopolitan capital city of developing India lost its progressive charm when the apex court gave its verdict in 2013. It seems as though the Delhi I knew in that brief period was a mere hallucination.
My city has been taken away from me. It has been a year of shame. We have to get rid of that feeling before it becomes part of the furniture.
But it’s also the city that encouraged me to come out to the world as an openly gay person. That became possible in 2009, when the Delhi High Court ruled as unconstitutional Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalised homosexuality. This encouraged LGBT groups and other progressive forces to start initiatives to deepen the nascent sexual rights movement in India. I witnessed Delhi being transformed into a hub of activism, protest, performance and expression, a space where I could own up to my sexuality without shame, with my head held high. This Delhi became my home. I lived, breathed and thrived in it.
For every experience of horror, I also found burgeoning support. Delhi was becoming more open to our queerness. In 2013, I became the first openly gay candidate to contest the student union elections at Jawaharlal Nehru University. I received huge support from the most unexpected quarters. The campus had already known me as a gay man, and now I found that my city knew me too.
It has been exactly a year since the Supreme Court overruled the Delhi High Court, making criminals of my friends and me again. But the verdict has not been successful in pushing me back into the closet. I am still out, walking in the streets of Delhi with pride.
However, it’s given others the chance to air their prejudices again. I witnessed the homophobic face of the JNU administration in March when I organised the university’s first queer film festival. The university cultural coordinator called me “abnormal’', accused me of spreading a “disease" and tried to stop the financial aid sanctioned to the festival. She claimed that with the Supreme Court verdict, it was not possible for JNU to openly support such an event. The verdict made this possible, and I wonder how many more we will have to face, all for the simple reason of existing.
"Shame is like everything else,” Salman Rushdie has written. “Live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture." Queer people live with this shame everyday, thanks to a regressive, colonial-era law that denies us the basic human rights we are entitled to. The cosmopolitan capital city of developing India lost its progressive charm when the apex court gave its verdict in 2013. It seems as though the Delhi I knew in that brief period was a mere hallucination.
My city has been taken away from me. It has been a year of shame. We have to get rid of that feeling before it becomes part of the furniture.
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