How two events in Delhi and Mumbai helped gay men realise the law on homosexuality had to change

On August 14, 2004, two men, Pushkin Chandra and Kuldeep Singh, were found stabbed to death in the barsati Chandra occupied next to his family’s home in Delhi’s Anand Lok enclave. It was quickly established that Chandra and Singh had been seen with two other men at a party the previous night. Chandra’s car was also missing. The police would appear to have had clear leads to track down the murderers.

This is how India Today reported the crime a week later: “They were last seen at a party hosted on August 14 by Uffe Gartner, a Danish national working with the UNDP. When their naked bodies were discovered the next day and the police called in, the investigators discovered hundreds of photographs of homosexual couples and pornographic videos involving same-sex partners.”

Praveer Rajan, Delhi’s deputy commissioner of police (South), was quoted saying they had talked to around 50 acquaintances of Chandra: “It looks as if he did not confine himself to a known circle of partners but had hobnobbed with others, some of whose backgrounds he may have been ignorant about.” The story went on to say that some police officers “suggest Chandra may have ironically ‘facilitated’ his own murder”.

Lawrence Cohen, a professor of anthropology and South and Southeast Asian studies at the University of California, Berkeley, had known Chandra personally and later analysed the case in an essay titled Song for Pushkin (published in Law Like Love: Queer Perspectives on Law, edited by Arvind Narrain and Alok Gupta). “Within hours of the murders, the relation between Chandra and the killers was inverted in the court of Delhi media: Chandra became a kingpin of vice, the murderers offered some kind of rough justice…”

Cohen quotes some of the headlines: “The Hindustan Times ran the headline ‘Pushkin Murder Uncovers Gigolo Trail’. The once-staid Times of India was exultant: ‘Gay Murders Tip of Sordid Sleazeberg.’” The India Today report was actually one of the more balanced pieces since it also quoted gay men horrified at the media circus. The activist and writer Shaleen Rakesh decried headlines like “Cruising in the Dark” and “Darkness at Dusk”. “It gives the idea that most of us have dual personalities like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” he lamented.

Sharif Rangnekar, in his memoir Straight to Normal: My Life as a Gay Man, recalls the media frenzy: “That a man had been killed did not matter, that he was gay and had porn in his room was what the press focussed on….” Cohen notes that pornography of all kinds, burned on discs, was easily available in India. Taking intimate photographs was hardly unknown either – one of the items stolen from Chandra’s house was a Polaroid camera: “But the photographs, both mementoes of parties and more explicitly sexual shots, were seen by the police as highly suggestive of a nexus linking extramarital sex to trafficking in poor men’s bodies. That Chandra, or perhaps Kuldeep, might have just liked to take sexy photos was never publicly contemplated.”

The police were helped by the increasing ubiquity of mobile phones. For gay men these had first been seen as a tool of liberation. Until cell phones came along, contacting each other had required either taking the risks of cruising and approaching people, or operating through personal messages in publications like Bombay Dost, India’s first gay magazine. Shared landlines were another hurdle, requiring much hovering around in anticipation of a call and a coded language when one came, in case someone else was listening.

Mobile phones gave privacy and direct access. But now gay men realised they could also expose them. The 50-plus acquaintances mentioned by Rajan mostly came from Chandra’s phone. “Random calls were made to many of my friends who had attended the party that Pushkin was at before he headed home,” writes Rangnekar. People were hauled in for questioning, often in humiliating ways, and further contacts extracted from their phones. Many of those called were closeted and were terrified they would be outed this way.

A particularly tantalising angle for both the police and the press was the involvement of Gartner. He had gone from his farewell party to the airport and so was out of India when the bodies were discovered, leading to feverish talk about international sex gangs. Interpol, the global police organisation, was involved, and the Danish police knocked on Gartner’s mother’s door in search of him. (Gartner, who is a personal friend, had simply gone on holiday. He barely knew Chandra, yet his tenuous links to the case meant it was years before he could return to India.)

In all this frenzy, routine policing took a backseat. It was a week later that Chandra’s car was found, parked in Daryaganj. Despite the licence number being broadcast widely, the car had escaped police notice, possibly because it was on a road dividing north and central police zones. It was after a resident informed the Jama Masjid police station about an abandoned car that the connection was made with Chandra’s case.

Finally, through old-fashioned police work, other items stolen from Chandra’s house were traced and two men, Rajesh Rekhwar and Moti, were caught. One report said they were school van drivers who met Chandra regularly for sex. Something went wrong that night and Chandra was killed, with Singh probably being killed because he was a witness. Rekhwar turned out to be HIV+, which was used as mitigation from the death penalty, but both got life sentences. In 2011, their appeal against the verdict was turned down by the Delhi High Court.

White Party

Mumbai’s gay scene had its share of robberies and even murders, none that resulted in the media frenzy of Chandra’s case. But it did nearly happen, five years earlier. This was in June 1999, at an event called the White Party. As in Delhi, a large part of the gay scene in Mumbai at that time revolved around semi-private parties – not exactly open to all, but easy to get entry to with some gay connections.

Mumbai’s equivalent of Delhi’s farmhouses were resorts in areas like Madh Island. They were far enough away to offer space and the illusion of privacy, but still close enough to reach by train and auto. The frequency of these parties was growing, partly driven by an increasing number of younger gay men who had studied abroad and experienced gay life there. Back in India for family reasons – often involving marriage – they wanted a safe version of it, where they could party, but still be relatively private.

The organisers of the White Party offered this, with style. The name was meant to link to a series of parties in the US where gay men could party lavishly and relatively openly. Mumbai’s White Party promised hospitality on a scale never seen before even including, it was rumoured, male strippers. Payment at these parties was usually done discreetly, but the White Party organisers were open about their rates and even – the fatal mistake – printed an invitation/entry ticket with a classy image of a nude man.

I had only recently started interacting with Mumbai’s gay scene then, mostly with a group called Gaybombay that tried to create safe meeting spaces in people’s homes. The White Party was my first party and even with no scale of comparison, it was impressive. Instead of small groups of people in closed spaces, here was a whole resort with more gay men than I had ever seen before. And, yes, there were strippers, three fit young men who danced on a small stage in chaste white chuddies. I think most of the audience, while appreciative, were unsure about such openness. Only a few friends of the organisers came forward to stuff currency notes in their underwear.

Then suddenly the music stopped and people appeared who were definitely not party goers. Whispers started circulating with the words “police” and “raid”. A voice came over the sound system confirming this, and instructing everyone to co-operate by giving their names and contact numbers. Tables were set up with police officers to enter our details in registers. If there wasn’t more overt panic, perhaps it was because no one had ever been in this situation before.

Some, like me, were new to it all. Others might have had experience of police harassment, but always small-scale and resolved with some grovelling and pay-offs. The numbers at this party and its remote location meant that quick solutions were not likely. Besides, the organisers had disappeared (along with the strippers), so it was not clear who was in any position to negotiate with the police.

A friend of mine did one thing that helped. The food for that night had not yet been served and, as a hospitality industry professional, he felt it was a pity to let it go to waste. He spoke to the waiters and told them to start serving and, perhaps from hunger or nerves or just lack of anything else to do, people started eating. Even the police, if I recall correctly, helped themselves to snacks.

For some of us, panic gave way to a kind of hope. Activists in India had started speaking about the need to challenge Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalised homosexuality. But they were met with indifference or even hostility. Most gay men did not want to shake things up. They were able to lead acceptable gay lives within their bubbles, so why risk it by going public? And if the law was not enforced, why change it?

But here at the White Party, the bubble was bursting and we soon got a glimpse of how grotesque it could get. After the long process of taking down names and numbers (most people giving fake ones), the organisers and strippers appeared. The police had kept them separately, without even allowing the strippers to dress. The police wanted proof of gay depravities at the party. They forced the strippers to stand on the stage again, alongside the organisers, and dance for photographs. The men were terrified, with one of them visibly crying. The police even switched on the music again to encourage them, with the silent partygoers watching. It was a deeply unsettling scene. Perhaps those pictures are still in the Mumbai police records.

After that we were allowed to go home. It seemed that news would soon break about the gay party and we would have to deal with the fallout. It would be devastating for many, but also a demonstration that the comfort of the closet was an illusion. Under Section 377 we were “unapprehended felons” and the police could swoop down on us whenever they liked. This had to be the impetus to change the law, just as the police harassment that caused the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969 pushed the LGBT community in the US to fight back.

But then the reports came out with no mention of the gay angle. Newspapers, clearly tipped off by the police, spoke about a rave party in Madh Island being broken up. It caused media moralising about dissolute young people and party culture, but with no mention that it had been a gay party (and, thankfully, no pictures of the poor strippers). In true transactional Mumbai fashion, some compromise had been worked out, perhaps involving a pay-off from the organisers.

Oddly enough, almost a month later, India Today carried a detailed report which mentioned that it was a gay party. It even reproduced a picture of the invitation which, it seems, had tipped off the police and caused the raid. But by then the news cycle had moved on. Most of the gay men who had been at the party must have been deeply relieved, but it left some of us with ambiguous feelings. On the one hand, it was good that people had not been outed against their will and there was no homophobic media frenzy. But it also seemed to allow people to slip back into their closet, despite the evidence of how easily it could be broken open.

After that there were no parties. None of the regular party organisers wanted to take a chance after the White Party – which actually presented an opportunity. A gay British friend of mine was about to leave the city after a stint of five years and he offered his apartment in the super premium NCPA Apartments, located at the tip of Nariman Point, for a party. “I don’t care what happens, just get people partying again,” he said. A group of us from Gaybombay set up the party, telling anyone queer to come and contribute what they liked.

It was a blast and left everyone wanting more. My friend from the hospitality business found another space – a large studio below the Mahalakshmi station bridge. Around 20 people put down Rs 1,000 each for rent and everyone else was again told to come on a pay-as-you-like basis. Since it was more public than the NCPA Apartments party we took one precaution. My friend got a big cake so we could pretend it was a birthday party (then again, the cake was in the form of Tarzan!).

This second party was also a success and left us with a surplus that Gaybombay used to fund further parties. Slowly, other party organisers joined in and the city’s gay life started reviving, but with more emphasis now on creating safe spaces, helping people understand their rights and developing an understanding of why the law needed to change. The White Party may not have resulted in a big Stonewall moment, but it pushed us on a more realistic path of slowly building the community, creating awareness and, finally, coming out.

Legal journey

The tragedy of Chandra and Singh’s deaths did, ultimately, help the LGBT movement as well. In the five years since the White Party a number of things had happened. In 2001 the police in Lucknow raided Naz Foundation International, an organisation dealing with communication about safe sex and HIV/AIDS among men who have sex with men. Two employees of the foundation, Arif Jaffer and Sudhees Kumar, were accused of promoting illegality and arrested. They were in jail for 47 days. Activists across the country protested the arrests.

Also in 2001, Naz India (not the same as Naz Foundation International) filed a case in the Delhi High Court to challenge Section 377. Naz India also worked on HIV/AIDS prevention and its case was based on exactly what Naz Foundation arrests proved – treating men who have sex with men as criminals simply made this work much harder. Section 377 never stopped homosexuality, but it made addressing their issues much harder and this was not something that the country could afford if it was to get serious about controlling HIV/AIDS.

This was an important development, but it lacked a key element – the direct involvement of LGBT people in the case. Other countries that had challenged laws criminalising homosexuality in courts had always had a “case with a face”, an identifiable queer person who could claim to have suffered under the law. In Ireland there was David Norris in Norris v. Ireland (1988). In Australia there was Nicholas Toonen in Toonen v. Australia (1994). In the US there was John Geddes Lawrence in Lawrence v. Texas (2003).

But in the early 2000s it was hard to find a person willing to lead the case – and the arrests of Jafar and Kumar underlined the dangers of losing. The horror of Chandra and Singh’s murders, and the media frenzy and police prejudice that followed, persuaded a group of Delhi activists that LGBT people had to get involved with changing the law. “It was pivotal, honestly,” said Gautam Bhan, now a faculty member at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, but at that time one of many Delhi activists appalled at the Chandra case and its aftermath. “It led to a press conference that protested the way the murders were covered by the press and it was one of the first press conferences I remember where folks spoke as openly LGBT people.”

Bhan says this led to a shift in media coverage because now there were more people journalists could call to check LGBT stories. Many of those people went on to form a group called Voices Against 377 that joined the Naz India case, which ultimately resulted in the Delhi High Court’s verdict in 2009 striking down the criminalisation of same-sex relations between consenting adults.

This was still only one step in the longer battle, with first a loss in the Supreme Court (Koushal v. Naz, 2013) and then a final victory (Navtej Johar v. Union of India, 2018). But both the White Party 25 years back and the Chandra tragedy 20 years back, were key steps in getting gay men to realise that the closet could never be safe as long as the law against them continued to exist.

Vikram Doctor is a writer based in Goa. His email address is vikdocatwork@gmail.com.