g_b Minority report: Gay Indians demand a British apology

[Aditya Bondyopadhyay]

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/independent/2008/08/gay-indians-dem.html#comments

Minority report: Gay Indians demand a British apology

[image: 
Bangalore_pride_39]By
Jerome Taylor

First it was slavery, then it was looting the world's architectural
treasures and hauling them back to our museums. Now it is homophobia.

Over the years Britain has been asked to apologise for many historical
wrongs but activists in India are about to demand another apology.

Sixty-six years after Mahatma Gandhi told the
Britishto quit India
from a park in Mumbai, thousands of gay activists will gather
in the same park tomorrow to call on the British government to apologise for
introducing anti-sodomy laws that still make homosexuality illegal in India
today.

[image: 
Bangalore_pride_40_small]Their
call will be issued during the first
gay pride march  in Mumbai for
three years and is part of a wider campaign to abolish a Section 377 of the
Indian penal code which outlaws "unnatural sexual offences" and
theoretically punishes anal or oral sex with up to ten years in prison.

In practice no-one has been prosecuted under the law in the past two decades
but it has been used by officials to counter the work of HIV activists in
some Indian states.

Gay rights campaigners also argue that because Section 377 enshrines
homophobia within India's legal systems it also legitimises the continued
repression of gay men and women in wider Indian society.

A draft copy of the statement seen by *The Independent *accuses Britain of
exporting homophobia during the nineteenth century when colonial
administrators began enforcing Victorian laws and morals on their Indian
subjects.

Here are a few excerpts from the statement:

"Sixty six years ago… Mahatma Gandhi gave the call for the British to Quit
India. Today we invoke the Father of our Nation's spirit and call on the
British government to apologise for the legacy of hatred they left us in the
form of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.

"Through this law the idea of treating homosexuals as criminals was imposed
by the colonial government on the more tolerant traditions of India. We call
on the British government to apologise for the immense suffering that has
resulted from their imposition of Section 377. And we call on the Indian
government to abandon this abhorrent alien legacy of the Raj that should
have left our shores when the British did."

The demand will almost certainly be ignored by the British government who
have yet to issue the long sought after apology over slavery – Blair came
closest in 2006 when he
expressed"deep
sorrow" over Britain's involvement in the slave trade.

But the call goes to the heart of whether Britain should admit guilt in some
of the less pleasant aspects of its colonial past.

The same British-inspired laws that make homosexuality illegal in India are
still in place in former colonial countries like Jamaica, Malaysia and
Nigeria. Britain may have abolished the majority of its discriminatory laws
(anti-sodomy laws were repealed in 1967), but its homophobic legacy lives on
in many of the countries it once occupied.

But what about prior to the British colonial administration of India?

Gay rights activists argue that before Britain turned up with its western
moral values, India had a long history of
tolerancetowards same-sex
relationships.

They point to historical evidence showing that in Hindu, Buddhist and even
the early Muslim Mughal cultures, homosexuality was very much accepted (or
at least ignored).

Sections of the Hindu scriptures, the Kama Sutra, the acceptance of a third
sex (*tritiya-prakriti*), and the litany of erotic carvings at temples such
as Khajuraho are just some of many indications that show how Hinduism has
long accepted all sorts of forms of eroticism.

Early Mughal poetry (prior to the more austere reins of emperors such as
Aurangzeb), meanwhile, often documents and praises the love between two men.


Many Indian activists believe that the imposition of the anti-sodomy laws in
1860 by the British was a major step-backwards for a culture that had
otherwise tolerated the type of eroticism that was simply unacceptable to
the Victorians.

Sachin Jain, Co-founder of
Gaybombay,
told me the other day: "This is more of my personal belief, but I think an
apology from the British Government will bring a sense of closure to the
hundreds of thousands of LGBT people in the Commonwealth, from Jamaica to
Nigeria, from Pakistan to Sri Lank

Re: g_b Happy new year

[Sanjay Desai]

hi
happy new year to...
love sanjay

--- On Sun, 17/8/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: g_b Happy new year
To: gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, 17 August, 2008, 5:20 PM







Amen.





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g_b Pictures of LGBT March in Mumbai, Aug 16, 2008

[lgbtindiagroup]

http://s513.photobucket.com/albums/t331/gaybombay/

g_b Gay joke

[asfan]

The Pope was finishing his sermon and ended it with the Latin phrase, "Tuti 
Hominus" -- Blessed be mankind.
A women's rights group approached the Pope the next day. They said, 'We noticed 
that the Pope blessed all mankind, but not womankind.'
The next day, after His sermon, the Pope concluded by saying,
"Tuti Hominus et tuti Feminus." Blessed be mankind and womankind.
The next day a gay-rights group approached the Pope. They said they noticed 
that he blessed mankind and womankind and asked if he could also bless all the 
homosexuals. The Pope said, "Sure."
The next day he concluded his sermon with: "Tuti hominus et tuti Feminus et 
Tuti Fruity"


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Re: g_b bOllywood hUnks

[Sanjay Lulla]

NO SAIF NO JOHN NO RANVEER !!! g 

Sanjay N Lulla

--- On Sun, 8/17/08, nicky b <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

From: nicky b <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: g_b bOllywood hUnks
To: "gb gb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "G_B" , "g j" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Pak g" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Hiren G" <[EMAIL 
PROTECTED]>, "Shree" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Deboo c" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "M i c 
k y" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "ADI" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sunday, August 17, 2008, 10:50 PM












bOllywood hUnks