Archive for the 'Social issues' Category

Sunday, 29 June 2008, sees history being made in Bangalore. For the first time, the city joins Kolkata and also-first-timer Delhi in having its first ever LGBT Pride Parade.

Worldwide, the modern LGBT movement is largely acknowledged as having had as a catalyst an event referred to as the Stonewall Rebellion. On 29 June 1969, following a police raided on Stonewall Inn in New York City the previous day, violent clashes resulted as the LGBT community came together to resist police harassment. A commemorative march was held the following year in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Over the years pride parades around the world became more about the celebration of being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and others in an increasingly inclusive society.

In the Indian context, though, we are far from that stage. Thus, Sunday’s pride event is not just a celebration, it is a stage for every human being who believes in a free, fair and inclusive society to stand up and say so.

From the poster:

New York, 29 June 1969: Following a raid on Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, five days of protest marked the Stonewall Rebellion, where people stood up for their right to be who they were. This landmark event is widely acknowledged as the beginning of the LGBT pride movement.

Bangalore, 29 June 2008: Times change, and with it, people. This is your chance to step up and claim your rights. Whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, hijra, kothi, intersex, straight — join us if you believe in reaffirming the right to live and love.

Silence is death. We need you to fight for what is right. Come and revel in the sunshine of Bangalore’s first pride march. Join hundreds from Delhi and Kolkata in celebrating this event.

In Bangalore the parade starts at 2:00 pm at National College, Basavangudi and ends at Puttanna Chetty Town Hall, J.C. Road.

In Delhi it starts at the corner of Barakhamba Road and Tolstoy Marg, just south of the Metro station on Barakhamba Road, and in front of the Intercontinental Hotel on Tolstoy Marg, and ends at Jantar Mantar. Time: 5:30 pm.

~PD

On Saturday, 14 June, I went to the Bangalore World Vision Partners’ Meet. The idea behind these meetings is, of course, for sponsors and World Vision to meet face to face, and all in all it was an evening well spent. We all finally got see Lily — the lady behind all the correspondence, urging us to send our sponsorships on time — and also some of the children from Gundlupet project area.

The high point of the meet was undoubtedly the cultural events put on by the children, but it was also interesting to know a little more about the sort of work World Vision does. There was a Q&A session where sponsors got to air their observations and grievances, but the answers were typically non-committal (”We’ll look into it”; “No, we’re not working in that area”; and so on) from the country director. The good thing was, when one approached Lily at the end of the event, she was far more helpful.

The figures, predictably, were depressing for a country of over 1 billion people, where over 800 million are tagged as “Below Poverty Line”. We like to beat the drums around the world proclaiming our 9 per cent growth rate, not highlighting the fact that the advantages accrued by that are only accessible to a negligible proportion of society, and certainly not to those 836 million who really need it, who struggle for basic needs such as food and shelter. With 40 per cent of schoolgoing age children out of school in that category, the future still looks bleak…

One is quite ashamed to note that while there are over 225,000 children being sponsored in India, only 23,780-odd among these are being supported by Indians. In all, there are only 32,582 active donors and sponsors who are Indian! (By the way, Bangalore accounts for 2,137 of the 32,000-odd.)

But as the poem goes, little drops of water… The children from Gundlupet showed that World Vision and their sponsors’ support may not have “ma[d]e our earth an Eden, like the heaven above”, but it has certainly made a difference in their lives. It has given them a future, and it has given them confidence.

When the sound system at the hall failed, the children just performed without the music, singing the song themselves! This from a group of children who had left their village for the first time, and were performing in a packed hall with at least 200 people. (Sorry about the picture and sound quality; and about the camerapeople obstructing the view.)

By December 2008, World Vision India needs 3,500 more sponsors. Do something meaningful and become one of those 3,500. It costs only Rs 600 (US$ 13) a month — an amount most of us don’t think twice about spending on a night out or on buying something useless.

Sponsor a child right now.

~PD

Is it history in the making or are we treading down a wearied track that leads to the inevitable dead end?

On 19 May 2008 the Delhi High Court started hearing final arguments on a petition seeking to change certain portions of the Indian Penal Code’s Section 377, leading to the decriminalization of homosexuality in India.

In its current form Section 377 states:

Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with 152 [imprisonment for life], or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and
shall also be liable to fine.

It is the use of the term “voluntarily” that is basically the problem, and the petition seeks to exclude consensual sexual acts between adults from the purview of the law. Section 377 has been used — often arbitrarily given the nature of its ambiguous wording — to victimize sexual minorities, and also been used against sexual practices (both heterosexual and homosexual) when courts have deemed to interpret such acts as “against the order of nature”. Most importantly, it dangerously limits health service providers from accessing high-risk groups for HIV/AIDS interventions, not to mention the violation of the fundamental rights to life, health, privacy, and speech and expression that 377 brings in its wake.

The petition in question was first filed in 2001 by the Naz Foundation, a community-based organization that works on HIV/AIDS awareness, care and support issues. After being rejected in 2004, Naz went to the Supreme Court, which referred the case back to the Delhi High Court saying that the “matter had to heard expeditiously”. This final hearing is presently ongoing, and now positions petitions from Naz India, along with Voices Against 377, a group lobbying for change in the law on grounds of human rights of sexual minorites, Joint Action Committee, Kannur, an NGO that opposes all HIV/AIDS prevention efforts, and V.P.Singhal, who is opposing on grounds of traditional morality.

Interestingly, there is a stand-off between two arms of the government, something that apparently amuses the judges. The Health Ministry seeks to oppose any change to the existing law, saying that doing so would encourage “immoral acts”. On the other hand the National AIDS Control Organization’s statement puts forward the point that criminalization of homosexuality hinders their work, making it difficult to reach high-risk groups such as MSM to implement their prevention strategies, including provision of information on HIV/AIDS, and education for behaviour change and prevention tools.

Section 377 is a legacy of the days of British occupation, dating back almost 150 years. In 1967 the British law was amended to decriminalize consensual same-sex activity between adults, but the legislation continues to be in place in India. Individuals and organizations have fought long and hard to bring about a change in the law.

If you are interested in adding your voice against Section 377, consider joining hundreds of others, including an illustrious list of well-known Indians, in signing this letter. To find out more about Section 377: Voices Against 377.

(With inputs from Lawyers Collective press release)

~PD