South Asia Citizens Web

One year ago, on July 2nd 2009, a Delhi High Court division bench of Chief Justice A. P Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar said “We declare that Section 377 IPC, insofar it criminalizes consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution.” It upheld one of the primary principles of natural justice, ’right to consent’ and restored the dignity and rights of millions of those whose existence in the society was not even acknowledged. Needless to say that while it was a result of a long struggle by a lot of people that a judgement of this kind came in, and that is not a mean achievement, however, implementation of this is important. Just having a law is not enough.

Authorities in India should avoid excessive use of force while dealing with demonstrators in the Kashmir valley, Amnesty International said today.

A friend once told me a strange story about visas. Her uncle, an Indian married to a Pakistani and working in a third country, died in a country he was visiting on business. The question his family faced: where would he be buried? The natural choice was India, his home country, but then his wife and son would be unable to come. After many unsuccessful attempts to get them visas, the extended family decided to take the only other option and bury the man in a ’neutral’ country. Borders followed him, even in death.

One year ago, in Court Number One of the Delhi High Court, a group of people — including this writer — huddled together in a hushed courtroom, barely breathing. By the time the judgment reading down Sec 377 was read out, my palms had turned white from clutching the hands of the two crying, happy women who stood on either side of me. These were the same women in whose house I and so many others had found our first queer community — a house where protests had been planned, victories celebrated, friends mourned and wounds healed. The world seemed to have come full circle.

The recent Gods and Politics conference in Copenhagen adopted the following Declaration on Religion in Public Life. The conference was the first European event of Atheist Alliance International, and was co-hosted by AAI and the Danish Atheist Society.