Men are believed to be the creation of GOD, the creator, the sustainer and the destructor of the Universe. Then, there are certain terms which are of frequent use, such as normal, abnormal, abysmal etc. and also majority and minority. Suspect with utter disbelief that there may be some intermingling conspiracy amongst all these nomenclatures, none other than by GOD himself!
Whatever majority does it is construed as normal by default and whatever is done in defiance to majority or majority view is called abysmal or dissent and is vehemently resisted initially, this may be a natural phenomenon embedded by the creators, as well.
But history is witness to this occurrence though that with time and human evolution, the rational minority view point achieves acceptance. So when Men & Women and their established heterosexual behavior and love for each other is considered as normal, then feeling of desire amongst the same sex can also be normal subject to the altered perception of the society at large, provided we are prepared to display attitude to accept change and indicate maturity.
Now, two major human communities on earth are Men and Women who are close to fifty-fifty in numbers. But nature as a normal phenomenon has variants in all creations and that’s where the minority community in question comes in. The current trend is to name this community as LGBTI or Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transsexual and/or intersex.
The Indian LGBTI population is only half a million out of one hundred and twenty five Crores or One and a quarter billion. Which works out to exactly 0.04% (zero point zero four percent). By any standards LGBT qualifies more than a minority and deserves all the attention in the World than what the other minorities can logically garner. To provide the legitimate rights and privileges of LGBTI are therefore all the more important to prove the tyranny of majority is non-existent in our beloved country, India.
But what we have done so far is the question!
It is not a fact that the phenomenon of LGBTI is known only recently to us. NO! is the answer for that matter.
The references of LGBTI do exist in Vedic scriptures. “Brihanalya”, the God or Godess as depicted in the Mahabharata as a lover of Arjuna and the character is portrayed to be belonging to neither sex of Men & Women. “Ardhanarisharya” is yet another depiction of God and or Goddess of dual sexual behavior. In contemporary spiritual wisdom traditions that the Chaitainya Mahaprabhu of Nadia, West Bengal, preached and propagated, is the combination of Radha (The lover and not wife) & Lord Krishna (Symbolises the creator) in one body and mind and is a bisexual character may be presumed as the representative of sexual duality. Vedas did not denounce LGBTI but enumerated it as a combined “Vasana” of being present in all sexes. The dominant “Vasana” or a term very close to desire or the term which is source of very desire in all beings, is the determinant for the predominance of Men or Women sexual hormone present to determine one’s sexual orientation and behavior. Hormone also believed to generate from thought and action (“Karma”) of the individual and its intercourse with bio-system.
The various Sanskrit scriptures and literatures uses controversial terms such as “Ubhaya, Napumsaka” etc, to describe what is frequently referred to as the “Third Gender” (“Trtiya prakrti”), besides Men and Women. These expressions may be taken as referring in general to sexually dysfunctional men or women, who may be, according to the context, impotent, homosexual or even having abnormal genitalia, for which they themselves are no way responsible!
What a great creation the human body is? Wonder, whose-soever has conceived and designed it and how does it function and malfunction? How the procreation method and the process have been designed to happen? Like No machine can be 100% efficient, No Gold can be refined to 100% purity, No Men can also be 100% perfect. LGBTI is thus one of the imperfections in Men, which we have to learn to accept like any other impurity; imperfections; contaminations are part of the whole and thus NORMAL.
The Holy Book of Bible indicates that, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders. (1 Corinthians 6:9)
Here may a clue why in Indian Penal Code 1860 drafted by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay that was presented by the First Law Commission in 1835 and was submitted to Governor-General of India in 1837, and was adopted much later in 1860, had eventually opted to criminalize the sexual behavior other than those of heterosexual choices, the most important phrase used was “against the order of nature”. This is the outcome of 25 years of thought by the then law makers of the country!
The pertinent portion of the Section 377 in The Indian Penal Code reads as: - Unnatural offences.—“Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with 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. Explanation.—Penetration is sufficient to constitute the carnal intercourse necessary to the offence described in this section.”
Not much voluntary support has been received from the Apex Court of India citing lack of legislation or even the Government of the day on evolving the law for the minority LGBTI community to make it contemporary so that the law of the day advances as on date in the beginning of 2017 as well. His Excellency Tathagata Roy – The Hon’ble Governor of Tripura one day tweeted in protest that “even Birth control is also against the order of nature” and so the question arises whether even Birth control should be made criminal as well or remain to be de-criminalised.
https://twitter.com/tathagata2/status/838795257231745025
According to the latest news reports, India avoided taking a position on the need to end discrimination based on sexual orientation at the Human Rights Council of the UN, as the Supreme Court is yet to “pronounce” on the issue of rights of LGBT persons, as per the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) communiqué in 2016. The MEA’s clarification came a day after India abstained from a voting at the UNHRC on a resolution to set up the office of Independent Expert to end discrimination against LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual and or Intersex) persons. “The issue of LGBTI rights in India was as a matter considered by the Supreme Court under a batch of curative petitions filed by various institutions and organisations till 2016. As such, we had to take this into account in terms of our vote on the third UN resolution to institutionalise the office of an Independent Expert to prevent discrimination against LGBT persons,” said MEA spokesperson. This statement comes more than two decades later after giving only adoption and voting rights to the community as late in 1994, which are actually peanuts against their due. This complacent attitude of law makers is the major issue of concern.
But the hope not willing to fade away as, like New Zealand was the first country to give voting rights to Women in 1893 and the rest of the countries then followed suit, thus we have lot of expectations for change in the future and like growing democracies elsewhere in the World, LGBTI rights will also assume due proportion.
Overall lot of things needs to be done for this community to make justice and rule of law prevail in this country but the problem is that they do not constitute such quantity to qualify as vote bank, so when this vote bank policies of the political parties shall end, then only there may be a ray of hope, otherwise no light at the end of the tunnel can be sighted.
#JaiHind
