India's gays tiptoe anonymously into the slimelight

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

*
Perilous Times and Decaying Morality

India's gays tiptoe anonymously into the slimelight*

Amelia Gentleman in New Delhi
Sunday May 27, 2007
The Observer

Shrenik uses only one name to avoid being clearly identified. The young
film director has chosen not to invite relatives or friends from home to
attend the premiere of his film Lost and Found tonight in Delhi. He
hopes his parents never see it.

This short black-and-white comedy focuses on two men on a crowded bus as
they begin, covertly, to flirt, perspiring in the 42C heat, jolted about
in the thick traffic.

His is one of half a dozen new films on being gay in India, which will
be shown this week as part of the country's first gay arts festival, an
event that marks a cautious edging towards the mainstream of a
long-oppressed community.

'Such an event would have been unthinkable even five years ago,' Gautam
Bhan, one of the organisers of the QueerFest, said.

But the occasion has none of the self-assurance of gay pride movements
in Europe and the US. Promotional material for the festival made it
clear photographers and broadcasters would not be permitted to attend,
to protect the identities of those there.

Shrenik's ambivalence about the publicity for his film is revealing.
'I'd be scared to show it to my family; my parents certainly wouldn't
understand it,' he said at Friday's opening night.

In the enclosed bubbles of urban India, homosexuality is no longer much
of a taboo. 'The privileged in India are able to evade almost any law
they want to,' Bhan said. But beyond the cities, adherence to concepts
of traditional family structures makes it hard to be openly gay.

'You risk being thrown out of your home and losing your job. In a
country which has no social security safety net, that's a big deal,'
Sunil Gupta, curator of a photography exhibition mounted for the
festival, said.

The festival's organisers hope to gather wider public support for a
slow-moving campaign to persuade the government to decriminalise
homosexuality, but they remain nervous about the potential risks
involved in mounting such an event. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code
prohibits sex between members of the same sex, bracketing it together
with sex with animals and paedophilia as an 'unnatural' offence,
punishable with up to 10 years' imprisonment.

The law is rarely enforced, but its presence on the statute books
legitimises discrimination, and police harassment of gay men is
widespread. Theoretically the festival's organisers run the risk of
prosecution for 'conspiracy to promote homosexuality'. They said the
occasion had so far evaded the attentions of right-wing militant groups
simply because the word 'queer' was not widely understood in India.