Hundreds of people took to the streets under rainbow flags for a pride parade in Mumbai, India on Saturday, despite a law that criminalizes homosexual sex.
“I don’t care for society, whatever happens we will be together till our last breath. We would like to get married legally, though, and have a baby,” Shaurya, a 36-year-old woman lesbian woman who traveled for two hours to attend the pride event with her partner told VICE news.
The woman, who wished to be identified by only her first name, said that she and her partner were ostracized when she came out to her family, but she and others at the parade were hopeful of increased social — if not legal — acceptance.
One couple took advantage of the gathering of like-minded individuals, and decided to tie the know at the parade.
A colonial-era law dating back to 1866 criminalized “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” — a “crime” that could mean life in prison. As ThinkProgress has reported, this ban on gay sexual relationships was struck down in 2009, but then reinstated by the country’s Supreme Court in December 2013.
600 people were arrested in India under the law, and it doesn’t seem very likely that it’ll revoked again anytime soon.
Narendra Modi, who became prime minister of the world’s second most populous country after a landmark election in May in a wave of socially-conservative Hindu nationalist politicians.
When asked by a legislator about his stance on the gay sex ban, he responded with “deafening silence.”
Members of his party, however, have been more vocal.
“We will tell them what to do and how to get over same-sex feelings,” Ramesh Tawadkar, the sports and youth affairs minister of the coastal state of Goa told the New York Times earlier this month.
“We will make them normal,” Tawadkar said of gay and lesbian people in his state. “We will have centers for them, like Alcoholics Anonymous centers,” adding that the government would “train them and give them medicines too.”
Chants of “homophobia Bharat chorro,” or, in English, “Homophobia get lost from India,” sounded through the streets of Mumbai this weekend.
Some of the biggest cheers at the pride went to transgender participants, who are legally recognized in India. Earlier this month, a “third gender” candidate won a mayoral election — beating out a contender form Modi’s conservative Bharatiya Janata Party.