As Supreme Court Legalises Homosexuality In Rest Of The India; Kashmir Is Left Out. Here's Why
The LGBT community in the state especially the Kashmir Valley has almost no voice due to religious and cultural orthodoxy. Until 2011 when a Kashmir University scholar Dr Ajaz Ahmad Bund began social work on transgender no one spoke about the community openly in Kashmir. Dr Bund also set up a welfare organization that counsels members of the LGBT community and files petitions on their behalf in courts.
As the LGBT members raptured with pride in many cities of India following the Supreme Court¡¯s judgment decriminalizing gay sex, their community in Jammu and Kashmir shared muted self-esteem. Reason: the apex court verdict is not applicable to the state.
The court¡¯s verdict was in reference to section 377 of Indian Penal Code (IPC), which does not automatically get extended to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, governed by its own constitution and criminal law¡ªRanbir Penal Code (RPC).
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The RPC, framed on the lines of the IPC during the British colonial rule, also criminalizes sexual intercourse other than the one between heterosexuals, under its own section 377.
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¡°But we are happy that the first step towards humanizing the LGBT community in India has been taken. We had been waiting for this day for a long time,¡± a lesbian in her 20s from Srinagar told the TOI on phone.
¡°We are hopeful that the state-sponsored homophobia will sooner or later end in J&K too. Inshallah, someday, my girlfriend and I will get married,¡± she said requesting anonymity.
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The LGBT community in the state, especially the Kashmir Valley, has almost no voice due to religious and cultural orthodoxy, which assumed radical nature following the outbreak of the Islamist militancy in 1989-90.
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Until 2011, when a Kashmir University scholar Dr. Ajaz Ahmad Bund began social work on transgender, no one spoke about the community openly in Kashmir.
After breaking the glass ceiling, Bund found many members of the LGBT quietly approaching him to share their stories of suffocation and tribulations. He went on to write the first ethnographic book on transgender of the Valley, ¡®Hijras of Kashmir ¨C A Marginalized Form of Personhood¡¯ which was published in 2017.
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Dr. Bund also set up a welfare organization that counsels members of the LGBT community and files petitions on their behalf in courts for their rights.
¡°The Supreme Court judgment is a historic moment in the movement for human rights in the country. It is of huge importance to us because we will now be able to file a petition seeking its extension to J&K too,¡± Dr. Bund told TOI.
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Interestingly, the two former chief ministers, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti who are usually active on social media expressing their views about almost every national issue, remained silent on the SC judgment.
The state and the political elite are patriarchal, homophobic and generally insensitive towards sexual minorities, the lone crusader for LGBT rights in Kashmir, Dr. Bund said. ¡°The politicians don¡¯t even talk about the rights of women in Kashmir, let alone of LGBT,¡± he said.
¡°We are a very complex and strange society. They call love between two men ¡®unIslamic¡¯ but how can love be wrong? I cannot come out of closet and speak openly about my love for my boyfriend but then we can¡¯t talk about any truths here.
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For example, we can¡¯t even ask young boys not to pelt stones and not to harm people. We just gag ourselves because we don¡¯t want to invite the wrath of society,¡± a gay youth from south Kashmir said pithily.
Three other members of LGBT community that the TOI spoke to, said that there was no way they could come out of their closet in Kashmir. ¡°Neither our families understand nor do they accept that there is such a thing as sexual orientation. We will get killed if they come to know about our relationship,¡± a gay person from Anantnag said.
Dr. Bund believes that Kashmir which has a population of around 7 million people follows the global estimate for LGBT population, which is about 10 per cent. ¡°But they are not visible because society is in denial. The SC judgment, I am hoping, will now initiate a debate and awareness about what it means to be gay or lesbian or transgender in Kashmir,¡± he said