HOMOPHOBIA: A MAJOR THREAT TO PEACE AND UNITY IN INDIA

Living in unity and harmony is the way of social life. General acceptance and love for all would be our greatest collective attribute. Across all the religions existing in the world, there is one common teaching, that is, to "respect everyone and live together in peace and solidarity." We have been imbibing values like compassion and unity since childhood. We are told to treat everyone as our equal irrespective of their social status. And yet, many of us cease to show the same love and support to some of our fellow humans. Why so? The sole reason is because we find their sense of sexual orientation, or gender identity to be 'unnatural'. I still am very curious to know as to what gave these people the right to decide what is natural or proper or acceptable, for homosexuals or bisexuals or transexuals. 

Sexuality in humans is intricate. The multidimensional character of sexuality is acknowledged by the understanding of the distinction between desire, behavior, and identity. Sexuality can either be fixed or fluid. The fact that these aspects are not always congruent in people implies that the issues are complicated. Contrary to gender identities like male, female, and non-binary, homosexuality is a sexual orientation. When describing themselves, homosexuals may use the labels gay, lesbian, LGBTQ, queer, or a variety of other terms. There has been increasing awareness among the youth of our country about the LGBTQ community and the rights they possess, but the same cannot be asserted for the people belong to older generations. 

Prevalence of Homosexuality in Ancient Indian History and Mythology

There have been ancient inscriptions, texts, and paintings implying the existence of homosexuality in those time periods of India. For instance, the Ramayana tells the story of Dilip, a king who had two wives. He left no heirs behind when he passed away. According to the legend, Lord Shiva visited the widowed queens in their dreams and promised them a child if they made love to one another. One of the queens became pregnant as a result of the queens following Lord Shiva's instructions. The queens had a child, who grew up to be the great king Bhagirath, best known for "having brought River Ganga from heaven to the earth".  In another instance, the Mahabharata contains an intriguing tale of Shikhandini, a female or transgender warrior who was in charge of slaying Bhishma and defeating him at the time. Shikhandini was the daughter of King Drupada, who brought her up as a prince in an effort to exact revenge on Hastinapur's Kurus monarchs. Even Shikhandini was married off to a woman by Drupada. She was horrified when her wife realized the truth. By giving Shikhandini manhood during the night, supernatural intervention rescued the day. From that point on, Shikhandini lived like a hermaphrodite. 

The statues in Madhya Pradesh's Khajuraho temple are renowned for their overt homosexual themes. Most people think that the temple was constructed somewhere in the 12th century. The sculptures inside the Khajuraho temple show what appears to be fluid sexual relationships between males and men and women, with either women engaging in erotically charged interactions with other women or men flashing each other's genitalia, the former being more widespread.

Evidently there are so many occurrences of homosexuality prevalent in our ancient mythology and history. Our Indian society had acknowledged this phenomenon way back and yet, today these individuals are lacking the basic respect for our fellow countrypeople. 

Cases of Homophobia

Even in this era of modernization, our country reports innumerable physical and emotional violence-oriented cases of homophobia and transphobia every year. People cannot come to terms with the quiddity of same-sex love. They find something to be quite harmful and dangerous tour human society, but that thing itself is not visible to the eye which shows us how these homophobes let their assumptions win over actuality. Even queer-identifying kids are subject to the unnecessary hate and prejudice. This causes immense harm to their mental health, and at times sadly leads to fatal circumstances. Just some time back in February, a sixteen-year-old boy from Faridabad committed suicide after allegedly being bullied over his sexuality. In his suicide note he wrote,

"Dear Mumma, you are the best mom on this planet. I am really sorry that I could not be braver. This school has killed me, especially higher authorities."

This shows us how educational institutions have failed to create awareness among its management and students. It is heart-wrenching to even imagine what must the ever-supportive mother of the boy have been through. She will never stop blaming the school for not being there for her child when he was in need.

In an older case from two decades ago, Ms. Tarulata underwent a female-to-male sex change procedure and took the name Mr. Tarun Kumar in a small Gujarati village. In 1989, he later wed Ms. Lila. But Lila's father petitioned the provincial High Court, claiming that because the couple is a lesbian couple, the marriage is invalid. Under Section 377, a criminal prosecution was demanded in the petition. The Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code of 1860 treated gay sex as an 'unnatural' offense, and punishable by imprisonment. It states that "Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal shall be punished with imprisonment for life or imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine." But fortunately, on 6th September 2018 in a historical leap, the Supreme Court annulled this law and officially decriminalized homosexuality in the nation. This was a much-needed decision to bring about a change in the orthodox system of the country. It was a day of rejoicing all over the country. But still, the struggle for normalcy and acceptance is not over today. Even though same-sex love is legal now, we are still awaiting the declaration of the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Threats faced by the LGBT individuals due to Homophobia against them

Although there have been made significant efforts by numerous activists and societies in advocating the rights of heterosexuals, they are still grappling for acceptance. In innumerable ways this sickening act of homophobia is hindering the love and peace which should pertain between the citizens. In some temples they do not allow these citizens to enter and worship the God just because of their innate homosexuality. I believe no God has ever mentioned that a person with such particular gender identity or sexual orientation is prohibited from seeking blessings. Nowhere is it mentioned that these individuals do not deserve sheer happiness, the same respect and life in normalcy like others. People have created these illogical rules. regulations and restrictions based off on their preconceived notions, but they do not realize how it badly affects these individuals and deeply hurts them to the core. People belonging to the LGBTQ community have to face unjust discrimination, harassment, threats and violence due to their sexual orientation. On the other hand, heterosexuals seldom are subjected to such behavior for their sexual orientation as it is idolized and considered as normal. Homosexuals are often alienated and neglected in the society. Homophobia exists at home too, and when they are treated with unacceptance by their family the LGBT individuals naturally tend to distant themselves from everyone around them. Lack of understanding about the sexual orientation by the family members can lead to the individual being removed from their own home. Bullying at schools also takes a big toll on their mental health. Homophobes pester the LGBT individuals and use verbal or physical violence against them. This leads to loneliness, ostracism and depression. Such homophobic individuals at any place in the society force the LGBT people to alienate themselves from others, and when surrounded by closed doors from all sides the LGBT individuals let these depressing feelings build up inside of them for a long time and when they cannot deal with it anymore, they resort to fatal measures like suicide.

How can we make efforts?

There have been increasing cases of suicides among the homosexuals due to unfair treatment of the LGBT individuals, especially among queer teenagers as I had mentioned before. Depression is a very common mental health problem among many LGBT individuals. They need the support and love from their family and friends, more importantly from the society they live in. We should understand them and not impose our harsh opinions on them. We must musty take measures to help any such person going through an issue and help the emerge out of it. It is our moral responsibility as fellow human beings, and we should not turn a blind eye to this. Awareness is definitely needed for the people belonging to the older generations. We should start from our homes by educating our parents and grandparents about this. There should be more schemes implemented in the rural areas as well. We must work in solidarity for the betterment of our country in the societal perspective.

Social media is quite a useful means to connect and spread awareness among the citizens nationwide as well as worldwide. We should make use of the internet for good and not just focus on creating an awareness among the youth but try to connect with the older users. We can obviously make use of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and similar platforms. Through such blogs too we can express our thoughts and try to inspire others. Podcasts on famous music and audio platforms can turn out to be immensely helpful too.

Every human has the complete right to live life their way. No one should have the audacity to determine whom a person should fall in love with. One shouldn't meddle in others' love lives to begin with. Personally, I am a bigtime LGBT ally and also try to participate in their parades and events from time to time. I am of the opinion that we all are humans and passengers of the same train. Thus, starting immoral and violence-ridden fights or creating social barriers nationwide just on the basis of someone's sexual orientation does not make sense at all. That is a really petty thing for a human to do. Only with a sense of unanimity can we aspire to see perennial changes. We must ceaselessly strive for inclusivity.

 'Live and let live' is the saying that we really very much must abide by till the dusk of humankind.

#LoveIsLove