Homosexuality in India: A Criminal Offense?

Jyoti Puri, Svati Shah and Vivek Divan will be part of a panel discussing perspectives on the sodomy law in India (article 377 of the Indian Penal Code), to be held on Wednesday November 3rd, 2010 at 4:30pm in room 203, Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Avenue. Puri, Shah and Divan each bring with them a wealth of knowledge on the subject, accumulated through many years of research and activism. Puri and Shah are both academics, while Divan is a prominent activist for gay rights in India.

Dr Jyoti Puri has written extensively on issues of feminism, gender, sexuality and nationalism. Currently a Professor of sociology at Simmons college, Puri has authored two books� Woman, Body, Desire in Post-colonial India: Narratives of Gender and Sexuality (Routledge, 1999) and Encountering Nationalism (Blackwell Publishers, 2004). While the former deals with the construction of gender and sexualities in post-colonial and post-national states, while the latter attempts a sociological analysis of feminist encounters with nationalism. Her current work deals directly with the topic of the panel discussion, and explores debates around the sodomy law as well as documenting the struggle to de-criminalize it.

Dr Svati Shah is an Assistant Professor of women’s studies at the University of Massachusetts. Shah’s work focuses primarily on migration, trafficking, the sex trade and the role played by sexual minorities in this issues. Shah also dons the hat of an activist frequently, and is a prominent campaigner for LGBT rights in both the United States of America as well as India.

Vivek Divan has campaigned tirelessly for gay rights in India for many years now, and is currently at the forefront of the ‘Repeal Campaign’ which aims to remove discriminatory clauses from article 377. Trained as a lawyer, Divan has been a consultant with the UNDP as well as the HIV/AIDS unit of the Lawyers Collective. He has also helped draft legislation on HIV/AIDS in India and has written extensively in the press on the issue of queer rights. Currently he is on the International Advisory Board of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

Article 377 of the Indian Penal Code states that anyone who has sex �against the order of nature with any man woman or animal� is liable to be arrested and prosecuted. In effect, the law equates bestiality with homosexuality and brackets both as a criminal offense. The government of India has long sought to uphold the law and has defended it steadfastly against activists, academics and health workers. However after a prolonged struggle in various courts, the ‘Repeal Campaign’ won a prominent victory in the Delhi High Court last year when a two judge panel ruled that consensual homosexual intercourse between adults was legal.