LGBTQ Rights In India And Its Future

Anagh Pandey, Amity University

ABSTRACT

We are living in an era where caste, creed, colour, religion etc all have taken a backseat in front of Human Rights. But still even as the society think itself as being in the peak on modernisation and liberalisation, still their is a community which is not considered as humane enough to be included inmainstream society called LGBTQ.

LGBTQ are people who have different sexual orientation from the mainstream society for example Lstands Lesbian, these are basically females who are attracted to other females. This paper traces theevolution of LGBTQ rights in India, from being considered as a crime to being considered as unacceptable even after getting legalized by the courts. Further it looks discuss about the future of LGBTQ rights in India.

HISTORY

The concept of LGBTQ is not new to Indian Subcontinent, several ancient texts and scriptures put forth characters which can be seen away from conventional gender identities. For example the Ardhnareshwar avatar of Lord Shiva where he is considered as having half body male and half of female. Another instance is the Mohini avatar of Lord Vishnu and the son born from the union of Mohini and Shiva named Lord Ayappa.

It is very interesting that though Indian society was considered as dogmatic and regressive by the Europeans, at a time when being homo sexual or transgender was seen as being a mental disease in west, on the other hand in India the gods like Ardhnareshwar and Mohini were worshipped and preached by people. It was with colonization of the Indian people that an ideology against LGBTQ started being developed among Indian people. This reached its climax with the Legislation of Article377 which criminalized homosexuality.