Coalition to work for rights of LGBT community in South Asia

Giving teeth to this Mumbai Chapter was Nepal’s gay Member of Parliament,Sunil Babu Pant. “Abuse of the LGBT community takes place all over the world part of this is also the discriminatory laws we have. In Nepal we brought a sea change when a small Communist party put the LGBT rights on their election manifesto and came to power. Today Nepal as a country is more open to accept us in the mainstream society,” said Pant. Pant says India can go a long way if a similar approach is adopted here. “Acceptance of the LGBT community in the mainstream is a two-way process. Though homophobia has to be reduced at the grass root level,lot of this change can also take place if our rights are protected. Since India considers itself to be a champion of democracy,it should make serious efforts to put an end to unfriendly laws,” said Pant.

As this coalition’s main ambition is to bring changes in LGBT rights in South Asia,their main aim for India is to change the controversial section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which defines homosexuality as a criminal offence. The coalition formed by SIDA will be meeting in Delhi next month to discuss the issue with the government. “We had filed a PIL with the Delhi High Court eight years back to change this section. There is a serious need to scrap this section as this gives the state the right to intervene in anyone’s personal life. The section has been used for harassment,physical and sexual violence in the past. Hence the LGBT community seriously thinks that the Act is more of a corruption issue than law and order one,” said activist lawyer,Aditya Bandyopadyay.

 The community thinks the time is right to make their voices heard. “The LGBT movement has spread worldwide but still some babus in the India polity have not recognised them. It could be stemming out of their ignorance. We want the political parties to seriously consider the community as a good vote bank and address our issues in their election manifesto,” said Bandyopadyay.

For Pant,this is the first step to eradicate homophobia from South Asia. “The Nepal government is on the anvil of recognising our community as the third gender and giving us all the rights. All major political parties are giving the interests of the community a serious thought. It has created a winning situation because people’s acceptance is increasing now. If Nepal can do this,there is no doubt that a country like India where acceptance has definitely increased cannot follow suit,” said Pant.

Jonas Tillberg,member of the SIDA team agreed. “We were formed in 2006 as part of out international health scheme to create better awareness about the LGBT movement. Our main aim is to ensure better rights for this community so homophobia is slowly eradicated,” said Tillberg.