Life is a series of journeys. None is more troubling and heart-wrenching than that which challenges one’s beliefs and certainties. This is especially so if it has to begin all of a sudden and involves a much-loved child. I have undertaken such a journey. It was deeply personal and painful. Such personal journeys are of little social significance. But some have a bearing on society and its evolution. I believe mine does. That belief has led me to choose to make it public. It has not been an easy choice for it will inevitably invite adverse comments, perhaps even trolling.
Before I relate the journey, it may be useful to put it in the context of my family. We are Kashmiri Pandits. Our ancestors migrated from the Kashmir Valley and were based in the Malwa region of what is now Madhya Pradesh from the 1820s. My grandfather, Kailas Nath Katju, settled in Allahabad, now Prayagraj, in 1914 and became a leading lawyer. He joined the Congress. Like millions, he became a follower of Mahatma Gandhi. Grandfather was socially and religiously conservative. I have been told that, as a senior member of Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet, he was unhappy with the changes in Hindu personal laws brought about in 1956. My father Brahma Nath Katju retired as chief justice of Allahabad High Court. He was deeply attached to time-honoured Hindu values without being demonstrative. His elder brother Shiva Nath Katju, who also served as a judge of Allahabad High Court, was for many years president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad after his retirement.
I joined the Indian Foreign Service but always carried my Hindu inheritance, as taught to me, deep in my heart. That inheritance placed great emphasis on the values of tolerance without timidity. It also stressed that humility and civility were attributes of strength. To these Hindu sentiments were added a firm faith in the Indian Constitution. It could not be otherwise, for, apart from my paternal family, some of my mother’s ancestors too were leading lawyers. Her maternal grandfather, Tej Bahadur Sapru, was one of the pioneers of thinking on the constitutional scheme of independent India. He, too, was socially conservative.
I have given this background only to show the extent of the shock I received when my eldest daughter Arundhati revealed her sexual orientation to my wife and me in 2012, some months after I had retired from service — shock, because it was so alien to my upbringing and my life experience. Arundhati had followed the family calling and was then a struggling young lawyer seeking to set up an independent practice. I was speechless and could hardly absorb the import of what she had said.
That night, I cried.
My wife, Geeta, who studied engineering at the Banaras Hindu University and also holds an MTech degree from IIT Kanpur, told my other two daughters later that year that she had seen me cry only twice. The first time was when my father died in 2004. I loved him deeply and respected him for, like a true Hindu, he had completely conquered the lure of “kanchan” and ambition, which led him to never compromise on his principles. The second time was that night.
Later, my other daughters told us that Arundhati’s partner was Menaka Guruswamy, an academic-lawyer who was bright and talented and witty. Arundhati and Menaka had begun to live together.
For a couple of years, Geeta and I simply did not know what to do. We were in despair and did not dare to consult anyone. We understood little about different sexual orientations and it was painful for me to even read about them. We knew of Section 377 of the IPC and had seen images of Pride parades and, at least I paid no attention to them. These were not part of “our world”.
As the secretary supervising the Protocol Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, the chief of protocol told me of the request of countries which recognised same sex couples as a family, that gay foreign diplomats’ partners be accepted by India as part of these diplomats’ families so that they would be covered under the privileges of the Vienna Convention. I had no sympathy with these requests and told my colleague that Indian law regarding a family unit should apply. And, neither Geeta nor I had it in us to share Arundhati’s orientation with my mother or other relatives. Mother passed away in 2014 and I often feel that it was wrong of me not to tell her about what her eldest grandchild, whom she adored, had shared with us. Perhaps, with her wide tolerance and faith in the Bhagavad Gita, mother would have shown us the path when we were struggling.
We dote on our three daughters and what Arundhati had told us did not diminish our love for her but for at least two years the number of our meetings with her came down. I recall that on some occasions when we talked about her orientation, I told her that the law in India stood in the way. She did not discuss what Menaka and she were doing to change the law but we came to know that they were working on it after the Supreme Court in 2013 reversed the Delhi High Court’s judgment to read down Section 377.
Around three years after Arundhati shared her orientation with us, Geeta and I began to accept the fact. Geeta, who is a far deeper thinker than I am, charted the way. I then began to understand that some people are hardwired differently. That marked a great transition and, I believe, made me a more understanding person. Meanwhile, our meetings with Menaka increased and we enjoyed her company and began to admire her qualities. In 2016, Arundhati went to Columbia University to do her Masters in Law and Menaka too went abroad to pursue courses and also lectured at Columbia. We were by now in constant touch and our affection for both of them, as a couple, grew. It is not as if there was an event that brought it about but it was a gradual process.
In all these years our relatives and friends had no doubt got to know of their relationship but not once did anyone make any disparaging comment, indicating how much our society has evolved. Later, when we discussed Menaka and Arundhati with some of them, they showed great sensitivity.
Geeta and I were in the Supreme Court when it handed down the Section 377 judgment in 2018. We had tears in our eyes as the Court upheld the right to equality of people of different sexual orientations. Later, Arundhati and Menaka’s contribution was recognised by many in India, especially among the young, as well as in different parts of the world. They became, to our surprise and, of course, joy, part of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people for the year 2019. They have also been recently honoured with the Thomas Jefferson Medal by the Jefferson Foundation and the University of Virginia for their contributions in the field of law. They are perhaps the first non-Americans to get this award.
The journey has made me a better person and a better Hindu because, for me, especially now, the essence of my great faith is to shun dogma and accept as equal, in the truest sense of the term, life and orientations and love and unions in their infinite varieties and forms. That is, I believe, also the Republic’s foundational principle embodied in its Constitution.
The writer is a former diplomat
