Opinion Ruth Vanita writes: How two laws and religion in India are open to same-sex marriage
The Hindu Marriage Act and the Special Marriage Act, are gender-neutral and are therefore already open to same-sex marriage although not the government does not recognise this
When Love’s Rite appeared in 2005, homosexuality was still criminalised under the anti-sodomy law introduced by the British in 1861 (and overturned by the Supreme Court in 2018); marriage equality was nowhere on the horizon. (Representational) On March 21, 1993, Vinoda Adkewar, 18, and Rekha Chaudhary, 21, from neighbouring villages in Maharashtra, went to the Registrar of Marriages and declared their intention to marry. Rekha had brought a red bridal sari for Vinoda. The Registrar said he was “perplexed”; finally, Vinoda’s parents persuaded her to return home. Rekha threw away the sari and left with tears in her eyes.
In 1993, the LGBT movement in India had barely begun and there was no movement for marriage equality. Same-sex marriage was not legally recognised anywhere in the world. But all over India, scores of low-income, non-English-speaking young couples, almost all of them female, had been getting married by religious rites or committing joint suicide since at least 1980. There were also a few such reports from neighbouring countries, especially Nepal. None of these couples knew any words like “lesbian” or “gay” and none were in touch with any movement or activists.
When they got married, these couples almost always presented themselves as bride and groom. Sometimes, the ceremony was officiated by a priest and supported by family members; sometimes, it was a private mutual garlanding and walking around the fire. The first case that made national headlines was that of two policewomen, Leela Namdeo and Urmila Srivastava, who got married by Hindu rites in 1987. They presented as bride and groom. Leela wore a sari and jewellery and Urmila, a shirt and trousers.
The same was often true of those who committed joint suicide On April 16, 1992, the Indian Express reported that two Nepali Hindu women, Rekha Puri, 22, and Gayatri Parayar, 18, committed suicide together “after their families refused them permission to be married to each other.” They were found hanging from a tree in their village, Rajapur. Gayatri was wearing sindoor (vermilion powder in the hair-parting, the sign of a married woman in some Hindu communities) and the women left behind a suicide note, in which they wrote, “we want to live as husband and wife in the life beyond the grave.”
Based on these and more than a hundred other cases, reported in the Indian press, my book Love’s Rite (Penguin 2005, new commemorative edition 2022) argued that two major marriage laws in India, the Hindu Marriage Act and the Special Marriage Act, are gender-neutral and are therefore already open to same-sex marriage although not the government does not recognise this. Both Acts refer to “two Hindus” or “two persons” without specifying gender.
Thereafter, the Acts use the words “bride” and “groom” but, I argued, these two words are not always gender-specific in India. Male mystics in India, both Hindu and Muslim, have for centuries written about themselves as brides of a male God. Many medieval mystics (both male and female) who attained fame as devotees of Krishna, were said to be reincarnations of Krishna’s female lovers. This is because the spirit (atman) in Hinduism has no gender or other characteristics and can be reborn in any gender, species or community.
In 2002, I interviewed a Shaiva priest from India who performed the wedding of two Indian women in Seattle. He told me that when the women requested him to officiate at their wedding he thought about it and, though he realised that other priests in his lineage might disagree with him, he concluded, on the basis of Hindu scriptures, that, “Marriage is a union of spirits, and the spirit is not male or female.”
In November 2022, two male couples, Supriyo Chakraborty and Abhay Dang and Parth Phiroz Mehtrota and Uday Raj Anand, filed a petition in the Supreme Court, making exactly the same argument. They argue that they should be allowed to marry under the Special Marriage Act because it uses the terms “bride” and “groom” which are gender-neutral, and also because the Constitution of India gives all “persons” the fundamental right to marry. Supriyo and Abhay have been together since 2012. Parth and Uday have been together for 17 years and have two children. There are already several petitions for marriage equality pending in the Delhi High Court.
When Love’s Rite appeared in 2005, homosexuality was still criminalised under the anti-sodomy law introduced by the British in 1861 (and overturned by the Supreme Court in 2018); marriage equality was nowhere on the horizon. I am delighted that the struggles of all those young couples from the 1980s onwards, whom I consider the pioneers and martyrs of the marriage equality movement in India, are finally bearing fruit.
Vanita is a novelist and scholar
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