Opinion The Hindu rainbow

In an opinion piece titled “Shy society. Shameless debate”,S Gurumurthy writes: “Homosexuals displaced the Economic Survey for the year 2008-09 from the headlines of most media on July 3,2009. New headings such as,‘Historic benchmark’; ‘Sexual equality’; ‘Landmark Judgement’ appeared in the media. This is how the media had headlined the Delhi High Court judgement holding Sec. 377 of the Indian Penal Code,which makes homosexual acts offences in law,partly unconstitutional. Sec. 377 of the Indian Penal Code was not Manu’s code. It was Macaulay’s. This colonial law made homosexuality punishable. In Judeo-Christian tradition homosexuality was seen an act against the law of God,punishable even with death. The Islamic rules also prescribed capital punishment for the offence. In all Abrahamic traditions the hostility to homosexuality originated in the story associated with a city as Sodom [the etymological source of the world ‘sodomy’ where the sexual sin was first committed according to their texts,though the respective accounts varied. This is the philosophy of the law against homosexuals in Abrahamic societies. Macaulay’s law reflected their theological position. Earlier,there was no state law in India to punish homosexuality. Does that mean that the Hindu — read Indian — tradition approved of homosexuality?”

The article adds: “What was the position of the state and state enacted laws in India in such matters? The king or the state in India had refrained from handling most issues which the society or families could handle. It is the colonial state,with its laws and courts,that began to intrude the sovereign domain of the family and society. The Indian discipline was always built around unenforced social and family norms; not state laws. Self-restraint and shyness were the tools to regulate the deviants from the norms,not the police or courts. Even today,it is this non-formal moral order — read dharma — not the laws of Parliament or State assemblies,that largely governs this society. India is otherwise ungovernable; just some 12,000 plus police stations in some 7 lakh towns and villages cannot regulate over 110 crore people. Thanks to this moral order,the Indian society had handled,and even now handles,such sensitive issues with great finesse than does state law. It is in stark contrast to the gross state law and media discourse of today. Historian Devdutt Puranik says that in Hindu literature ‘though not part of the mainstream,the existence of homosexuality was recognised,but,not approved’.”

Advertisement

It concludes: “Tolerance for the deviants from generally accepted human conduct is part of the Indian ethos. Here the society would wisely ignore the marginal deviants rather than punish them,even discuss them — a more subtle,sensible social management principle. The society felt,even now feels,shy to discuss them. That is why the traditional religious scholars have refused to be drawn into the current debate on the issue. In the Indian tradition,homosexuals,as elsewhere,were thus regarded as deviants. But,here,unlike in the Abrahamic,the right of these deviants to exist without being punished was never denied; and will never be. Yet no one can argue here or elsewhere that homosexuality is a virtue. No law or court of law can declare it as a virtue”.

Budget on the backfoot

The editorial in the latest issue of Organiser,titled “Budget: Congress finds globalisation too hot for comfort”,observes: “By all accounts,the budget for 2009-10 presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was a damp squib. Particularly after the hype created by the media about the new budget as a vision statement of the second term of Dr Manmohan Singh. A cynical view could be that the dispensation has grown brazen because of its re-election after its awkward and loathsome record in the first term. There can also be a more generous appreciation of the context. Perhaps,the big message of the budget was washed away in the monumental Sensex meltdown and the orchestra of disappointment played out by the protagonists of big-ticket reforms. Mukherjee meant to dismiss some pet agendas of the reform lobby. He stood his ground,in spite of the tsunami of big bang reform predictions as the only way forward for tiding over the recession. There was a promise in the budget speech that the government will retain majority stakes in the public sector companies. This ruled out distress sell-off of PSUs and share disinvestment which foreign investors were eagerly waiting for”.

The editorial adds: “There are two competing schools of economic thinking in UPA-II. If the Economic Survey reflected the thinking of Manmohan Singh,P. Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia,the budget reflects the thinking of the politician segment in the party,which for long felt suffocated under the mindless reform binge of the career politician bandwagon which so far held sway over the administration. In a way,Mukherjee’s budget is a rethink on the economic policy adopted under globalisation”.

Compiled by Suman K Jha