The Advocate

Udayan catches up with Arvind Narain, one of the most prominent faces behind the struggle against Section 377. He talks about the historic case and its implications, the nature of the Indian gay rights movement and his pet project- the Alternative Law Forum.

Arvind Narain

Arvind Narain has been hailed by the Indian media as the country’s most promising gay rights advocate. But the man himself- thirty five years old, with a petit build and an amazing humility for the stature he’s carved for himself within the community and beyond, would not like to limit himself to just that. “I think of myself, foremost as a human rights activist, and gay rights is of course the closest to my heart”, he says when I caught up with him at this year’s Bangalore Queer film festival, where he was addressing a conference on the implications of the Section 377 judgment.

Arvind is a graduate of the National Law School of India, and given his natural brilliance at his job, while he could have easily gone for a lucrative career as a criminal lawyer he chose the more audacious path of human rights, eventually setting up the Alternative Law Forum in 2000 with a group of his close friends back from college. “I always wanted to do something I was passionate about. Sitting at a big firm and earning big money, while doing something that failed to excite me was never my idea of a career.” And the Indian LGBT community can be thankful for that. Arvind was one of the key faces that drove the Delhi High Court to its historic decision to decriminalize homosexuality.

“The very fact that today we’re here discussing the repeal of Section 377 seems such a far cry from the first ever gay rights conference that we held back in 1997 when it was almost impossible to tell someone that you’re gay”. Arvind points out the most salient features of the beautifully worded 105 page judgment. “Firstly it talks about the right to intimacy, and how that is something that cannot be snatched away. So we’re not just limiting the discussion to the old argument about what we do in our bedrooms is nobody’s business. We’re moving beyond the bedroom and acknowledging human emotions. Secondly, by quoting men like Nehru and Ambedkar, our community has been mainstreamed. And thirdly, the fact that sexual orientation has been declared as a ground on which there can be no discrimination is immensely significant.”
However, as Arvind honestly points out, that it was both hard work and “great luck” combined that made the pro-gay ruling possible. “The bench comprised of judges who showed great sympathy, thanks to the fact that they’d been interacting through the Lawyer’s Collective with two retired judges- one from Australia, another from South Africa- who’ve been at the forefront of legal gay rights campaigns in their respective countries. Arvind doubts if the Supreme Court challenge will be as simple. “We have 16 anti-gay petitions before the court and just two pro-gay ones. We desperately need more bodies to come forward with their own petitions. And therefore, he’s appealing to teachers and parents of gay children to come forward and be a part of the Supreme Court challenge.

But given the lack of proper organizations and communication channels in India for the mentioned groups (such as the PFLAG in several western countries) getting them together is quite a challenge in itself. The need for national LGBT organizations has been painfully brought out by the Professor Siras case. An organization like the Lambda Legal for instance could have immediately taken up that open-and-shut case of blatant homophobia. Arvind agrees that national organizations like these are a “good idea” but doesn’t feel any immediate need for them. “Frankly I don’t care much as long as the work gets done. In bigger organizations, real work tends to be much slower thanks to beaurocratic lethargy. For example, during the Delhi High Court case, we were such a motley group of people from all over the country, but the work was smoothly executed at a very informal level.” However, given India’s vastness in terms of geography and demographics, it may not be the best way forward if we’ve to have a long term plan in mind. Arvind promptly agrees.

That’s about the judgment and a lot has happened since then. Arvind feels that the most important of all those events is the conglomeration of homophobic forces in the country. “Such a disparate group of religious as well as secular groups have come together that one would be generally surprised to find them sharing the same platform.”

Speaking of less legal and more social aspects, I asked him how he sees the two vis-a-vis each other. “I really don’t see a conflict between the two in India, because honestly I’ve never faced any homophobic discrimination till now. I’m hopeful that gay rights is now going to make rapid progress in this country both in legal and social terms.” Interestingly, Arvind has always thought of India’s case to be different from that of western countries. In his book “Because we have a voice- Queer Politics in India” Arvind talks about how being gay in India is different from being gay in the west. As he puts it, “In India, we don’t have closets, we have almirahs!”

Arvind is an articulate and confident young man with his feet firmly on the ground. Definitely a voice that cannot be unheard, a face that cannot be left unseen.