http://www.cybervictims.org Blog by Dr.Debarati Halder
With almost every free-thinking Indian getting shocked and
surprised by the recent Supreme court decision to set aside the High court
decision on the constitutionality of S.377 of the Indian penal Code, I can’t
stop but share my thoughts on the issue. S. 377 is one of those penal laws
created by the British rulers which has become obsolete in the eyes of the
modern society, but sitting like an obstinate law due to the recent ruling of
the Supreme Court of India. What does S.377 say? It actually criminalises unnatural
sexual relationship and thereby touches the Lesbian ,Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
community as well. I am one of those, who as a child were quite afraid of those
‘women’ who were not completely women. I grew up watching them in the trains,
bus stops, roads, eateries and sometimes at weddings and family functions where
(I was told) their presence was needed as a good omen. I continued to be
‘afraid’ of them till the day I met one who is one of them. That was way back
in 1990’s when they used to socialise with people rarely. I knew how wonderful
human being this person was and they as a group are more reliable friends than those
who cheat and harass others in the name of friendship. I was particularly
interested in their on-line presence. I did get to see lots of communities and
groups in Orkut way back in 2008 and afterwards. When Orkut started losing its
popularity, I searched them in other popular social media like the Facebook and
found that they existed in several public, private as well closed groups. A fascinating
fact that I would like to share is, while transgender, in many academic
writings who are described as ‘cross dressers’, openly advertise about their
sexual as well as physical appearance choices, many gay, lesbians and bisexuals
take to internet often to secretly share their choices. Nonetheless, I did deal
with online victimisation of such people who were violently bullied in public forums as well as private chat
messages. The pain is no less than that of any normal men or women suffering
from adult bullying or hate messages. Why stopping with this? it has become a
trend to tease a man by calling him a ‘gay’ or a woman a ‘lesbian’ and go
on-line bragging about it if a perpetrator
wishes to bring huge embarrassment to his/her victim with immediate effect. I
consider this as an insult to the LGBT community. It is a personal choice of
sexual affiliation and no one should tag a person who has straight likings to
be like one from the LGBT community may have. Similarly, LGBT community should
have their own privacy and they deserve respect even if it is in an on-line presence.
Constitutionality of S.377 has actually encouraged those who feel bullying LGBT
community people is their right as such sorts of sexual preferences are seen as
‘wrong’ not only by a major sect of the society, but by the court itself.
Now, look at the practical scenario:
i. In Tamil Nadu, one transgender
was provided government health worker’s job, another was given a home guard’s
job as a ‘woman’ (See http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/india/2013/12/131215_transgender_home_gaurd_sr.shtml?ocid=socialflow_facebook_hindi).
If S.377 is constitutional, then these ‘government appointments’ are bound to
be affected.
ii. On-line groups and communities speaking about LGBT rights,
often share information about each other. Many put up their profile status as
bi-sexual, gay or lesbian in their Facebook profiles. Would this not be
considered a ‘crime’ if the individual is an Indian national? If anyone feels
this can be considered so, think of right to equality, freedom of speech and expression
and of course right to personal preferences and right to life which has
extended its scope to cover right to privacy.
iii.While I am an ardent supporter of S.66A of the Information
Technology Act, which restricts some categories of speech in the internet, I
also fear that this provision would lose its power if any one belonging to LGBT
community wishes to avail it to prevent and punish those who would have hurled
hate speech, death threats, sexual assaults to him/her just because his/her
sexual preferences.
The practical scenario becomes graver as
majority of Indian families deject adolescent children to attend sex education
classes. But see the irony: many mothers love to dress up their young male children as baby girls with ‘girlie’
gowns, fairy wings complete with lipsticks. Many mothers also prefer to dress
up their baby girls in boy’s dresses with half pants, shorts , shirts and
encourage them to pick up toys exclusively tagged for ‘boys’ just for a ‘photo-sake’.
Well, young parents love to show off their children ‘cross dressed’ but they
forget that once floated, these pictures, images or videos can stay back for a
long time in the web; it can actually make the child extremely embarrassed when
he/she starts using the social media and his/her friends and peers take a look
at their ‘babyhood’ pictures and how their parents wanted show them off to the
world. Many adult ‘cross-dressers’ did confess in many forums that they took up
liking for what they are now, due to their childhood experiences. But do note
that these adults are ‘net immigrants’ who have taken the internet as a part of
their lives not very long ago. If the young parents are showing off their
babies (who would be true netizens) in such fashion, ask yourself on whom the
liability lies to show the path? If this is the legal scenario, would the
parents be able to counsel their children who may go through major
psychological changes due to this? Probably not. Couple of weeks ago I heard this painful story
of a co-passenger who was telling her friend how no one in her family supports
her since she has become a ‘she’ from
being a ‘he’ and how the possible employers ask them to leave right from the
door step by seeing a ‘manly woman’. Yes, she has a boyfriend, but he meets her
secretly because he does not have courage to accept a ‘former man’ as his legal
partner. Online bullying of LGBT people is almost always based on these very
facts which are painful realities.
There is one silver line in this dark cloud: the Supreme
Court did observe that S.377 is constitutional. But at the same time, it also
stated that it is open for the parliament to decide the final fate of it ( See http://barandbench.com/comment/44159#.Uq6CStIW3g0), even though this is neither an ‘unchallenged
fact’, (See http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-wrongness-of-deference/article5463126.ece),
Law
makers, please consider. Law makers, please consider.
Please Note:
Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations
provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article,
please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “The 377 and beyond”, 16th December,2013, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/”
