I may seem utterly foolish for saying this, but the Supreme Court actually did quite a splendid job of supporting the criminalization of gay marriages. Don’t blame them; the Indian Supreme Court is arguably the most liberal and open-minded government organization of India. It’s just that they are also smarter than an average angry blogger.
The idols of the Indian masses are terribly loud mouthed “experts” who can condemn anything under the Indian Sun, just by citing really, really old literary pieces and the amazing Indian culture. Be it the multi-millionaire yoga king, claiming to have found a yogik cure to homosexuality or the intellectual Home Minister clearing things up a bit about what’s natural and what’s not, important Indians would never miss a chance to speak against the LGBT community. Consequently, their followers act as dominoes and being followers, they….follow!
Ergo, the three reasons why the SC cannot legalize homosexuality right now are:
- The misinformed masses will provide too strong a push-back, afraid of betraying their religion.
- Media figures will rant on like a puppy whose tail has been stepped on.
- Prominent political bobbleheads will screech with anger and disgust.
BUT… all our readers are smart and accepting, right? So we decided to research Indian culture and after thirteen minutes of hardcore Wikipedia surfing, we are finally here. We, once and for all, will discuss about the books that these figures flash in front of our poor ignorant masses.
To begin with, changes of sex, homoerotic encounters, and intersex or third gender characters are often found in religious narratives such as the Vedas, Puranas and even the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana.
There’s the famous Ardhanarishvara, who was formed by the merging of Shiva and Parvati. Alain Dainelou (a French historian and Shaivate Hinduism know-it-all) in his book ‘The Phallus’ wrote that hermaphrodites were an image of Ardhanarishvara itself.
You must have heard of a heroic dude called Arjuna. On the advice of his master and friend, Krishna, he spent the last year of his exile as ‘Brishannala’, a member of the third gender. And as any self respecting Indian will tell you, Baba Ramdev has definitely read the entire Mahabharata. Oh wait!
Conner and Sparks, in the book ‘Arani’ argue that the Hindu fire goddess, Arani was related to the ‘L’ in LGBT. Samba, the son of Krishna was definitely a patron of the ‘G’,’B’, and ‘T’. The examples are numerous.
So here is what I beg of you. We live in a society that is a complete utter wasteland for some of our brothers and sisters. They lurk in the shadows, too afraid to say anything. They do not receive the Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity as promised to them by the first page of our constitution’s rule book! Give some thought to this. Go and discuss these issues with your parents and classmates. Indians were actually pretty ahead of the west. May the next generation, our generation, be the same. May we rise from this unruly pit into the shining heavens of open-hearted acceptance
SatSoni 