A Real Rainbow

On a sidewalk at Market Street in San Francisco, as the gay pride parade moved on, I could see two men sitting nonchalantly as naked as the day they were born. And just as nonchalantly, the world moved around them. Being naked in San Francisco is actually illegal. It used to be legal and some groups in The Castro, a gay neighbourhood, would often sit naked in the evenings chatting away. In 2013, they decided to ban it and amusingly the politician who introduced the measure had a surname called Wiener. But on days like the Pride, they let it slide. It is part of a grand spectacle and the city makes sure that everyone is part of it.

This time the Pride was said to be a lot more spectacular than usual and it was because of the US Supreme Court ruling that gay marriage is legal across the country. It is a momentous occasion for gay rights and indicates just how out of tune with the civilised world India is. Law Minister Sadananda Gowda, asked for a reaction by the media, said that the mood seemed to be in favour of scrapping Section 377 that criminalises homosexuality. That is still an aeon behind legalising gay marriages. Even for decriminalising, he said that it may be possible after widespread consultations, which is politician-speak for keeping it on hold forever and letting it be someone else’s problem. Most Indian politicians probably don’t really care one way or the other about this issue, but they don’t know what position to take in public. They look at Europe and the United States and feel that it is inevitable that India would follow suit. But then they look at religious groups within the country and decide that it is an inevitability that they don’t want any part in.

In San Francisco, I saw the police chief of the region not at the sidelines keeping order, but being part of the parade at the head of a police contingent, gesticulating and charging the crowd to holler in support. There was the fire department in the parade with fire trucks. There was the local Senator, Attorney General, Congresswoman, all sharing space with loud and often scantily dressed members of the LGBTQ community. The entire state and its institutions, gay and straight, were out in celebration. So were the corporates. Apple had a contingent that was one of the largest at the parade. Airbnb, Dropbox, Coca- Cola, Yahoo!, Diageo- Smirnoff and more were all there. There were animal rights organisations with dogs, there were little children on their scooters and old men and women on wheelchairs.

Will we ever see a day when the police commissioner of Mumbai or Delhi joins a gay pride parade? Not likely, even if they were gay. It will take quite something for the state not to look at gay rights as adversarial. Soon after Sadananda Gowda’s comments appeared in the media, he issued a clarification saying that he had been misquoted. That the question of scrapping Section 377 had not reached his ministry. It would, therefore, first have to arrive from some mysterious place and then the consultations would begin. He had distanced himself even further from the issue. Just to be safe.

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