Devangshu Datta: What`s wrong if men come together?

VIEWPOINT

It was a tangled tale. The ex-wife was in a relationship with a married man, whose marriage (not surprisingly) was on the rocks. Her boyfriend had pre-empted a custody battle by picking up his son from school and disappearing.

The mother filed an FIR naming the father and the "other woman". The police found it too much of a stretch to charge the child's legal guardian with kidnapping. They targeted the girlfriend instead.

Nowadays, the police would have arrested the father. Divorce and custody disputes have become common enough to change the mindsets of the police and courts. Schools will also no longer hand over children to the "wrong" parent. For that matter, schools have become more open to granting admission to the children of broken marriages.

In the past five years, the divorce rate has doubled in urban areas. Much of the associated stigma has eased as divorce has become a middle-class phenomenon. Social mores centred on divorce have changed at great speed.

The laws haven't changed. So, I would assume the economic empowerment of women has a lot to do with the changing trend. Back in the day, a woman who wanted out of a marriage gone sour could go back to her parents or sue for maintenance. She was much less likely to get custody due to lack of means.

Nowadays, divorce is less painful, for urban working women at least. As a result, the application of the laws in practice has adapted to new socio-economic forces. Another associated change is the application of inheritance norms in cases of divorce and (multiple) remarriages, which has also come quickly.

There must have always been lots of unhappiness about the way marriage worked as an institution. A pent-up demand for divorce may have existed in much the same way that a pent-up demand for telephones did.

Both demands were price-elastic. Once it became less time-consuming and less expensive to get a phone, more people bought phones. Similarly once the costs (including social costs) of divorce dropped, more people split up. As divorce became more common, it also became less exotic. Divorcees and single-parents kids are now a near-mainstream demographic rather than the long tail in socio-economic distributions.

I wonder whether similar dynamics apply to the gay rights movement. Going by the global statistics on sexual orientation, about one in every eight Indians fantasises about activities that are illegal under Section377 of the Indian Penal Code.

That's a large, increasingly affluent and visible minority. Partly because it mirrors society at large and India has become more affluent. Also because the gay community is well-represented in high-profile professions like fashion design and entertainment. The increasing participation in, and the sympathetic coverage of gay pride parades, show that much of the stigma has eased.

Section 377 leads to the gross misuse of law enforcement resources to infringe the rights of consenting adults and it should be repealed for that reason alone. But that argument has been made before and cut no ice.

What may work is a concerted effort by gay activists to use their financial clout. It was when US marketing mavens focused on the purchasing power of the "gay dollar" and businesses realised they wanted that money that American social and legal mores changed. I think that is one route the gay rights activists need to explore.