Meet Mumbai's Arnab Nandy, the man who helped give Section 377 a face

Last Thursday, Arnab Nandy was in for a surprise when he visited his parents in the industrial town of Boisar, a couple of hours from Mumbai. In a watershed judgment, the Supreme Court had earlier in the day struck down a colonial-era law to decriminalise homosexuality. The 25-year-old, who had come out to his parents three months ago, was met by them with an embrace and the words, “Congratulations son, now it’s legal.”

Nandy, who works as a technical associate in Morgan Stanley, put a post on Facebook with a heart-warming photo where his parents are holding a placard that says, “My son is not a criminal anymore.” He stressed that sexuality is only a part of one’s identity. He recounted coming out of the closet and how his conservative parents stood by him, and inspired many like him to get in touch and share their stories.

After his post, which went viral, life hasn’t changed much, he admits. He is based in Mumbai, a city he prefers for its largely accepting people and a friendly LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community, and is employed with a global investment firm which doesn’t frown upon his orientation.

“People just assume that you are straight. Their heteronormative way of seeing things brings us a lot of anxiety. So when I came out, it made my life easier,” says Nandy.

An alumnus of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Nandy was living in denial through schooling and higher studies, and presumed he was bisexual. While he likes to sketch and dabble in photography, until he started working three years ago, he was preoccupied with typical career-related concerns of a middle-income youth.

Dating apps and social media helped him meet LGBTQ folks in Mumbai and discover his sexuality. In the last couple of years, he revealed his orientation to friends and colleagues. Confronting his parents was a tense and emotional moment. His elder sister, who lives in Canada, had apprehensions about whether it would make life difficult for their parents if their neighbours got wind of it.

His father works as a scientific officer at the Tarapur nuclear plant and his mother is a homemaker. “When I told them, they were in a rush to accept their son rather than the community,” he says. “Now, they understand what it means to be LGBTQ and my mother carries the message of sensitising people. It is critical because it’s our society that makes people homophobic.”

Section 377 was introduced in the Indian Penal Code in 1861 to criminalise consensual sex between homosexuals, terming it “against the order of nature”. While Nandy’s post earned him many admirers and support, he has been rebutting the hateful messages linking homosexuality to Western influences by pointing out that the law was mandated by the British.

He observes that the September 6 judgment has liberated his parents more than him, as his father confessed that the lack of legal sanction had so far prevented him from openly supporting his son.

Nandy is flush with the optimism generated by last week’s verdict, but he says there is a long way to go. He points out that LGBTQ people, who face rejection from families and workplaces, only add to the count of the unemployed or homeless, leading to a waste of human resource. He doesn’t acknowledge half-hearted support from the political class, which continues to label homosexuality as “unnatural”. “We must be human rather than decide what is natural for others.”