 "Anjali Gopalan, Naz India Foundation")
They say that this diminutive, determined woman has done more than any other Indian to bring homosexuality out of the closet. For Anjali Gopalan, a pioneer in the field of HIV prevention and care in India, the battle for decriminalising homosexuality has had its fair share of ups and downs. But this week, when the Supreme Court finally moved to re-examine Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that treats sexual activity between consenting adults of the same sex a criminal offence - it gave her, as well as the queer community, reason to be quietly optimistic.
The fight for the rights of sexual minorities began in 2001, when Gopalan and Naz India Foundation, the NGO she founded in 1994 to work on HIV/AIDS and sexual health issues, filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) to decriminalise homosexuality and recant the archaic Section 377 under which individuals were harassed and discriminated against based on their sexual orientation.
The Delhi High Court ruled in their favour in 2009 and declared Article 377 an infringement on individual rights. However, the cheer raised by civil society and the LGBTQ community was short-lived, as religious groups across the country challenged the verdict in Supreme Court in 2010. In December 2013, the Supreme Court reinstated Section 377, and overturned the High Court judgment, thereby recriminalising thousands of LGBTQ Indians.
The turn of events must have been incredibly frustrating for Gopalan, for it raised questions for which there were no good answers. How would gay AIDS patients access government-sponsored treatment, if they feared being punished for their sexual preferences? What would happen to the thousands of individuals who had come out of the closet after the Delhi High Court decision, now that their sexual preferences were again deemed deviant and criminal?
Eventually, Naz India, along with seven other civil rights and LGBTQ groups, filed a batch of curative petitions against Section 377 - the last judicial resort for redressal of grievances, which the Supreme Court heard this week.
Meanwhile, Gopalan is back at work at her care home for children with HIV/AIDS, trying to break the resounding silence that envelopes the disease. Naz India has filed another PIL urging the Supreme Court to issue directions that HIV-positive school children should not be discriminated against for admission, or turned out after their HIV-positive status is revealed.
Invoking the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, Gopalan and her cohorts at Naz India are demanding that children with HIV be notified as a "disadvantaged" group under the act, to ensure their continued education.
Nominated (and shortlisted) for the Nobel Peace prize in 2005 and the French Legion of Honour in 2013, Gopalan is at the forefront of the fight for the rights of sexual minorities today. The question that her advocacy has raised is a critical one - can religious beliefs (in this case, about the immorality of homosexuality) trump the fundamental rights that each Indian citizen is entitled to? Judging from the events of February 2, she's given the Supreme Court some queer food for thought.
