Illusion Of Betterment

Yes, there are many countries in the world where condition of gays is even worse than in India. Yes, I acknowledge that the Delhi High Court’s judgment has been a mile stone in the history of ‘gay rights moment’ in India. But do we have to be content with the argument that the condition of gays in India is far better than their Pakistani or Iranian counterparts? How long will we keep celebrating the celebrated judgment of Honorable Delhi High Court doing away with the unconstitutional interpretation of section 377? I agree that social changes cannot be brought overnight. I know we will have to take the gay rights issues in a systematic manner. But a conspicuous silence of majority of gays for their more basic rights is just too much for me to ignore anymore. The honorable High Court could only give a judgment on a question which was posed before it, so will do the Supreme Court of India. But in the process Government and Gay-bashers have played a trick on gays and we, pleasurably, have fallen into the same. The High Court’s judgment only made available the constitutional right which was being suppressed since the day of inception of our constitution. Instead of apologizing for this decades long suppression of gays and their rights, Government and people begin to misrepresent it as a huge concession or favor made for gays which should keep them satisfied at least for next few decades. They expect us not to demand our more basic right namely – ‘Being treated at par with straights in every walk of life’ and what I see and am sorry for,  is – we are fully complying with their expectation. We are so overwhelmed over this so called relief of ‘having sex with a person of same sex and not being prosecuted for the same’ that we have altogether forgotten our ultimate aim of social and legal equality. Contributing to this malice is the coward gay population which is very much okay and content with the freedom to have sex with another person of same sex. It just doesn’t matter to them whether gays are granted the right to marry and adopt children as a couple in next one year or in the next century because they are simply not for showing some courage and marry a person of same sex.
In such a scenario where gay right activists exist only for namesake, where a large population of gays is uninterested in having right of equality in every aspect of life and few enthusiastic gays are a little confused, my only hope is from the new generation of gays who are 18-24 years old. They are more demanding than most of other gays older to them. And I feel that being more demanding is one such quality which we all must have. Living in status-quo is always comfortable but life itself doesn’t like status-quos.