India: Statement by teachers, researchers and academics welcomes the Delhi High Court judgement reading down Section 377

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We, teachers, researchers and academics from all over India, welcome the Delhi High Court judgement reading down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to decriminalize consensual sex among adults in private. The judgement held that “Section 377 IPC, insofar as it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution.†In other words, the court believes that continuing to criminalize citizens on the grounds of their sexual preference violates the Fundamental Rights to life and personal liberty, to equality, and the right not to be discriminated against on non-relevant grounds.

We in the academic community have had a hitherto silent engagement with the pain, harassment, fear and discrimination that comes with being non-heterosexual/queer. We know students, colleagues, friends and family members who are queer, or may be queer ourselves.

But sexual preference and identification is only one part of people’s identities. We believe that a modern democracy must respect diversity regardless of whether consensus exists in society on the desirability of each such practice, provided such practices respect the personhood of others. There need not be consensus in society, for instance, on either meat-eating or vegetarianism as desirable, provided both groups are free to follow their dietary preference. Similarly if “religious leaders†believe that homosexuality is not sanctioned by the scriptures, they have the right to propagate their views, provided that these views are not taken as having the final sanction on the issue for society as a whole.

At the same time, religious identity is as important for many homosexuals as for heterosexuals. Homosexual people who are practicing Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians have fully participated in this challenge and supported the decision.

We state emphatically that Section 377 as it exists is anti-democratic, and reiterate our support for the Delhi High Court judgement.

180 Signatories:

• Apurba K Baruah, Manorama Sharma (NEHU, Shillong);

• Tilottama Sharma Misra, Udayon Misra (Guwahati);

• Shaila Desouza, (Goa University and Member, Goa State Commission for Women);

• Alito Siqueira, (Goa University);

• Prabhakar Bhimalapuram, K Madhava Krishna, Harjinder Singh ‘Laltu’, (IIIT, Hyderabad);

• Sowmya Dechamma, G Haragopal, Jenson Joseph, R.V.Ramana Murthy, Yasser Arafath P.K, Sanjay Palshikar, Sujata Patel, Arun Kumar Patnaik, Aparna Rayaprol, (University of Hyderabad);

• A.Suneetha, (Anveshi, Hyderabad);

• Satish Poduval, M. Madhava Prasad, N. Manohar Reddy, Susie Tharu (EFLU Hyderabad)

• Anup Dhar, Rakhi Ghoshal, Tejaswini Niranjana, Rochelle Pinto, (CSCS Bangalore)

• Annapurna Garimella, Lata Mani, Kavery Nambisan, Vijay Nambisan, Rekha Pappu, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, (Bangalore)

• Janaki Abraham, Sadhna Arya, Naman P. Ahuja, Pratiksha Baxi, Maitrayee Chaudhuri, Anuradha Chenoy, Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Rohan D’Souza, Ajay Gudavarthi, Siddharth Mallavarapu, Ranjani Mazumdar, Nivedita Menon, Padmini Mongia, A.K.Ramakrishnan, Mohan Rao, Anupama Roy, Tanika Sarkar, Urmimala Sarkar, Kavita Singh, (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi);

• Amrapali Basumatary, Amita Baviskar, Shahana Bhattacharya, Brinda Bose, Gautam Chakrabarti, Uma Chakravarty, Anita Cherian, Radhika Chopra, Prem Chowdhry, Nonica Datta, P. K. Datta, Satish Deshpande, Anita Ghai, Saroj Giri, Charu Gupta, NA Jacob, Rachana Johri, Chitra Joshi, Sunalini Kumar, Mukul Manglik, Dilip Menon, Krishna Menon, Rajni Palriwala, Sumit Sarkar, Parth Shil, Mohinder Singh, Ujjwal Kumar Singh, Sanjay Srivastava, Nandini Sundar, Achin Vanaik, Madhvi Zutshi, (Delhi University);

• Sabeena Gadihoke, Shohini Ghosh, K.S.Kusuma, Sanghamitra Misra, Ambarien Al Qadar, Sreerekha, Shamuel Tharu, (Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi);

• Ratna Kapur, (CFLR, Delhi);

• Anu Aneja (IGNOU, Delhi)

• Sarada Balagopalan, Aditya Nigam, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Ravi Sundaram, Ravi Vasudevan, (CSDS Delhi);

• Renu Addlakha, Mary E. John, Sreelekha Nair, N Neetha, (CWDS, Delhi);

• Malavika Karlekar, Editor, Indian Journal of Gender Studies

• Shah Alam Khan (AIIMS, Delhi);

• Vineeta Bal, (National Institute of Immunology,Delhi)

• Pulapre Balakrishnan, (Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi)

• Kailash K.K., Deepak K. Singh, Janaki Srinivasan, (Panjab University, Chandigarh)

• Mangesh Kulkarni, Sharmila Rege, Anagha Tambe, (University of Pune)

• Ajit Menon, Anandhi.S, Padmini Swaminathan, (MIDS, Chennai);

• MSS Pandian (Chennai); Meena Kandasamy (Anna University, Chennai)

• Nasreen Fazalbhoy, Kamala Ganesh, Shoba Venkatesh Ghosh, Kanchana Mahadevan, Leena Rao, Sam Taraporevala, Vrijendra (University of Mumbai)

• K. Sridhar (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai)

• Vineeta Bhatia, Amita Bhide, K.P. Jayasankar, Nandini Manjrekar, Anjali Monteiro, Bindhulakshmi P, Lakshmi Lingam, B. Manjula, Shilpa Phadke, Monica Sakhrani, (TISS, Mumbai)

• Supratik Chakraborty, Om Damani, Anindya Datta, Siby K. George, Siddhartha Ghosh, Farhana Ibrahim, Shishir K. Jha, K. D. Joshi, Piyul Mukherjee, Ratheesh Radhakrishnan, Bhaskaran Raman, Sharmila, (IIT Bombay)

• Kaiwan Mehta, (K Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture, Mumbai)

• Chhaya Datar, Rohini Hensman, Rohan Shivkumar, Rajinder Singh (Mumbai)

• Gita Chadha (University of London External Programme, Mumbai)

• Johannes Manjrekar, Shivaji K Panikkar, Indrapramit Roy, Santhosh.S (M S University of Baroda);

• Meera Velayudhan (Ahmedabad);

• J Devika, Praveena Kodoth, V.J.Varghese, (CDS Thiruvananthapuram)

• Jiju Varghese Jacob (Govt. Polytechnic College Punalur)

• T.V.Sajeev (Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi)

• Janaky Sreedharan, Mini Sukumar, K.Gopinathan, (University of Calicut)

• V C Harris (Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam)

• Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya, Anjan Ghosh, Epsita Halder, Janaki Nair, (CSSS Kolkata);

• Abhijit Gupta, Kavita Panjabi, (Jadavpur University)

• Nikhila H., (Pondicherry University)

• Pushpesh Kumar, (SRTM University, Nanded)

• Rekha Chowdhary, Ellora Puri, (University of Jammu)

• Oishik Sircar (Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat)

• K.Srilata (IIT Madras)

• Sukla Sen (Life Fellow, Indian Academy of Social Sciences, Allahabad)