In India, LGBTQ couples fight for legal recognition of same-sex marriage: NPR

MUMBAI — On a breezy January evening, Aditi Anand and her partner Susan Dias sit in their Mumbai apartment overlooking the sea, reflecting on the life and family they’ve built together over 12 years. They have different personalities, come from different social backgrounds and have different interests. “If we weren’t queer, we would never have met,” says Anand, 39, who runs two film production companies.

They pushed each other to succeed in their careers, raised a child together and cannot imagine their lives without each other. Their families are intertwined: Anand’s parents and siblings rely on Dias for emotional support and Dias’ family leans on Anand, they say.

“Whatever fear I might have gone out, I lived a good life with my family, friends, colleagues, neighbors. There is no one who does not know about me,” says Dias, 35 years old, an entrepreneur what does it try to mass market indigenous liquors from various parts of India. “There’s no nervousness.”

Anand and Dias are one of four LGBTQ couples petitioning India’s Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court accepted the petitions in January, and the Indian government was asked by the court to put forward its case in February. The court will hear the matter on March 13. If same-sex marriage is legalized, it will have general repercussions for other Indian laws.

India decriminalized gay sex five years ago

Dias and Anand were born in an India that held on to a British colonial law that criminalized homosexuality. After decades of grassroots activism and intense lobbying at political levels, the Supreme Court decriminalized gay sex in 2018.

“I remember changing my Facebook picture to one of Susan and me that day,” says Anand.

Small acts like this say a lot about the freedoms one can exercise in a country like India, he says. Queer communities spread out in the streets, danced in front of the Supreme Court and held marches across the country in different colors of pride and celebrating the verdict.

The journey from there to seeking the legalization of same-sex marriage was swift.

Dias says she and her partner do everything heterosexual couples do. They manage finances together, buy property, raise children. But they do not have legal security as a couple, and that makes them feel unequal among their peers. “And I feel the need to ask [rights]”, says Dias.

Anand’s reasons are less personal. The ideals of democracy and equality were handed down for generations in his family. His grandfather was a newspaper editor who stood for free speech.

“My grandfather had a deep faith in the Indian nation and Indian democracy,” he says.

Anand wants to negotiate his democratic rights with the state, recalling that his grandfather told him: “Every day you do this, democracy becomes dynamic.”

An overwhelming reason for the couple to approach the court is their child.

“There is no reason that our child should be denied the right to two parents,” says Anand. As it is, the law recognizes only one of them as a legal parent.

Since the law in India only recognizes heterosexual marriages, children of gay couples lose legal recognition for both parents. One can be legally recognized as the parent of a child either because he gave birth to the child or because he adopted the child as a single parent.

Indian law is based on a patriarchal concept of the family. The assumption is that the man is the breadwinner while the woman is limited to housework, says Justice Akshat Agarwal.

“When you recognize same-sex marriages, you reject that idea, don’t you?” This is the heart of the problem, according to Agarwal.

If the Supreme Court grants marriage equality for same-sex couples, it would mean an overhaul of several related Indian laws. Laws governing divorce, alimony, inheritance and paternity will have to be reimagined. It will be the biggest change in a generation.

“The law often makes pronouncements before society has changed. And maybe those can be used as tools for society to change,” he says.

A powerful right-wing figure has voiced support for LGBTQ rights

Since there is no legal recognition of same-sex marriage, gay couples whose families threaten them with violence because they oppose gay relationships have no protection under the law. But the high courts of various states in India have taken steps to address issues related to same-sex marriage.

In June 2022, the Kerala High Court ordered that a lesbian couple could live together, despite the opposition of their families. In December 2021, the Uttarakhand High Court ordered a gay couple to be protected by the police. In November 2019, the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered the police to protect a gay couple threatened by their families. In October 2018, the Kerala High Court said that a lesbian couple had the right to live together.

In January of this year, the proponents of same-sex marriage had the support of someone who least expected it. Mohan Bhagwat, the leader of the most powerful Hindu nationalist organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, said in a interview that homosexuals are a part of Indian society and have the right to live as they wish.

The RSS is an umbrella organization that gives direction to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. However, the central government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is clear in its opposition to same-sex marriage.

A BJP lawmaker, Sushil Modi – no relation to the prime minister – said Parliament in December that same-sex marriage is a foreign concept, calling it against Indian ethos, Indian culture and Indian tradition.

If India legalizes same-sex marriage, it would the 33rd country to do so.

And while they await a Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality, Anand and Dias each have different dreams for their big Indian wedding.

“It’s really his dream that we do a choreographed dance,” says Dias, “and it’s really my nightmare.”