'Section 377 Violates Fundamental Human Rights'

To build a truly democratic and plural India, we must collectively fightagainst laws and policies that abuse human rights and limit fundamentalfreedoms.

This is why we, concerned Indian citizens, support the overturning of Section377 of the Indian Penal Code, a colonial-era law dating to 1861, whichpunitively criminalizes romantic love and private, consensual sexual actsbetween adults of the same sex.

In independent India, as earlier, this archaic and brutal law has served nogood purpose. It has been used to systematically persecute, blackmail, arrestand terrorize sexual minorities. It has spawned public intolerance and abuse,forcing tens of millions of gay and bisexual men and women to live in fear andsecrecy, at tragic cost to themselves and their families. It is especiallydisgraceful that Section 377 has on several recent occasions been used byhomophobic officials to suppress the work of legitimate HIV-prevention groups,leaving gay and bisexual men in India even more defenceless against HIVinfection.

Such human rights abuses would be cause for shame anywhere in the modernworld, but they are especially so in India, which was founded on a vision offundamental rights applying equally to all, without discrimination on anygrounds. By presumptively treating as criminals those who love people of thesame sex, Section 377 violates fundamental human rights, particularly the rightsto equality and privacy that are enshrined in our Constitution as well as in thebinding international laws that we have embraced, including the InternationalCovenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Let us always remember the indisputable truth expressed in the openingarticles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that "All persons areborn free and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone is entitled to all therights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of anykind."

We will move many steps closer to our goal of achieving a just, pluralisticand democratic society by the ending of Section 377, which is currently underchallenge before the Delhi High Court. There should be no discrimination inIndia on the grounds of sexual orientation. In the name of humanity and of ourConstitution, this cruel and discriminatory law should be struck down.

Sincerely,

Vikram Seth, author

Swami Agnivesh, Soli J. Sorabjee, former Attorney-General Aditi Desai,sociologist Nitin Desai, former UN Under Secretary-General Aditi Desai,sociologist Captain Lakshmi Sahgal, freedom fighter, Padma Vibhushan SiddharthDube, author

And many more signatories