Thousands March To Protest India’s Law Criminalizing Gay Sex

More than 7,000 people participated in Mumbai’s annual Pride March.

Organized by the Queer Azaadi Mumbai collective, marchers stepped off at Tardeo’s August Kranti Maidan, a park in central Mumbai, and wound their way through the streets of Mumbai, the Times of India reported.

The marchers were united in their opposition to a law that bans gay sex in India, a holdover from British colonial rule, known as Section 377 of India’s penal code.

In 2013, India’s highest court overturned a lower court’s 2009 finding that intercourse between two consenting same-sex adults is legal, effectively reinstating the ban. India’s Supreme Court said that only lawmakers could change Section 377.

Earlier this month, the high court agreed to reexamine its decision.

Ashok Row Kavi, an activist and founder-chairman of the Humsafar Trust, told the paper that Saturday’s march had grown in its diversity: “We have had a growing number of heterosexual people participating in the Pride to show their support and that’s been a great thing. And there are people from all walks of life taking part – from students to commercial sex workers from Kamathipura.”

by On Top Magazine Staff
Source – On Top Magazine