Illegal Again
India’s Supreme Court overturned a decade of decriminalization this week. Same-sex acts are illegal again. Fourteen years of something like freedom, gone. I spent the day checking the dates.
The statute is colonial—criminalizes what the books call ’unnatural’ sex, carries ten years and a fine. For a century it barely mattered, just a tool cops used to squeeze money and compliance from anyone vulnerable. Then Delhi’s courts ruled in 2009 it violated basic rights. Something shifted, at least in cities. Bollywood was making different kinds of films. People were less hunted.
This week the Supreme Court reaffirmed it. They’re saying only Parliament can change this law, so the courts are just keeping the cruelty legal. The activists are calling it a black day. I don’t know what people who came out in the last decade do now—what you do with freedom you thought was real, that just got revoked by a gavel.