#dnaEdit: Winds of change

Two remarkable developments unfolded in two separate corners of the world recently. As Ireland became the world’s first country to legalise same-sex marriage through a referendum on May 23, around the same time — thousands of miles away — West Bengal got ready to welcome its first transgender college principal, Manabi Bandopadhyay. Currently associate professor of Bengali, Bandopadhyay, is set to take charge of  Krishnagar Women’s College, on June 9.

Though separated by geographical distance and cultural difference, both incidents are bound together in endorsing the citizen’s fundamental and inalienable right to choose. The belief that modernity in itself is a harbinger of socially progressive values no longer holds. Eliminating social prejudices requires the participation of all stakeholders — at the top executive and legislative levels as well as the grass roots.

It was, therefore, heartening that a high 62.1% of Ireland’s population voted “yes” to marriage equality just as political parties, regardless of ideology, threw their weight behind the change. In a country considered socially conservative and where 84% of people are Catholic, the referendum suggested that winds of change have gathered momentum. 

Recall that Ireland decriminalised same-sex sexual activity more than two decades ago. No doubt, it has taken the country a long time to arrive at the historic moment of transformation on May 23. Nonetheless, what is important is that Ireland was able to make that significant transformation — and make it through a referendum. This marked a slow but sure change in the collective consciousness of the Irish people.

Back home, the decision of West Bengal’s College Service Commission to appoint Bandopadhyay, as head of an educational institution, is also indicative of a slow but sure process of social change. West Bengal’s education minister Partha Chatterjee — expressing satisfaction over Bandopadhyay’s appointment — is yet another marker of this transformative process. 

It must, however, be said that in India, the pace of change in social attitudes towards gender and same-sex relations has been exasperatingly slow and uneven. It can be argued that ushering economic change has been found to be easier than weeding out entrenched social and cultural prejudices even when these breed structured discrimination against “others”. 

Unlike the politicians in Ireland, our political class continues to hem and haw over decriminalising gay sex. Even our courts — disappointingly — have gone back and forth on the issue. Four years after the Delhi high court declaring the law unconstitutional, the Supreme Court — in 2013 — went ahead and endorsed the continuation of an archaic colonial law which criminalised gay sex.

But then pace of progressive change, at legislative as well as the social level, has not been entirely static. The Supreme Court, last year, recognised transgender people as a legal third gender. In view of the Indian Constitution’s sanction of equal citizenship rights, the court held gender identity and sexual orientation as fundamental to the rights to dignity and freedom. More recently — last month — Rajya Sabha, cleared a private member’s bill, sponsored by the DMK MP Tiruchi Siva, to facilitate the framing of a national policy for the welfare and development of the transgender community.

But such attempts at change are few and far between. The Indian political class can perhaps learn from Ireland’s politicians and catalyse the process of change at various levels. Waiting for the social mindset to change on its own appears to be tantamount to abdicating social responsibility. For instance, our MPs — recently — did have an opportunity to designate marital rape as a sexual crime. Yet, they chose — once again — to dodge the issue taking cover behind the hackneyed “Indian culture” plea.

The examples of Bengal as well as Tamil Nadu — which is known for its progressive legislations in transgender rights — should be replicated by many more states as well as the Centre. And the government at the Centre must decriminalise gay sex.