By Sumanta Ray Chaudhuri
Kolkata, April 23 (IANS) Kolkata had always been a leader in the same-sex partnership rights movement, having hosted India’s as well as South-East Asias longest running LGBTQ annual pride walk.
Now, same-sex partnership rights activists and legal brains advocating same-sex marriage rights have been buoyed by the observations made this past week by the Supreme Court bench hearing the ‘marriage equality’ matter, and more specially those of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud during the ongoing arguments.
According to senior counsel of the Calcutta High Court, Kaushik Gupta, who has a long association with different legal matters on this issue, the two observations by the CJI during the course of arguments are extremely important.
“The first observation is that there is no substantiating data to prove the Union government’s argument identifying the same-sex marriage issue as an urban elitist concept. The second observation by the CJI, which to my opinion is extremely important, is that the same-sex relationship is not just as physical relations but something more of a stable, emotional relationship. So, on the basis of these two observations, if the activists in the matter foresee a positive impact that will not be wrong,” Gupta pointed out.
According to him, if a legal right to choose his or her own partner is available to a citizen with a particular sexual orientation, then the same right must be made available to other sections with different sexual orientation as the latter is in no way different. “Remember that the constitution starts with ‘We the people of India,” and not with ‘We the heterosexual people of India’. I sincerely wish and hope that the apex court of the country finally upholds the right to marriage for same- sex couples too,” Gupta added.
There were diplomatically positive reactions from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on the issue. While claiming that the public pulse needed to be understood before making an observation in the matter, the chief minister made a loaded statement that she loves people who love others.
Abhishek Banerjee was more straight in his observation as he said that he does not have any reservation about same-sex marriage. “India is a democratic nation. Everyone here has liberty of choice. Anyone has the liberty to choose his or her life partner. This is my personal opinion,” he said.
According to Pawan Dhal, a pioneer of the LGBTQ rights movement in the city and the founding trustee of Varta Trust, which runs a pan-India Covid-19 service locator dedicated to the people from the queer community, the question is not just about the right to marriage. “The question is about the continuing discrimination that the people with same-sex orientation continue to face even after the Supreme Court decriminalized same-sex relationship earlier. In my opinion there is a need to bring amendments in certain acts related to adoption, custodian and succession.
“As regards the Union government’s conception that the issue is an ‘urban elite’ concept, this propaganda is totally baseless. This concept of same-sex relationship has neither any geographical nor social structure boundary. Remember Leela Namdeo and Urmila Srivastava, the two police constables from Madhya Pradesh who married each other in 1987,” Dhal told IANS.
Echoing him, Jayita Sarkar, a teacher by profession and a popular face in the queer rights movement in the city, said that much before the right for same-sex marriage, the necessity is to sensitize the society about the need to protect queer people from discrimination. “Remember, the discrimination starts from a very young age and hence the protection against it should also start from that time. I feel that the parents and teachers have a very important role to play on this count,” Sarkar said.
Suchandra Das, a professional photographer who stays with her same-sex partner Sree Mukherjee, said that the legal confirmation for same-sex marriage is essential for such partners on multiple grounds.
“Recently, we purchased a flat in the northern outskirts of the city. But when we approached the banks for a loan, we were denied a joint loan since legally we could not declare ourselves as spouses. Similarly, often same-sex couples face problems with regard to nominees for insurance policies and bank accounts.
“Life Insurance Corporation in a reply to an RTI application filed by us stated there is no bar for a policy holder from making a person not related to him or her by birth, consanguinity, marriage or adoption as his or her nominee, but the reply from the Reserve Bank of India to a similar RTI application was a bit vague as it said that there is no mention of any condition nor are there any restrictions regarding who can be a nominee.
“However, there are complaints from the community that often they face problems on this count. These problems will be solved to a great extent if the apex court upholds the right to same- sex marriage,” Das told IANS.
Dr Tirthankar Guha Thakurata, a visiting faculty of clinical psychology with the department of psychology of the University of Calcutta, told IANS that let there be the right for a person irrespective of his or her sexual orientation in getting into matrimonial bonding with the partner of his or her choice. “Some might exercise that right, while some may not. But let the legal right on this concept prevail. Without this legal sanctity a constant psychological pressure, which in most cases comes from the society, will prevail,” Guha Thakurata said.
On the “urban elite” concept pushed by the Union government, he feels that although the movement on this issue might have been initiated by some intellectual urban elites, the issue that is being addressed does not have any geographical or social structure boundary. “If you look at the history of any social movement, be it ‘Sati Pratha’ or ‘Widow Remarriage’ the movement was initiated by some individuals like Raja Ram Mohan Roy or Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, who were considered as both intellectual and financial elites at that point of time,” he said.
–IANS
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