Vive La Différence, writes Nina Pillai

There is a growing intolerance among a vast majority toward the burgeoning number of a relatively newly identified minority, namely the LGBT community in India. I speak not of mere religious intolerance but bans and attacks all in the name of a specific rabid fervour and a belief system, translates into sheer bullying in an utterly insidious way. It is not a silent movement; it is a shrill cry, court cases botched by the lawyers representing the community sanctioned by an atmosphere of over-zealous condemnation. A coordinated shift away from the tolerance we as a people were renowned for in our civilisational past, which has now been reduced to a naked intolerance to all that does not fit into our cookie-cutter moralistic worldview.

I have always said that Indians have but one nation to belong to - India despite possessing over four hundred languages and over 2,000 dialects or possibly for the very fact. Hindus have but one country where we are a majority as well of a sizable geographical region so perhaps we must ask ourselves in some ways whether we suffer a phobia that stems from the very core of where this deep religious belief comes from, partly Brahmanical, partly colonial and a by-product of the allegiances that lay therein. However we are not intrinsically intolerant as the multiplicity of our traditions at one point gave rise to the most sensuous of cave sculptures and texts that explored a Divine Eros in various modes. It is this very freedom that I feel is under threat in our current times and being a liberal I feel that we must all unequivocally challenge the system when things go awry.

This past week, the United Nations had voted for a resolution that it's own personnel posted in various nations across the world should have the freedom to choose their partner, be it male or female to live together in any part of the world without being subjected to the laws of nation states that forbids or indeed punish this cohabitation according to their draconian laws, oft owing to the colonial hangover plaguing droopy eyed law books internationally. India voted with a minority of nations against this right to cohabitation. It was only to be relevant to UN personnel yet we showed a homophobia that was almost like a vote on the subject itself. Television debates raged on the topic of homosexuality and gay rights when the subject in the UN only concerned its own brethren, a handful of whom are posted in India.

The gross description of homosexuality as being a disease, (a declassification that happened in the West in the 70's that gave rise to the classification system of sexuality we live with today), deviancy and other crude references were distasteful and disturbing to say the least. The matter of LGBT rights is subjudice in India, yet we debate on the subject as a free-for-all, all voices drowned out by extreme right-wing religious fervents heckling and mocking the right of the lesser few to live their life behind closed doors as they choose. I count amongst my close friends, both in India and abroad, men and women who are gay and proud to be it, they are wonderful people across the social spectrum who are writers, thinkers, philosophers, fashion designers, artists, musicians, industrialists, and those in the film fraternity - Indeed, from every walk of life, so why this prejudice? What they do in their private life affects me not in the least but the caring loving intelligent warm people they are does make my life a better place with their magnanimous concern, a constant reminder that the French have nailed it in saying 'Vive La Différence'!

No two people are alike which is why human beings are such interesting creatures, so why should their sexual preferences be? We have to be sensitive to those around us, we have to accept that this has been the modus vivendi from time immemorial as our homoerotic sculptures at Khajuraho and the Sun Temples of Konark show.

Homosexuality and various other modes of sexuality have existed peacefully with the heterosexual for millennia so why this intolerance now? Live and let live should be our attitude especially since we want to become a Global Superpower, in most civilized western nations not only is it accepted but partners in a same sex marriage have equal rights – that's what the resolution was seeking for its own personnel. If the UN is a body that represents most nations of the world, the majority vote that carried this resolution shows us how the world has changed and India must too. The traditions of tolerance exist, from Sufism to the variegated tableaux of Hindu Liturgy. We have to let all our citizens make life choices that after all are enshrined to be a real and sanctionable freedom in a democracy such as ours. That very liberty for every citizen of our great nation is tantamount to justice after all.