Love in the time of archaic laws: an interview with Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil

Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, India’s first and only publicly homosexual member of a royal family, has seen his share of both oppposition and support on account of his sexuality. While most people know him as ‘India’s gay prince’, few know him for his work with this HIV/AIDS awareness charity, The Lakshya Trust. In an exclusive interview with Youth Inc, Prince Gohil talks about his work and how the recent Supreme Court verdict reinstating Section 377 hampers his organisation’s efforts in preventing HIV/AIDS

How does the Supreme Court’s reinstating of Section 377 affect your work with the Lakshya Foundation?

Recently the Health Minister of India has made a statement at an HIV/AIDS conference that Section 377 is an impediment to HIV control in India. And based on that, NACO – National AIDS Control Organisation – filed an affidavit in the Delhi High Court in 2009 to amend Section 377 because it creates obstacles in the way of AIDS control in India.

The law has been misused rather than be used by the law enforcing authorities. And because of this law, people are going to avoid using safe sex practices. Police harassment is going to be there because now the police will have an advantage that they can threaten people on the basis of Section 377, which has happened in the past prior to the Delhi High Court legalising it. There have been cases where our workers have been arrested by the police because they were distributing condoms. It means that if you’re distributing condoms amongst the homosexual population, you are abetting to the crime. Taking that as an excuse, they had arrested our staff and threatening them with dire consequences – “If you don’t stop this activity, we will inform your parents about you.”

Actually the police are committing a lot of crime. I still remember going to the police station, getting some of them released, and in spite of that, some of the policemen had been having sex with our workers. You can imagine what is happening in the guise of Section 377. Police harassment has made a comeback after the law has gone against our favour. That is going to affect our work a lot since it will be difficult to control HIV in this kind of scenario.

Since being gay is a ‘crime’, aren’t gay people with HIV/AIDS more afraid to come forward?

One thing is very clear that in India, being gay was never a crime. The law is very straightforward. It says the sexual act – whether it is homosexual or heterosexual – is a crime. Even if a married man and a woman have oral sex or anal sex with each other, that is also an offence. It is not targeting only gay sex. So to be gay or to be homosexual was never a crime in India. It is the stigma which is attached to it in the society about homosexuality that is making people be in the closet. The fear of being stigmatised or being discriminated by the society is not allowing people to come out of their shell. Because if you are gay, you can never be caught, unless you are in other countries – Muslim countries – where to be gay itself is a crime. We are not that worse off. In India, we can say we are better off than those Muslim countries. You cannot be charged for being gay. And the Supreme Court said they have nothing against us as individuals. It is just the act. If two guys are caught having sex, then that is an offence. That has to be clear. The society has all misconceptions about being gay. It is that because of the misconceptions that are prevailing, because of the lack of awareness amongst the people – that is not allowing people to come out in the open and talk about it.

Do you think that over the last couple of years the climate has been changing a bit? Has it become friendlier towards gay people, the law notwithstanding?

Definitely. There has been tremendous support from the heterosexual world towards the community over the past few years and specially, it got stronger since the Delhi High Court judgement came out. Now also there are people denying the Supreme Court judgment. In fact, a stronger support is seen now because people have realised that this is not a fight for gay rights but a fight for human rights. And I would term this as a dispute between hypocrisy and humanity. As long as hypocrisy prevails in our country, we will lose. But if the people think along the lines of humanitarian grounds, then we stand a chance to win.

When you talked about Lakshya being affected, it’s very clear that our organisation is funded by the Gujarat government. Now if they say that distribution of condoms amongst the homosexual population is abetting to the crime, then I would say that even the government is a criminal. They are funding an organisation knowing fully well they work with the homosexual population. Isn’t the government itself a criminal? The Department of Health and Family Welfare clearly states this fund is being given for men who have sex with men. That is the term used in the agreement which is binding and notarised by a notary public. When the government is putting it on record, it is a public document that says they are working for the homosexual population – for the spread of awareness of HIV. It is very clear that we work for the homosexual population. If the government is supporting us and supporting this organisation, then I think the government is also a criminal in this aspect.

The foreigners who come to India are very confused. They say, on one hand you say the government is treating you as criminals, and on the other hand the same government is funding you. In other countries the government is very clear about policies so there are no contradictions, but your country is full of contradictions. There is so much of hypocrisy – that is one thing – but there is also a lot of paradox in this country. There absolutely contradictory things that are happening here.

Do you think the law is going to change gay people in their personal lives?

Definitely it’s going to affect personal lives. A lot of girls’ lives are going to get spoiled because a lot of gays will be forced into marriage. If you come out openly gay to your parents, they will say, Now you are criminals. Why do you want to risk yourself? Get married. And they are not attracted to the opposite sex; that means you are cheating a girl. If you tell a girl you’re gay, which girl is going to get married to you? And if you don’t tell a girl, it’s cheating her. The girl is going to get married to you thinking you are going to be sexually attracted towards her. But that is not going to happen. It is going to lead to a lot of divorces. A lot of lives are going to be affected and the gay person’s life is also going to get equally affected. And that is going to increase the vulnerability of the women also. That is one issue that is going to definitely have a negative effect.

How do you think we can put pressure on the political class to amend Section 377?

Rather than going the negative way, proper advocacy should be done with political parties, the Members of Parliament. There are MPs who are favouring us also, for example, in Gujarat we have a Member of Parliament who is totally in our support and he is from the BJP. He has gone to the extent of getting us to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment – Kumari Selja (she is the Union Minister) – and he has taken us to that minister to get transgender rights. And the minister herself has said that it is the first time in the history of India, after 66 years of independence that a Member of Parliament has taken up this issue with the Central Government.

There are people who are favouring us. There are people who are going in the right direction. So we have to target our focus and attention on making use of these parliamentarians or politicians – whosoever are favouring us. And plan out a proper strategy because, see… one thing is also now clear that India will lose out on a lot of foreign exchange in terms of revenue because there are a lot of countries that have criticised India’s judgement. I have emails coming, specially from America, that they are going to boycott India. If that is going to happen, you can imagine there is going to be a complete drop in tourism and India is depending a lot on the foreign exchange of the tourism industry.

India is already debt-ridden, economically. So it is going to suffer a major blow in terms of revenue and foreign exchange and that will have a direct impact on the taxpayers of India. This has to be explained to the politicians, that this is for the welfare of the entire country to change this law. Otherwise in times to come India will be totally secluded.

The other thing is, India is dependent on a lot of international funding, specially for HIV/AIDS – it’s funded by America and other countries. If India continues to maintain this stand, it is going to be very difficult for India even to get funding. India’s economy is stake. India is taking a very big risk. We already economically suffering, so people with HIV/AIDS is going to increase, and funding is going to get cut, so you can imagine how many people in India are going to die of HIV.

The United Nations has issued a statement that India has violated human rights. Even the UN is not happy with India’s decision. Sooner or later, I am sure there will be international pressure on India – from wherever India is taking help.

As a publicly gay figure, do you often find yourself in the line of fire?

I have maintained one thing from the beginning, even before the Delhi High Court judgement. I have always stated that gay rights cannot be won in the court room but in the hearts and the minds of the people. So for me, it’s not that important to win court judgements than it is important how much we are able to create acceptance in the society by winning over the hearts of the people. My fight is going to continue irrespective of whether we win or lose. My advocacy with the society, with the different parts of the society – whether they are educational institutions, or media, or the police or political parties, or anyone in the society – we have to continuously advocate our issues and try to make society understand that we also need to be loved and respected as equally as another human being on this earth.

How many years do you think it will take Indian society to come to terms with this?

There is a lot of work to be done in this country. If you take America’s case, they had the Stonewall movement. It was in the late 60s, early 70s when Stonewall riots happened. We are still in that Stonewall era. We are still trying to ascertain our rights; still trying to get people to understand us. That happened in the 1970s. And now the Obama government has finally managed to legalise gay marriages in the US. It has taken them almost 40 years to come to this situation. Given the fact that India has a lot of hypocrisy and influence of religion, it might take a few decades. Nothing is sure, but one thing is for sure that the acceptance, the sensitisation is happening. Another important thing that is happening is mainstreaming. I always believe that mainstreaming has a very key role to play and we have to focus on that. The more support we get from the heterosexual community, so much the better it will be for all of us.