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| Having gay sex is offence in India | | Govt. agency demands end of anti-gay law | | EARLY TIMES DELHI BUREAU
NEW DELHI, SEPT. 27: In a signifcant move, public opinion is being built against the existence in India pf Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which caries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail for me having gay sex. A British colonial era law in India that criminalises homosexuality is "not acceptable" and scrapping it is "fundamental" to the fight against AIDS, the country’s top official leading efforts to end the disease said.
Sujatha Rao, the chief of the state-run NACO (National AIDS Control Organisation, told cheering delegates at the end of a four-day Asia-Pacific conference on male sexual health and HIV: "This is not accccceptable. Section 377 is quite an anachronism". And she termed the law "hateful".
The law, enacted in 1861 by British colonial rulers, is being challenged in New Delhi’s High Court by an Indian anti-AIDS voluntary group. The challenge has been supported by NACO. Activists say that policemen use Section 377 to extract money from gay men sitting in parks or lanes and the threat of penal action only compounds the problems of social stigma and discrimination the sexual minority faces in India.
NACO estimates India’s population of men having sex with men (MSM) to be about 2.5 million but says it could be far higher. It estimates that around 25 per cent of MSM are HIV positive. At the end of the conference, Sujatha Rao told mediapersons: "It is important to end this (Section 377), otherwise it would be very difficult to reach out to MSMs and end the spread of this infection".
She said only about six to eight percent of gay men were covered by outreach projects, which include distribution of condoms. India has 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, more than any other country, according to the United Nations. Gay men are seen as a high-risk group along with female prostitutes and intravenous drug users.
The Union Home Ministry has opposed the removal of the law, saying that public opinion was not in favour of legalising sex between men. But Rao said that NACO was talking to the Home Ministry about reaching a common position before the next court hearing scheduled in October.
Her comments, possibly the strongest public criticism of the law by a government official, came 10 days after leading Indian writers, lawyers and artists wrote an open letter to the government asking it to remove the ‘monstrous’ law.
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