Ancient india gay sex
This article is Part I of a three-part article series that will consider the history of homosexuality in India in pre-colonial and colonial times and the decriminalisation of Section 377. Historians often reference endorse to the pre-colonial times when speaking about same-sex cherish and its prevalence in mythology, vernacular literature and religious text. But many oppose homosexuality based on the reasoning that it subscribes to western tendencies. Deepanshi Mehrotra, in this article, as part of this series, will debunk the ‘western idealogy’ argument, countering through literary and graphic evidence of homosexuality visible across India’s monuments and scriptures.
By Deepanshi Mehrotra, a law graduate from Symbiosis Law Educational facility in Pune, Maharashtra. Deepanshi is currently freelancing. Deepanshi is a member of the Lawctopus Writers Club.
Introduction
In September 2018, the Supreme Court of India decriminalised homosexuality. After the judgment, there was an uproar insisting that India is adopting western ideologies and concepts of liberalism.
However, historians and mythology experts object . They believe that this judgment took India back to its roots, where love was
Recent posts
What the stories suggest
In Indian epics and chronicles, there are occasional references to queer intercourse. For example, in the Valmiki Ramayana, Hanuman is said to contain seen Rakshasa women kissing and embracing those women who have been kissed and embraced by Ravana. In the Padma Purana is the story of a king who dies before he can offer his two queens the magic potion that will make them pregnant. Desperate to bear his kid, the widows drink the potion, make love to each other (one behaving as a man, the other as a woman) and conceive a minor. Unfortunately, as two women are involved in the rite of conception, the child is born without bones or brain (according to ancient belief, the mother gives the fetus flesh and blood, while the father gives the bone and brain). In these stories, the gay intercourse, born of frustration or desperation, is often a poor substitute of heterosexual sex.
More common are stories
Being Queer in Ancient India, a Trip Down the Rainbow-Painted Lanes
6th September 2021 will mark the third year of Article 377 being amended and homosexuality decriminalized in India. A landmark day after a very long second and the biggest news story of that year. There were celebrations, followed by a lot of debate; many people claimed that this decision by the Supreme Court had pushed India to adopt Western ideals of liberalism in India. Some believed that India is now like the West when it comes to its attitudes towards the LGBT community.
However, if we go back in time along the rainbow-painted lanes, the Indian community had a different view. A noted historian pointed out that it’s vital to know India’s history to understand why the British made homosexuality illegal in India. When Britishers invaded our land, they brought their own laws and rules to India, which included Section 377 – it banned homosexuality and made it a criminal act. Many of the founding fathers of our nation-state were trained in British schools and colleges, and that’s why they seemed to concur with this British outlook. It remained part of India’s constitution lon
Published in:November-December 2008 issue.
ON A HOT NIGHT in April 2005, I walked with Kasim Mehedi, a worker for an AIDS outreach organization, through a rusty iron gate into the darkness of Hazrat Begum Park in the center of the city of Lucknow, India. During the day, the park is a popular tourist destination where visitors view two ornate mausoleums built in honor of Nawab Sa’adat Ali Khan (d.1814), a Mughal feudal lord, and his wife Hazrat Begum. At night, however, the park becomes a shadowy demimonde where drug addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, and others rejected by polite Lucknow society congregate.
As Kasim passed out free condoms to the park’s denizens, he introduced me to a young woman wearing salwar kamiss, traditional female clothing. As I stumbled through a short conversation with her in Hindi, I realized that she was not actually a lady but a hijra, a transsexual—perhaps a modern version of the Mughal court eunuchs. Hijras live communally and usually earn their living from dancing, singing, and prostitution. A little group of men gathered around Kasim, the hijra, whose name was Nandini, and me. They wanted to know about male lover life in America. “I hear that
Homosexuality in ancient India: 10 instances
Nine years after the Delhi High Court decriminalised homosexual acts among consenting adults by reading down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Supreme Court today began hearing in the matter. The hearing assumes immense significance in the aftermath of the Supreme Court judgment last year declaring privacy as a fundamental right. Implemented in 1860 by the British colonial rulers, Section 377 puts homosexuality under unnatural offences providing for sentence up to life imprisonment.
advertisement
A bunch of petitions challenged the wordings in Section 377, "whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal" saying it violated the rights of a section of society represented by lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT). The Delhi High Court on July 2, 2009 pronounced a judgment making voluntary homosexual act between adults as legal. Since then, the Supreme Court has heard a challenging petition and a review petition. It restored the imaginative provisions of Section 377. Now, after a curative petition was filed, a constitutional bench is tasked to settle a debate