BJP says nay to Tharoor’s Sec 377 Bill. Anger and hurt on Twitter

India’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community had a ray of hope on Friday. That hope was in the form of a Bill which Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had planned to introduce in Parliament to decriminalise unnatural sex. However, it didn’t take the BJP time to snuff it out.

The Bill, in fact, could not even be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Friday with the BJP, which is in the majority in the House, opposing it. While the colonial-era Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) criminalises sexual activities "against the order of nature", Tharoor’s Bill had sought to “substitute a new section for section 377 of the IPC”, attracting the BJP’s chagrin.

The House voted 71-24 against the Bill. The rest of the MPs others walked out.

Objecting to Tharoor’s Bill, the BJP’s Nishikant Dubey said that he was opposing the Bill not because of any religion, Vedas or Puranas, but because of the Supreme Court judgment in this regard.

"This is not about homosexuality as the opposition has caricatured it. It is about freedom, justice, equality of treatment and upholding the values enshrined in our Constitution," Tharoor told a news agency.

"This law is from the 1860s and it has no place in the 21st century nor in people's private lives or in their bedrooms," he added.

The apex court, in December 2013, had overturned a verdict of the Delhi High Court that had set aside section 377 asking the government to take a view on the controversial matter. The Delhi High Court, in 2009, had deemed section 377 as unconstitutional.

While Tharoor’s Bill being thrown out even without being tabled in Parliament may be a victory for the conservatives, it is indeed a sad development for the country’s LGBTs who continue to be harassed and their rights are regularly violated in the name of an archaic law. It also perhaps shows how serious our legislators are in reforming section 377, given that this was a golden opportunity for them to discuss the matter, paving the way for the government to take a call on it, as the Supreme Court wanted the government to.

If we, for a minute, overlook the tweet by BJP leader and former Union minister Subramanian Swamy, whose feelings are perhaps understandable, there was widespread anger on Twitter.