Subramanian Swamy on Twitter gets called out for being a homophobe
A 2016 Outlook profile of senior BJP member and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy used a number of epithets to describe the man. Indiscreet, pugnacious, unpredictable, loose cannon and destructive genius were a few of them. On January 8, adding to that list, Indian social media used two more words to address him, quite a few times: "bigot" and "homophobe" .
Indians disgraced
Swamy displayed utter callousness, when in an interview he proclaimed: “As long as [homosexuals] don't celebrate it, don't flaunt it, and don’t create gay bars to select partners, it's not a problem. In their privacy what they do, nobody can invade but if you flaunt it, it has to be punished and therefore there has to be Section 377 of the IPC.”
He was commenting on Supreme Court’s decision to revisit its 2013 verdict on Section 377 of the IPC, which criminalises anal and oral sex.
India, actually Indians, have a hard time coming to terms with the very idea of homosexuality. It has been called unnatural. It has been called a disease (and a certain yoga guru even claimed to know a cure). It has been called western influence.
Essentially, Indians have a problem accepting that a section of the society chooses not to accept the heteronormative ideas we have grown up to see as facts.
Indians also have a hard time dealing with the public display of affection, even when heterosexual couples indulge in it. Remember the moral policing that followed the 2014 “Kiss of Love” campaign?
It should thus become clear that even in 2018, it is utterly impossible for Indians to not only accept the idea that homosexuality is normal, but that even its public display and expression is okay.
That Swamy thinks it is legitimate to “punish” people for flaunting their sexual orientation — ironically missing the fact that modern Indian popular culture is chock-full of people flaunting their cisgendered heterosexuality — is telling of how Indians view gayness.
Do homophobes imagine homosexuals as perverts and nymphomaniacs? One hopes reason prevails.
But it is 2018 and there are those who see the BJP leader for what he is.
I shall celebrate. I shall not hide. We will create bars not only to select partners but to live free and happy amongst our own. And what is "it"? Sex? That fact we are queer? The fact you can't digest it? What is the "it"? https://t.co/d4n1PeCjqU
— Vivek Tejuja (@vivekisms) January 8, 2018
Just hear him. He should be jailed just for being so damn hateful and bigoted. Who are you Mr @Swamy39 ? Just who are you to decide for others? Is this a democracy or not? https://t.co/0TZ3kvxKjx
— Sanjukta Basu (@sanjukta) January 8, 2018
If you flaunt it, you will be punished, says Virat Hindu leader. How many punished for flaunting normative heterosexuality? #Section377 https://t.co/RBzZF04i6p
— Dhrubo Jyoti (@dhrubo127) January 8, 2018
So is this the @BJP4India official position on #Sec377, Mr Prime Minister @narendramodi ? Await your clarification. Thanks. @INCIndia https://t.co/Fmj6tMmQR5
— Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) January 8, 2018
why isn't anyone stopping you from flaunting your stupidity? https://t.co/DokKeLbPD7
— Nishtha // David de Gea is my #1 (@RootKanal) January 8, 2018
How about not flaunting your heterosexuality, you homophobic bigot. #Section377 https://t.co/zEqAzaQsTf
— Prerna Bakshi (@bprerna) January 8, 2018
Stop marrying in public and fouling up the airwaves with your hideous music and then we'll consider not being queer in public. https://t.co/ssTLR8ZElw
— The High Priestess ✨ (@shreyilaanasuya) January 8, 2018
Human Horribleness should be measured on the scale of 1 to Swamy. https://t.co/UkXmUsI2GO
— Mihir Fadnavis (@mihirfadnavis) January 8, 2018
Of course. Why would LGBTQIA people want a bar/club/cafe that provides them a safe, inclusive, and friendly atmosphere? I mean cm'on.Why doesn't this man just shut up? #Section377 https://t.co/U45iZMWFs5
— A girl has no name (@mental_Aunty) January 8, 2018
BJP MP Subramanian Swamy is okay with people flaunting hate in murder videos. But don't flaunt love if you're gay, he says. Flaunting his, and his Party's bigotry and homophobia, yet again... #Sec377 #LGBT #section377 https://t.co/KCgzyaD39t
— Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) January 8, 2018
Subramaniam Swamy is the answer to the question, "What does the human form of a cancer cell look like?" https://t.co/d0QQwxEB05
— Ranjan Mukerjee (@GrumpyBombayite) January 8, 2018
Don't understand why @Swamy39 gets to flaunt his opinions in public and not get punished for them too. Tip for homophones: Stay at home. https://t.co/StMlnWXmTy
— Adrita Das (@DasNaiz) January 8, 2018
And the award for the Macaulayite of the Year goes to Subramanian Swamy, for speaking out so eloquently for a Victorian-era law written by Thomas Babington Macaulay! To think he is speaking of Indian values!! Send him back to 1860!! https://t.co/zHWPXWqGCt
— Salil Tripathi (@saliltripathi) January 8, 2018
Understanding Swamy’s psyche is not difficult, for one it is shared by many in India. It is this psyche that sees homosexuality, not as love but as sexual deviance. It is this psyche that reduces the debate around homosexuality to nothing more than what goes around “in the bedroom”. It is the psyche that makes room for the Transgenders Bill, 2016: a highly problematic bill which seeks to ban begging and sex work and establish screening committees to certify trans people.
It is the same psyche that made Justice GS Singhvi and Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya overturn the 2009 Delhi High Court decision to decriminalise anal and oral sex. It is the same psyche that made author and columnist Chetan Bhagat spew out something as condescending as, “Any breakthrough in gay rights should not spill out on the streets, in the form of Western inspired gay parades or anything that presents being gay as being somewhat fashionable or cool.”
Calling Swamy ignorant, old-fashioned, brash or even unpredictable does not cut it. Swamy, like a majority of Indians, is a homophobe. If he is ignorant about what homosexuality is, it is his lack of education on the subject. And there is plenty of information on the case, countless non-heterosexual experiences that are written about, which Swamy needs to open his eyes to.
If this is old-fashioned, it’s time Swamy's thoughts go out of fashion.
In 1970, during a Parliament debate on the budget, then prime minister Indira Gandhi dismissed Subramanian Swamy, then a Janata Party leader, as a “Santa Claus with unrealistic ideas”. Close to half a century later, it is time for us to dismiss him as a bigot who has no idea.
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