Speaker 1: From Bloomberg News and iHeartRadio. It's the Big Take. I'm
Speaker 1: Westkasova today India's march toward marriage equality. This month, India's
Speaker 1: Supreme Court will hear arguments in a closely watched case
Speaker 1: on whether to allow same sex couples to marry. The
Speaker 1: court's already affirmed are right to Privacy for All, which
Speaker 1: abolished a colonial era law that made gay sex a crime,
Speaker 1: and it expanded social welfare benefits for what it called
Speaker 1: atypical families. To those arguing in favor, marriage equality is
Speaker 1: the logical and inevitable next step. I want to get married.
Speaker 1: I want to get married for there isn't that many
Speaker 1: people in this country and everywhere. They believe that one
Speaker 1: day they'll meet somebody who they really love and you know,
Speaker 1: they'll be able to get married. I want to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. That's Additi Anan. She and her
Speaker 1: partner are among several same sex couples who petition the
Speaker 1: court for the right to marry. If the judges rule
Speaker 1: in their favor, the effects will be far reaching, and
Speaker 1: not only within India itself. India's size and its political
Speaker 1: and economic influence in Asia means the ruling will be
Speaker 1: felt well beyond its borders. My colleagues Muniza Nabie and
Speaker 1: Kai Schultz are following this case and they are here
Speaker 1: with me now from New Delhi. Munisa, can you give
Speaker 1: us an overview of the case that's now before the court.
Speaker 1: So what's the case that is before the court is
Speaker 1: several couples who are asking the court shortly after India
Speaker 1: legalized or rather decriminalized homosexuality, they're asking to have access
Speaker 1: to marriage equality. So these couples are saying, we are
Speaker 1: no longer now criminals in the eyes of the and
Speaker 1: it's time for the law and the country to go
Speaker 1: one step further and allow us those rights and privileges
Speaker 1: that come with marriage. These include things like adoption, being
Speaker 1: able to be each other's next of kin, have each
Speaker 1: other on their insurance, and all of those things that
Speaker 1: come with marriage, the good and the bad. And how
Speaker 1: did this all come to be? It's sort of built
Speaker 1: up from the decades long fight to first decriminalize homosexuality
Speaker 1: in India, which came to pass only in twenty and eighteen.
Speaker 1: You know, for more than one hundred and fifty years
Speaker 1: before that, it was a crime to openly declare that
Speaker 1: you were gay in this country, and even though prosecutions
Speaker 1: were read was a huge tool of harassment for the
Speaker 1: gay community. It created fear and a sort of impunity
Speaker 1: for police to come and harass you should they choose to. So.
Speaker 1: Once that sort of had come about, and that was
Speaker 1: a huge moment for the MGBTQ community in India. Once
Speaker 1: that had been achieved, it seemed the next obvious thing.
Speaker 1: What a surprise that everybody is the speed at which
Speaker 1: this has come. In many countries where marriage equality has come,
Speaker 1: or to fight for marriage equality has come, it's been
Speaker 1: a much slower process. In India. It's been just a
Speaker 1: couple of years between decriminalization and fighting to get the
Speaker 1: rise to marriage equality. Kai Minisa described how quickly this
Speaker 1: all happened. How was it able to change so fast?
Speaker 1: The speed has been remarkable for I think everybody that
Speaker 1: we've spoken to, and people have put forward a few
Speaker 1: theories for why they think the evolution has been so accelerated.
Speaker 1: India is a fairly Englicized country. It has a large diaspora,
Speaker 1: it has a large English speaking population. It's very much
Speaker 1: a country where people follow international media. So there was
Speaker 1: an awareness I think of rights movements in other parts
Speaker 1: of the world, including the US, that's helped to kind
Speaker 1: of create this consciousness around these issues. Secondly, India is
Speaker 1: led by a fairly progressive Supreme Court. The bench as
Speaker 1: it currently stands, is pretty progressive on social issues. So
Speaker 1: in recent years, they've allowed women to enter sex segregated temples.
Speaker 1: They've extended legal recognition to transgender people who can identify
Speaker 1: a so called their genders. That's how it's characterized in India,
Speaker 1: and so that's provided some of the contexts I think
Speaker 1: for the speed what happened between decriminalization and fighting for
Speaker 1: marriage equality has been quite a seismic shift in how
Speaker 1: Indian culture has viewed LGBTQ people. Twenty years ago, a
Speaker 1: film that had lesbian characters, you know, inflamed such passions
Speaker 1: that movie theaters were set on fire and you know,
Speaker 1: the movie had to be pulled out off screens. Now
Speaker 1: we're seeing advertisements for two women buying a home together,
Speaker 1: buying wedding jewelry together, which is very iconic to Indian culture,
Speaker 1: and cinema is making nuanced, you know, not the caricatured
Speaker 1: sort of homosexual characters of the movies of the nineties
Speaker 1: which was almost sort of like the the buffoonish character
Speaker 1: our Bollywood is making films with very sort of sensitive
Speaker 1: portrayals of gay characters, so all of that has also
Speaker 1: changed in the interim between decriminalization and pushing for marriage equality.
Speaker 1: Some of the people we spoke to have said this
Speaker 1: that seeing all of these things change, being able to
Speaker 1: see for the first time representations of themselves on screen
Speaker 1: and around them in popular culture, which was brand new,
Speaker 1: also allowed them to sort of feel that the time
Speaker 1: had come to push for more. So to give an
Speaker 1: idea of you know, what this journey has been like
Speaker 1: for LGBTQ people in India. We spoke to this couple
Speaker 1: Adity and Susan, and it's sort of their story really
Speaker 1: is the story of what it has meant in India
Speaker 1: for so many people to grapple with their own gayness,
Speaker 1: find themselves sort of legally full citizens finally, and then
Speaker 1: find themselves in this sort of amazing place where they
Speaker 1: can reach for marriage equality, which seemed even a decade
Speaker 1: ago to them completely out of reach. And in other
Speaker 1: team Susan's story we find reflections of all of that.
Speaker 1: So they talk about how as young women coming out
Speaker 1: even to themselves was hard. And here is Aditya Nan
Speaker 1: speaking about this to Bloomberg. Quite Jusan and I moved
Speaker 1: in within a few months of I think a few
Speaker 1: weeks of meeting each other, and you know, once we
Speaker 1: actually started dating, Susan quit her job, she moved out
Speaker 1: of our house, moved into my apartment in Bombay, and
Speaker 1: we got a dog. So I would say we started
Speaker 1: seeing each other in October and by March of next
Speaker 1: year we were already living together. Our friends and family
Speaker 1: were extremely supportive, extremely supportive. Though it was fairly nerve
Speaker 1: racking in a difficult, difficult thing to come out because
Speaker 1: of our own fears and all the things that we
Speaker 1: had been dealing with all our lives. But it was
Speaker 1: remarkable once we actually came out to our families on
Speaker 1: both sides, Susan to her mom that night and then
Speaker 1: me to my parents the next day, it was remarkable
Speaker 1: how supportive they've been throughout Extraordinarily. My grandmother, who is
Speaker 1: in her nineties, is not just a supporter. I mean
Speaker 1: it's completely organic, her relationship with Susan, her relationship with
Speaker 1: our son. So it's been a really, really wonderful and
Speaker 1: I know sometimes a very rare experience to have this
Speaker 1: kind of support, and we've been very lucky to have it.
Speaker 1: So much of the contacts behind these journeys comes from
Speaker 1: a place of pain for people. India is a country
Speaker 1: where you can still very easily be harassed for being gay.
Speaker 1: You have a few legal protections, and the workforce in
Speaker 1: many instances sexual salt is common. Many of these challenges
Speaker 1: that come from living openly in countries across the world
Speaker 1: are common in India, and so the fear there persists.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's something that many people feel
Speaker 1: marriage equality will help to abate, is the idea that
Speaker 1: they're different or separate or other from other Indians in society.
Speaker 1: Let's hear from Susan Da. She's a deity's partner and
Speaker 1: she also spoke to Bloomberg Quick Take at the time
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and we decided to have
Speaker 1: children is when we thought that marriage would be a
Speaker 1: logical next step for us. And in doing that, in
Speaker 1: having and raising a child, now we realize more so
Speaker 1: the lack of a lot of things that we don't
Speaker 1: have today, legal rights over each other, the ability to
Speaker 1: you know, have a bank account, to own assets, together
Speaker 1: to be a legal parent to a child. These are
Speaker 1: all things that one either takes for granted or doesn't
Speaker 1: think about till you're faced with it. Key is it
Speaker 1: possible to measure how the Indian people feel about this?
Speaker 1: Is same sex marriage popular? Do people want it? It's
Speaker 1: hard to say precisely. We've spoken to lawyers who have
Speaker 1: said that with decriminalization it was a fairly easy pill
Speaker 1: for people to swallow. They could understand and get on
Speaker 1: board pretty quickly with the idea that people didn't want
Speaker 1: to be considered a criminal in front of the law.
Speaker 1: And I think it was also framed as a very
Speaker 1: private act. Marriage is a much more public institution. It
Speaker 1: holds such an important space in the Indian consciousness, and
Speaker 1: so there was some concern that the speed was so
Speaker 1: quick that perhaps it was almost too quick. What we
Speaker 1: found though, is that public polling varies pretty widely. So
Speaker 1: in the months after decriminalization would have been in twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty nineteen, Poles found that anywhere from about a
Speaker 1: quarter to more than two thirds of Indians supported same
Speaker 1: sex marriage, and so it doesn't give a full picture
Speaker 1: of support on the ground. But what we do know
Speaker 1: so far is there have been no public protests that
Speaker 1: have taken on any sort of grandeur or size or
Speaker 1: importance in the media or in bigger and urban centers,
Speaker 1: and so so far there hasn't been that pushback that
Speaker 1: some people are fearing there might be, munisa because India
Speaker 1: has such a large population and it's so influential in
Speaker 1: Asia and around the rest of the world. If same
Speaker 1: sex marriage becomes law, you write in the story that
Speaker 1: this will have far reaching effects beyond India itself. How
Speaker 1: is that? I mean, For one thing, one hopes that
Speaker 1: it sets a legal precedent for other countries to follow
Speaker 1: a fur the more conservative cultures to follow it. It
Speaker 1: creates a blueprint. But also because in the region, even
Speaker 1: wealthier sort seemingly more advanced economies so like Singapore in Japan,
Speaker 1: for example, haven't provided this right to their citizens. Presumably
Speaker 1: once India, or if India rather were to make marriage
Speaker 1: equality or possibility, it would definitely sort of draw talent
Speaker 1: to India, people who would feel safer working here, living here,
Speaker 1: being able to get their partners on visas and not
Speaker 1: having to sort of jump through hoops pretending that they
Speaker 1: were moving in or living with a friend so all
Speaker 1: of those things would make India sort of a stand
Speaker 1: out in the region where this access to equality of
Speaker 1: where basic equality hasn't been made possible so far. And
Speaker 1: to add to Muniza's point, the scale of the judgment
Speaker 1: is enormous. India is, by some estimates already the world's
Speaker 1: most populous nation, and so to legalize same sex marriage
Speaker 1: would extend benefits to more than one point four billion people.
Speaker 1: To get a sense of the scale of this would
Speaker 1: more than double the number of people globally with marriage
Speaker 1: equality rights as most of the G twenty this year.
Speaker 1: As well, India's government, which is led by Prime Minister Narendramodi,
Speaker 1: could use this ruling as evidence that the country isn't
Speaker 1: as progressive on minority rights, for instance. That's a criticism
Speaker 1: that's often made by Western governments. And so there's a
Speaker 1: political mileage that could be gained from this ruling as
Speaker 1: well that goes beyond the leverage that the ruling could
Speaker 1: provide in terms of attracting talent from other parts of
Speaker 1: Asia or other parts of the world. Our conversation continues
Speaker 1: after the break, Muniza, We've talked about the significance of
Speaker 1: this case before India's Supreme Court and what it could
Speaker 1: mean both inside the country and around the world. Really,
Speaker 1: let's focus now on what's happening outside the court. What
Speaker 1: are various political groups within the country saying about this issue.
Speaker 1: To begin with, we'll hear what the government actually things
Speaker 1: in a few days. Their affidavit to the court with
Speaker 1: the you know, the Law Ministry stating the government's position
Speaker 1: will be made available because the government has to take
Speaker 1: its stand before the Supreme Court, so we know more
Speaker 1: specifically what the government has to say. The interesting thing
Speaker 1: is there hasn't been very much said at all, and
Speaker 1: that can be extrapolated as a positive thing. I think
Speaker 1: the positive has been that there hasn't been any backlash. Really,
Speaker 1: I suspect some of it as the government is waiting
Speaker 1: and watching. It's a crucial election year, so if it
Speaker 1: feels like this might not be socially acceptable, who knows.
Speaker 1: Largely what will be interesting to see is the two
Speaker 1: elements where this ruling could go. One is how it
Speaker 1: affects Hindu marriage. Marriages in India a guided by personal
Speaker 1: religious laws, so they Hindus have the Hindu Marriage Act,
Speaker 1: the Muslims have Muslim personal Law and then there is
Speaker 1: the civil code under which interfaith marriage has happened. We
Speaker 1: know that the ruling BJP has previously opposed broaden in
Speaker 1: the Hindu Marriage Act, which applies to most of the population.
Speaker 1: Officials have argued that including same sex couples would legitimize
Speaker 1: what they've called a particular human conduct and that it
Speaker 1: would run against Indian values. Lawyers generally expect there to
Speaker 1: be some opposition within the government, but that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: being framed as a bad thing. And to sidesteps some
Speaker 1: of these issues, most of the petitions appearing before the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court fall under a different marriage Act, which is
Speaker 1: used for secular and inner religious unions. Lawyers hope that
Speaker 1: this route will avoid some of the landmines that are
Speaker 1: associated with amending laws specifically bound with religion, and they're
Speaker 1: building their case around the idea that marriage equality is
Speaker 1: ultimately about fundamental rights under India's constitution, that it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a moral issue. Muniza. More than a century ago,
Speaker 1: you write that India was much more tolerant than it
Speaker 1: has been, and that that is really a legacy of colonialism,
Speaker 1: that it's something that the British brought with them can
Speaker 1: you describe how that happened and how it played out.
Speaker 1: Hindu mythology is very very open when it comes to sexuality.
Speaker 1: There are you know, gods that change gender, men become women,
Speaker 1: men have babies. It's all very fluid. Even for the
Speaker 1: many hundred years of Mughal Muslim rule in India, erotic
Speaker 1: homo erotic poetry, same sex love, none of it was criminalized.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, so in eighteen sixty one when
Speaker 1: the British took over rule of India, that is when
Speaker 1: the law was codified and drafted to make homosexuality a crime.
Speaker 1: Academics and experts who've been looking at this will say that,
Speaker 1: you know, while modern India India today will often people
Speaker 1: who oppose gay marriage, for example, will critique gay marriage
Speaker 1: as a Western import, but what really is a Western
Speaker 1: import is the criminalization of homosexuality, and that ancient and
Speaker 1: even medieval Indian culture was very open and accepting, if
Speaker 1: not sort of only embracing it. Ki The Supreme Court
Speaker 1: is set to hear this case later this month. What
Speaker 1: do you expect Are there signs of which way the
Speaker 1: court may ultimately come down. The Supreme Court is a
Speaker 1: fairly progressive institution in India, and it's led by a
Speaker 1: largely progressive Chief Justice. Last year, the court offered a
Speaker 1: hint at how the case might go, ruling that same
Speaker 1: sex couples and other what they've called non traditional families
Speaker 1: are entitled to social welfare benefits. And so I think
Speaker 1: there's an optimism in the legal community that the ruling
Speaker 1: could be a positive one. What we're waiting on is
Speaker 1: to understand better the government's position in all of this.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, the Supreme Court is an independent institution. The
Speaker 1: Chief Justice has the power to choose the bench, and
Speaker 1: lawyers are optimistic that unless there are widespread protests against
Speaker 1: the marriage equality case, that a ruling could come as
Speaker 1: early as this summer this fall. Muniza nacbe Kai show,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for speaking with me today. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you us when we come back our broader look
Speaker 1: at same sex marriage, where is it allowed and where
Speaker 1: is it still outlawed? India isn't alone in considering same
Speaker 1: sex marriage. In recent years, several nations have legalized it,
Speaker 1: but there are many places where same sex relationships are
Speaker 1: still against the law. For a global picture of where
Speaker 1: things stand, Gert Schatten Sander joins me from Geneva, Switzerland.
Speaker 1: They're the director of programs at ILGA World, which advocates
Speaker 1: for the rights of LGBTI people. Gert Chatton, could you
Speaker 1: give us a little tour of the world. Same sex
Speaker 1: marriage has been expanding in many places, but not in all.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us where it's legal and where it's not.
Speaker 1: We currently have thirty three UN member states with full
Speaker 1: marriage equality, thirty four with other forms of what we
Speaker 1: call civil partnerships. The latest countries that have introduced marriage
Speaker 1: equality in twenty twenty one was Chile. Twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: it was Switzerland, Slovenia and Cuba, and this year so
Speaker 1: far it's Andra and I believe there are other discussions
Speaker 1: happening in Japan as well. Are there regions of the
Speaker 1: world where you're seeing movement forward? In other places where
Speaker 1: either there is no movement or there's active moves against
Speaker 1: marriage equality. If we look at the question just purely
Speaker 1: from a marriage perspective marriage equality perspective, yes, there are
Speaker 1: certain moves towards that. A lot of the discussions or
Speaker 1: narratives around decriminalization of same sex intimacy, or the fear
Speaker 1: around decriminalization, is that it would lead to marriage equality
Speaker 1: and the call full marriage equality. We are hearing from
Speaker 1: governments in parts of West Africa where there's not even
Speaker 1: a ban on same sex intimacy, they have no laws.
Speaker 1: They are thinking of introducing those bands on same sex
Speaker 1: intimacy to ensure that there is no marriage equality. So
Speaker 1: it's going the opposite way. This is in parts of
Speaker 1: Africa and Asia. We also see even in the USA
Speaker 1: with versus Wade, the whole of the argument around same
Speaker 1: sex marriage was pinned on the decision around Rowways is Wade.
Speaker 1: So what you see is that it's not so much
Speaker 1: the attack on same sex marriage or marriage equality. You
Speaker 1: see that it's a chipping away at these well fought
Speaker 1: rights that have been gained so forth that eventually lead
Speaker 1: to marriage equality. On one side you have a block,
Speaker 1: and the other side you have a move which could
Speaker 1: then send marriage equality backwards as well. And it's not
Speaker 1: one region is leading, it's different patterns. I think it's
Speaker 1: always best to avoid looking at the world in a
Speaker 1: homogeneous way, or in different regions in a homogeneous way.
Speaker 1: And in fact, one of the most disturbing patterns is
Speaker 1: actually coming from North America and Western Europe. A where
Speaker 1: you see these growing anti trans anti gender rhetorics which
Speaker 1: could definitely play into the same sex marriage equality rights
Speaker 1: as well. You mentioned Cuba as being a country that
Speaker 1: has advanced marriage equality last year. Is there a pattern
Speaker 1: at all between democracies and non democracies when it comes
Speaker 1: to enacting these laws. Indeed, I think that's something very
Speaker 1: interesting that there is data that is correlated to this
Speaker 1: and that we find that they're where there's a higher
Speaker 1: account or higher evaluation of democracies, there is more freedoms
Speaker 1: afforded towards lgbtr Q plus people. Indeed, in the case
Speaker 1: of Cuba, that is the anomaly in that sort of discussion.
Speaker 1: You know, we are seeing right now, in particular at
Speaker 1: a time when we are seeing growing anti gender, anti
Speaker 1: rights rhetorics there are linked to anti democratic movements, anti
Speaker 1: bodily autonomy rhetoric there all do go hand in hand
Speaker 1: with a growing threat on democracy. A countrary to what
Speaker 1: I was saying earlier, there are patterns of emerging there
Speaker 1: is you know, there is the domino effect. Yes, we
Speaker 1: see one country and then the others following. However, that
Speaker 1: does not mean every single country will follow because there's
Speaker 1: still many parts of the world, especially in Asia and
Speaker 1: in Africa, punitive laws against same sex intimacy. So whilst
Speaker 1: you will see this happening, it won't guarantee that every
Speaker 1: single country will then follow suit. There has to be
Speaker 1: certain enabling factors and enabling conditions. So in authoritarian states
Speaker 1: you see less tolerance for both same sexual relationships and
Speaker 1: marriage equality. Indeed, that's a growing pattern that we have seen, yes,
Speaker 1: and I think there's data around that, especially from our
Speaker 1: partners and members from the Global Council of Equality that
Speaker 1: have done great work around this, who have tied work
Speaker 1: on democracy and LGBT ACUPUS rights, and in fact there
Speaker 1: has been other research that has been done, including not
Speaker 1: just on democracy, but on economic growth as well. We
Speaker 1: see that when there's a percentage increase in rights or
Speaker 1: more rights being afforded in particular to marginalized populations, especially
Speaker 1: those who identify as LGBT ACUPUS, we see a percentage
Speaker 1: of growth in GDP as well. This is some great
Speaker 1: research that's come out from the US and from the
Speaker 1: Netherlands grid chart and seeing all the change that's happening
Speaker 1: all around the world. When you look ahead, what do
Speaker 1: you see for the future of marriage equality. We are
Speaker 1: moving towards marriage equality, but I would like to preface this.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen ILGA World we produce what it's called
Speaker 1: the State Sponsored Homophobia Report. In our report, marriage equality
Speaker 1: was seen as the gold standard. Does the go to
Speaker 1: you know, we've reached it. However, in twenty nineteen our
Speaker 1: team decided against that and said no, this should not
Speaker 1: be the goal standard because it sends a very one
Speaker 1: sided view. So what we said that the goal standard
Speaker 1: should be is constitutional rights. So once lgbt acuplus rights
Speaker 1: are enshrined in the constitution, we have better chances of
Speaker 1: ensuring equality for all the journey towards that could be
Speaker 1: one route to that is marriage equality. Indeed, we saw
Speaker 1: last year and the Netherlands have included or introduced now
Speaker 1: in their constitution lgbt acuplus protections. So I think some
Speaker 1: of this narrative around marriage equality is very very important.
Speaker 1: But also we cannot just focus on that alone. It
Speaker 1: cannot be our end goal. Our end goal is constitutional
Speaker 1: protections and ensure it. And because once we're in the
Speaker 1: constitution there are constitutional laws are harder to change, whereas
Speaker 1: marriage equality laws, they could change from the next five
Speaker 1: ten years, and we indeed are going to see a
Speaker 1: positive direction, but it shouldn't the end point for us, Er,
Speaker 1: Chaut and Sounder, thanks so much for speaking with me,
Speaker 1: Thank you for inviting me, Thanks for listening to us
Speaker 1: here at The Big Take. It's a daily podcast from
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