India: the largest democracy of the world purely by its size, containing nearly a seventh of the world population granted its citizens the freedom to love in a historic Supreme Court ruling. The story of the struggle behind this law is a long one and has already been well documented by the media.

What shocks me is the simple fact that it took so long for such an inhumane law to be taken down.

The Status Quo

Well, considering even the Home Ministry was all for criminalizing homosexuality at one point of time, perhaps we should be glad such a thing even happened in our lifetime. Indians preach about culture, and how good we are, how much better than the west we are, yet here we are, labelling a guy who likes another guy as mentally challenged.

Kerala has received nation-wide infamy for its moral policing cases, ranging from right-wing workers harassing couples in Marine Drive to the expulsion of a couple of high school students for a celebratory hug.

Hell, at one point in time, college students, of Thiruvananthapuram Medical College were not allowed to sit with the opposite gender.

Students they may be, but aren’t they still adults? Does India have so little faith in her youth that she doesn’t trust them to have the bare minimum of control near a woman?

The Unparalleled Hypocrisy

It makes me think about the prospect of the prom. Back in Dubai, they had a prom in high school and here we are, being unable to write boards because of a hug. If Indians pride themselves so much on their academic prowess, why are us children so emotionally backward? Why can’t we have prom too? Why can’t young couples be allowed to date responsibly? It honestly reflects the lack of faith in themselves: the parents and the teachers, if they restrict us from living the way we want to.

They had 18 years to “nurture” us, if that’s enough for the rest of the world, why not for India?

For most of Kerala’s youth, the internet is the only teacher of sex education. You’d expect more from the most literate state in India, but I guess we’re just as backward as the rest.

In a country like this, simple revoking the ban of gay intercourse will do nothing. Even now, plenty of doctors across Kerala believe that any other sexuality is a disease. Even talking about transgender people was almost taboo in the house, spoken in whispers as if they’re something the whole nation is embarrassed about. I haven’t even heard the Malayalam word for a transgender person once in my life, at home. This simply appals me. We knew absolutely nothing about a whole gender, forced to think in black and white, male and female, with our parents pretending they didn’t exist.

Also read: In conversation with Anmol Rodriguez

The Misguided Youth

Funnier still, when the majority of us found out about homosexuality, it was as an insult. There was a time when “gay” was the most popular cuss of the year. Anything that looked even a tad bit like Justin Bieber was gay. I could never understand how it was even an effective insult. I mean, come on, there’s plenty of more colourful insults out there.

My sexuality is my own, and that includes who I’m dating, their orientation or how far I’ve gone with them.

Being gay is a completely normal thing, man. Do you see anyone coming out as straight, or yelling “HE LIKES GIRLS!!” as an insult? Now people may ask how to know a person’s sexuality, that they should inform people beforehand, I tell you to go bury yourself alive. Not everyone approaches other people to make babies. You can talk like a normal human being, become friends even (YES, FRIENDS WITH A GAY PERSON).

Love is love.

I would actually suggest you watch a Norwegian teen web series called Skam, it’ll make you feel super happy about our wonderful schooling (heavy sarcasm here) and also lets you sympathize with the pain that people of LGBT+ community suffer even in developed countries. The media will play a massive role in educating the youth and setting them straight (or otherwise)on this issue. It really made me proud that most Indian celebrities, despite being well aware of the backlash they’ll get, supported the community and raised awareness across a lot of social media platforms.

And please, if you think they’re going to infect you or something, please ask yourself whether you enforce your sexuality on all your friends. Everyone’s the same, there’s no they or we. Religion and political interests cause enough divide in Kerala, why create yet another.

Truth be told, all you gotta do is mind your own business.