NEW DELHI — Next month, Sumati Kaul will take part in her third annual Gay Pride March in India. And for the first time since she began telling some friends and associates that she is a lesbian, she is planning to do so without a mask.

As recently as July, when smaller marches were held in several cities, she kept on her mask and avoided the cameras.

“I didn’t want my family to see me on television,” said the 31-year-old software company manager.

But then the social pressures faced by many Indian women — to marry, to be a dutiful wife, to bear children and carry on the family line — hit her with special force, given her sexual orientation, and forced her hand.

Just two days after participating in the July march with her partner, she found herself in her hometown of Moradabad, a conservative community in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, being taken by her family to “see boys” as they lined up candidates for an arranged marriage.