AIIMS doctor suicide: Is Section 377 to blame?
The report of the suicide of a young doctor in New Delhi on discovering her husband's bisexuality (or homosexuality, the information is not clear) is tragic at several levels. The obvious impulse, for most people, would be to apportion blame on the individuals rather than looking at the institutions that drove them to do what they did. Why did the man agree to an arranged marriage at all, if he had even the faintest doubt about his sexual orientation? Instead of living a life of lies, he should have chosen to remain honest and stayed in the closet. Such would be the reasoning of most liberal-minded people.
Why did the woman, on the other hand, choose to stay with her husband who refused to consummate their marriage and also caused her emotional distress? More crucially, why did she decide to take such a drastic step instead of annuling the marriage or reporting her husband to the police for mentally tormenting her?
In a case such as this, the number of questions will tend to outweigh the answers, most of which will remain unknowable, given the intensely private nature of the tragedy. A good deal of information in this instance, however, is known, or has been presumed to be known, since the woman has left a note, alongside a Facebook post, in which she holds her husband responsible for her actions.
The case being sub judice, there is no room for speculation about its specificities, though self-righteous anger at individuals is not the best informed reaction to this situation. The man's conduct has been inexcusable, no doubt about that, but it has also been fostered within the context of society and law in India — both of which consider homosexuality, as an identity as well as consensual act between adults, as unnatural.
The woman's actions, on the other hand, point to the regard that is still accorded to the institution of marriage in India: she chose, first, a sexless marriage, and then, a tragic way out of her misery, over the more obvious one — of initiating divorce proceedings.
What kind of social mores could force a young, educated woman, a doctor no less, to opt for such a radical course when a more humane alternative was available to her? Equally, what kind of social inhibitions could make a young, educated man, another doctor to boot, adopt a life devoid of any personal or emotional integrity?
Since the Supreme Court of India reinstated Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 2013 condemning sexual intercourse "against the order of nature", members of the queer community of the country have been reclassified as criminals, pushing many of them back into the closet when they had just about started stepping out of the shadow.
More recently, the same court, however, gave legal recognition to the members of the third gender — which implies that either the court has no objection to the sex life of transgender people or it expects trans people to exist as asexual subjects under law or have sexual congress only among themselves. Is there a contradiction, oversight, or double standard involved here? One can only venture a guess.
Did the Delhi High Court's reading down of Section 377 in 2009 dramatically affect the lives of queer people? Yes and no. Yes, because it did allow them a more robust sense of self-worth and dignity than they had ever had before. And no, because at an everyday, social level, most of their lives probably did not turn into a bed of roses. They were not by default accepted by the "mainstream" with open arms, but having a gay-friendly legal system allowed them to defend themselves against blackmail and intimidation, perhaps hope for the foundation of a more equitable society.
The modified law encouraged many individuals to come out not only to their families but also to themselves. It allowed families to be bold enough to accept them and begin to support their choices. Four years on, with the return of legal censure, such networks of empathy became once again difficult to establish or sustain.
Will the taboo on homosexuality be erased overnight if the law changes in favour of sexual equality? Not really. The culture of shame and guilt are too entrenched in society for it to be removed by a simple change of law. But yes, with a positive legal turn, that culture could be weakened considerably, and healthier alliances encouraged among individuals.
It would also perhaps lend a far different perspective to such cases as that of the doctor couple's: instead of reading criminality into it because of the sexual orientation of one of the partners, we would learn to see it as being criminal simply because of the nature of sexual betrayal, or atrocity, involved in it.