WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2024
Vivek Menezes
In his fascinating new essay How Goa Became LGBTQ Friendly, the wonderfully thoughtful journalist Vikram Doctor (who moved to Assagao after the onset of COVID-19) notes that Goa “without much fanfare, has become one of the most queer-friendly places in India.”
Doctor possesses a magisterial long view of LGBTQ rights (the popular acronym stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and those who are questioning their sexual or gender identity), and their great contemporary inflection point in 2018, when the Supreme Court decriminalised the colonial-era Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, terming it “irrational, arbitrary, and incomprehensible.”
Getting to that point was not easy. Doctor notes “one of the problems with fighting Section 377 was finding examples of people charged and convicted under it. Most of those who had been charged were lacking in the means, or will to appeal to High Courts, so their cases did not become public knowledge. Even more just succumbed to the threat – and paid to settle their cases.”
This was a real problem: “because these cases weren’t recorded, the evidence of use of Section 377 wasn’t there. This left activists open to the charge that they were fighting to change a law that was rarely used. Early in the course of the case a bench of the Delhi High Court had even dismissed the case for lack of standing on the part of activists, and it was only on appeal to the Supreme Court that the High Court was charged with hearing it again.”
As it so often is, Goa would different. In 2007, the Colva Police arrested UK tourist Desmond Hope – who was visiting with his partner Frank Lacey - on the steps of Our Lady of Mercy Church, where he was sitting with an Indian man. Thus began the standard shakedown –the first fabricated charge was of attempting to rob the sacristy, and the bribe demanded was Rs 1,800. Then, after figuring out he was a foreigner, the extortion was upped to Rs 10,000. Finally, after suspecting some gay angle, “Hope was harassed, called a ‘homo’ and wasn’t allowed to use the toilet, forcing him to soil himself.”
Now things got truly shameful. Doctor quotes Arvind Narrain and Alok Gupta (it is from Law Like Love: Queer Perspectives on the Law) that “when Lacey finally traced Hope to the police station [he] immediately informed the British Consulate in Goa, who called the police station and spoke to the Inspector Uday Parab in charge of the case. This made Parab angrier. Within two hours of the phone call, a false and fabricated case against Desmond under Section 377 was registered.”
This part of the story will make any Goan feel truly ashamed: “Lacey was called by Parab with a new offer – for Rs 10 lakh the whole case could be closed. He was told this happens routinely with the Russians, and everything could be arranged…The police then proceeded to act with complete prejudice in the matter – with Parab regularly calling to see if they were ready to pay.”
Doctor writes, “It was all playing out in a way that has become sadly common in a state, with fears about corruption about Goa’s culture being used to cover up rather more real issues of corruption in the police force and organised rackets targeting tourists.” But that is not where the story ends, because “on 15th March the case came up before Justice N A Britto, who fairly clearly recognised what had been going on.”
With impressive clarity, Justice Britto ridiculed the Colva Police’s contentions, and – specifically noting Section 377 was under challenge - delivered the unambiguous ruling that “it cannot be said that the offence committed is grave and punishment provided is severe, so as to deny bail to the applicant.” Hope walked free.
Albeit barely remembered in Goa, but Doctor writes that it “gave proof of both the use and misuse of the Law. Even more, the fact that a High Court judge like Justice Britto could see through the police’s tactics, and note the law was currently being challenged, was a heartening sign that the battle against Section 377 could be won some day.”
How Goa Became LGBTQ Friendly is in the monsoon issue of The Peacock Quarterly from the Entertainment Society of Goa (where I am on the editorial team), under the chairmanship of the chief minister. More than just symbolically, that fact in itself is highly creditable for India’s smallest State, perfectly illustrating the trajectory of LGBTQ rights into the mainstream of our polity.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice” preached Martin Luther King. At least in this case it did. People changed their minds. One person who substantially made it happen was Wendell Rodricks, the late fashion designer and proud Goan cultural activist who stood up for equality with an irresistible combination of flamboyance and great dignity.
In 2002, Rodricks became one of the first openly gay Indian celebrities, after his civil union (a French bureaucratic procedure) with Jerome Marrel was hyped as “India’s first gay marriage”. This was problematic. Section 377 was in place. Homophobia was public policy and the social norm. Even later in 2011, when a session on LGBTQ tourism was scheduled at Goa International Travel Mart (GITM), Doctor noted that “Dattaram Sawant of the Divya Jagruthi Pratisthan was quoted saying, “Goa tourism was already tarnished by drug culture, and LGBTQ tourism would make it worse.” In addition, Father Maverick Fernandes argued that “by proposing to cater to tourists based on their sexual preferences, it appears that the government is reducing Goa to a destination for sex tourism.”
But that was then. People like Wendell helped us turn the page. Doctor writes that “Rodricks life [featured many] examples of how his sexuality was quietly accepted in Goa. Perhaps the most poignant happened after his untimely death in early 2020, when the same Father Maverick Fernandes who denounced the GITM event was one of the priests present at his funeral service.”
(Vivek Menezes is a writer and photographer and co-founder and
co-curator of the Goa Arts + Literature Festival)
