By
Dr. Paramjit Singh Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal
The
right wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has projected you as the
Chief Ministerial candidate in the Delhi Assembly elections scheduled for 7
February, 2015. The lawyers in all the subordinate courts of Delhi have opposed
your candidature reminding the electorate about the brutal lathi charge in 1988
leashed upon them under your stewardship while you were the Deputy Commissioner
of Police (North). One of the injured lawyers is presently functioning as a
judge of the Delhi High Court; he was given eight stitches for the injuries
sustained during the lathi charge. Subsequently a Judicial Commission of Inquiry
headed by Justice D.P. Wadhwa indicted you. All this is fresh in public mind.
What needs to be highlighted is your homophobic views aired publicly while you
were the Inspector General of Prisons (Tihar, Delhi).
Your
prejudices effectively ensured that the Jail inmates were denied access to
condoms. Media reports at that time indicated that you consider homosexuality
to be “abnormal” and would like to take all steps to give the inmates “a chance
to be normal”. You had opined, then, that you would not hesitate to step up
surveillance to “ensure” that inmates do not indulge in homosexual activity.
Moreover you saw “no need” to amend Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
To recapitulate what you said:
“I am still not reconciled to except homosexuality as
a normal human practice. We need to undertake a massive education programme
among the inmates so that I could at least give them a chance to be normal. The
first step would be preventive, through an education programme. If that doesn’t
work, the next step would be to increase surveillance.
“If that too fails, I would go in for increased
counselling. Only after that would I consider anything else.”
You
also said that supplying condoms “would amount to encouraging people to indulge
in homosexuality. It would be like legalizing drugs.”
Constitutional
lawyers at that time had dubbed your assertions about surveillance to be
preposterous; and that it would be the death of liberty of prisoners.
It
will be a bit too late as well as embarrassing for you to say that you have
been misquoted, as the above quotes are from The Pioneer dated 21.02.1994 and
the reporting is by Amit Prakash. The Pioneer’s editor is a Rajya Sabha member
courtesy BJP; the paper is pro-BJP.
You
would recall that members of AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) had an
official meeting with your good-self in 1994 within the precincts of Tihar Jail
and had given you a copy of “Less Than Gay”, a Citizens’ Report on the Status
of Homosexuality in India, brought out by ABVA in November-December, 1991. This
report was the first such document published in India. ABVA had requested you
to go through the report and shed your prejudices against homosexuality and
come to terms with the fact that a percentage of people (males and females)
have a different sexual orientation which is both normal and natural; these are
the gay and lesbian people. Homosexuality is innate; you are born with it.
Access to condoms will not make a heterosexual person to ‘become’ a homosexual
person.
Ms.
Bedi, when you were planning to increase surveillance of inmates at Tihar Jail
did you realize that you would be subverting the fundamental rights enshrined
in the Indian Constitution available to all citizens of India including those
inside the jail? Article 21 of the Constitution of India guarantees the right
to life and personal liberty. The Right to Privacy is an essential part of the
Right to Life as enunciated in several Supreme Court judgements.
We
wish to refresh your memory that in 1994 ABVA had filed a Civil Writ Petition
no. 1784/1994 titled AIDS Bhedbhav
Virodhi Andolan v. Union of India & others wherein you as Inspector General
of Prisons (Tihar, Delhi) were respondent number 4. The petition prayed
interalia:
“(a) to declare that section 377 of the
Indian Penal Code 1908 is unconstitutional and void –
as
being hit by the provisions of Articles 13, 14 and 21 and 25 of the
Constitution of India. …
(d) to restrain the respondents from segregating
or isolating prisoners with a certain sexual orientation or those suffering
from AIDS or from commencing prosecution against those prisoners who are
suspected to have participated in consensual anal intercourse.”
To
refresh your memory we reproduce relevant points from the counter affidavit
filed by you in the said writ petition in September, 1994:
“… there is no justification and legality for supply
of condoms in the prison. Supply of condoms will promote homosexuality.”
Outlining
the steps taken to discourage homosexuality in jail the affidavit elaborated that
senior level check at night is being taken; as also an Open Panchayat system
which allows free interaction on development in the prison; and mobile petition
box system to encourage anonymous information of all kinds of incidence of
behavior.
Your
affidavit betrays your ignorance on and prejudices about homosexuality as also
your intention to undertake surveillance on the private lives of prisoners.
Ms.
Bedi, do you still hold the same views on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender (LGBT) issues after a lapse of more than two decades?
For
your ready reference we may point out that a large section of civil society
appears to be in favour of decriminalizing consensual homosexual acts. Amongst
the political parties and their allied groups, the Bharatiya Janata Party,
Vishva Hindu Parishad, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh perceive gay sex to be
unnatural. The Left parties and Aam Aadmi Party are in favour of
decriminalizing homosexuality. Both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi of Indian
National Congress have publicly supported the removal of Section 377, IPC – an
archaic, repressive and unjust law that infringes on the basic human rights
enshrined in our Constitution; Sonia Gandhi hopes that Parliament will address
this issue and uphold the constitutional guarantee of life and liberty to all
citizens of India.
Lastly
the LGBT community is not a miniscule minority. No authentic census has been
conducted in India on the exact number but the number is likely to be close to
4% of the population, if one were to go by the studies done by Alfred Kinsey,
an American scientist in the last century. There is no known reason to believe
otherwise. This constitutes a sizeable number of potential voters for any
party. Reports indicate that President Obama got re-elected courtesy a swing of
this section of voters towards the Democratic Party in the U.S.A.
[Dr.
Paramjit Singh Sahni is one of the founder members of ABVA; Shobha Aggarwal is
an advocate and the ABVA’s writ petition was filed through her. Both are
members of Public Interest Litigation Watch Group.]
(The above open letter was shared with AAP on 01.02.2015.)
On 02.02.2015 AAP wrote to PIL Watch Group
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Feb 2 (8 days ago)
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Dear Dr. Paramji Singh Sahni Ji & Shobha Aggarwal Ji
Greetings
We thank you for sharing this. We shall forward the same to our team internally for them to go through the article. Kindly support us in all possible way for the upcoming election in Delhi.
Warm Regards
Sundar Rajan
Team AAP
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