Introduction
The increasing global emphasis on human rights has provided impetus to activism and advocacy by different marginalised and vulnerable population groups to make rights-based claims. One such claim being made is by Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) and pro-LGBT groups in India to modify Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises queer sexualities.
The law
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code states (Ranchhoddas and Thakore, Reference Ranchhoddas and Thakore2002: 1818):
Unnatural Offences – Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature, with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished for imprisonment for life, or for imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Explanation – Penetration is sufficient to constitute the carnal intercourse necessary to the offence described in this section.
This law does not explicitly criminalise queer sexualities. However, the non-normative nature of queer sexual activities is often perceived as unnatural in the public opinion, which gets mimicked in the law through the construction of such activities as punishable crimes. Also, the law considers penetrative activity as an operational definition of such ‘unnatural offences’, thereby being viewed today as largely anti-‘men who have sex with men’ (MSM) law.Footnote 1 Though it has been in existence since 1860 (Baudh, Reference Baudh2006), the law has seldom been used to prosecute people, except in cases of child sexual abuse (Bhaskaran, Reference Bhaskaran and Vanita2002; Narrain, Reference Narrain2004). However, it has been used often for threatening, blackmail and extortion, and to legitimise stigma and violence against queer people (PUCL-K, 2001; Narrain, Reference Narrain2004; Bhan, Reference Bhan, Narrain and Bhan2005; Laurent, Reference Laurent2005). It is pertinent to mention that Section 377 is the only law available to address sexual abuse of male children, especially in cases of sodomy.Footnote 2
Queer sexualities in India: historical and post-colonial context
The history of queer sexualityFootnote 3 in India dates back to ancient times when evidence suggests that different expressions of sexuality were often perceived in a non-discriminatory way (Parekh, Reference Parekh2003). While such embracing of sexual diversity was not absolute, its disapproval was not rabid or spiteful (Vanita and Kidwai, Reference Vanita and Kidwai2000; Parekh, Reference Parekh2003).
During the British colonial rule, Section 377 was created in 1860 (Baudh, Reference Baudh2006) based on Judeo-Christian notions of sexual morality (Vanita, Reference Vanita2002; Narrain, Reference Narrain2005). This law effectually criminalised all penetrative sexual activity that was not of penile−vaginal nature. It was adopted into the constitution following India's independence in 1947. This law is not unique to India, and can be found under Section 377 of the constitutions of various other former British colonies, such as Bangladesh (Bondyopadhyay and Khan, Reference Bondyopadhyay and Khan2004), Malaysia (Laurent, Reference Laurent2005), Myanmar (Laurent, Reference Laurent2005), Pakistan (Khan, Reference Khan2000) and Singapore (Yeoh, Reference Yeoh2006).
The queer community in India includes a wide spectrum of identities and behaviours. This diversity includes, but is not limited to, hijras Footnote 4and kothis Footnote 5 besides the categories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. However, the queer communities remain largely invisible within mainstream culture and society, while being hyper-visible as ‘perverse sexualities’ within law, media and medicine (Narrain, Reference Narrain2004).
Challenge to Section 377
The history of formal challenge to Section 377 dates back to 1994, when a non-government organisation called AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (AIDS Anti-Discrimination Movement, or ABVA) conducted a survey in a prominent prison that revealed prevalence of homosexual activity among the inmates (Narrain, Reference Narrain2005). The organisation recommended to the prison authorities that condoms be made available to the inmates for the prevention of HIV/AIDS. The authorities refused the request, stating that it would signify state endorsement of a punishable crime. ABVA approached the Delhi High Court, contesting the constitutional legitimacy of Section 377 on the ground that it violated people's right to privacy and non-discrimination, and should therefore be declared void and repealed (Bhaskaran, Reference Bhaskaran and Vanita2002). This petition did not subsequently come up for hearing in the court, due to internal problems within the petitioner group (Narrain, Reference Narrain2004; Narrain, Reference Narrain2005).
The next significant challenge to Section 377 was posed in 2002 by Naz Foundation (India) TrustFootnote 6 that filed a public-interest writ petition before the Delhi High Court demanding decriminalisation of private homosexual activity among consenting adults. Describing the essence of this petition, Narrain (Reference Narrain2005: 467–68) notes:
The thrust of the petition [was] to challenge the law as a violation of the right to privacy; to question the legislative intent as being arbitrary and outdated; to challenge the effect of the law as being discriminatory on the grounds of sexual orientation; and as having a damaging impact on the lives of the queer community in the country.
In response to Naz Foundation's petition, the government of India argued that, while it upheld every individual's right to privacy, it also considered it permissible to interfere in the lives of its citizens in the interest of public safety, and for protection of health and morals in the society. The government also raised concerns that, in the absence of Section 377, cases in which sexual violence had occurred could not be effectively remedied legally, and that ‘deletion of the said section could well open the floodgates of delinquent behaviour and be misconstrued as providing unbridled license for the same’ (Union of India's reply to the Naz Foundation petition, 2003, cited in Narrain, Reference Narrain2005: 468). The government further said that the current use of this law was primarily in the context of child sexual abuse and its deletion would therefore be detrimental.
The High Court dismissed this petition in September 2004 mentioning that no action was necessary since there was no prosecution pending under this law against the petitioner. The Naz Foundation then filed a review petition with the High Court, seeking action because this petition was a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), which was also dismissed (Narrain, Reference Narrain2005).
Subsequently, a Special Leave Petition was filed in the Supreme Court – the apex judicial body – challenging the High Court judgment. The Supreme Court pronounced that the High Court could not dismiss a PIL on the ground that there was no cause for action, and therefore should review the petition (Narrain, Reference Narrain2005). At the time of writing of this paper, the matter was sub judice.
Another significant development in challenging Section 377 has been the creation of a coalition of LGBT and pro-LGBT individuals and organisations, known as Voices Against 377, following the High Court's initial dismissal of the Naz Foundation petition. The South and Southeast Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality (2005: 30) states:
What sets the coalition apart from previous such efforts is the wide range of politics and perspectives that its members come from. A minority of members of the coalition explicitly identify with LGBT spaces – others work on areas as diverse as child rights, health, human rights, and education. Yet each of these individuals and the organisations they work with has articulated the concerns of same-sex desiring people as an issue that affects all people, and not just a small LGBT-identified minority.
Policy framework
Agenda setting can be described as ‘the process through which problems come to public attention and then appear on the political agenda for possible resolution through public policy’ (Schneider and Ingram, Reference Schneider and Ingram1997: 19). In the context of the struggle to decriminalise queer sexualities in India, this concept holds immense importance, since criminalisation of queer sexualities must be constructed as a social problem for it to be addressed through policy change. Such construction of social problems does not usually emerge from a mere existence of the problem and its recognition by certain individuals privately, but requires strategic organisation by concerned individuals and groups (Nelson, Reference Nelson1984). The mainstream notion of queer sexualities as ‘unhealthy’ and ‘immoral’ deviances from the prescribed norms must have had a strong influence on the hitherto unsuccessful attempts to change the discriminatory law. It holds importance also in terms of guiding the future course of action, as activists must carefully engage in influencing those in positions of power by influencing the populace so that continued criminalisation of queer sexualities is constructed and maintained as a problem that demands action. Multiple Streams framework, as proposed by John W. Kingdon (Reference Kingdon1984) for understanding policy processes can be useful for examining critically the concept of agenda setting.
Multiple Streams refers to an approach that attempts to understand how policies are made by understanding agenda setting (Kingdon, Reference Kingdon1984). This framework works with contested issues that can be approached in different ways and constructed differently by different stakeholders (Zahariadis, Reference Zahariadis and Sabatier1999). According to Kingdon (Reference Kingdon1984), there are three main process streams flowing within the system that determine which issues are accepted for negotiation. These are: problems, policies and politics. Problems refer to how certain ‘conditions come to be defined as problems’ (Zahariadis, Reference Zahariadis and Sabatier1999: 76), and could be influenced by three factors – indicators that measure certain conditions, dramatic events or crises, and feedback from existing studies that discuss the particular condition as relevant for action (Zahariadis, Reference Zahariadis and Sabatier1999). The second stream is policies. Many ideas that may approach the same issue from different perspectives are floating around for the attention of the policymakers at any given time. Out of these, only a few receive the attention of the policymakers and fewer are selected for action. The selection criteria may include two factors – feasibility of the idea in terms of its potential for implementation, and its value-base conformity with the values of the policymakers (Zahariadis, Reference Zahariadis and Sabatier1999). The third and the final stream is politics. It can be further divided into three components – national mood (how citizens of a country perceive a particular condition at a given point in time), pressure group campaigns and administrative/legislative turnover (Zahariadis, Reference Zahariadis and Sabatier1999).
A crucial component of the Multiple Streams framework is the concept of policy windows, which are ‘opportunities for action on given initiatives’ (Kingdon, Reference Kingdon1984: 174). These are fertile opportunities for policy change that emerge when the different streams converge (Kingdon, Reference Kingdon1984; Zahariadis, Reference Zahariadis and Sabatier1999).
Queer activism: Multiple Streams analysis
In this section, the three different streams of Multiple Streams framework will be examined vis-à-vis four key stakeholders – the LGBT and pro-LGBT groups, policymakers, judiciary and the public – against the backdrop of Section 377. It may, however, be noted that different aspects of such analysis do not fit neatly and mutually exclusively into the categories of three different streams, but intersect and overlap in multiple ways.
Problems
Located within a predominantly patriarchal context, LGBT people in India find themselves to be the target of much homophobic violence and threat of violence. In a study of MSM, Joseph (Reference Joseph2005: 180) found that ‘a large number of subjects survived different forms of anti-gay violence including extortion, sexual abuse, harassment, blackmail, physical violence and arrest by the police’. Similar trends of prevalence of violence have been found among women in lesbian relationships as well, where they are subjected to violence by their families that may take the shape of physical abuse and restriction of mobility (Fernandez and Gomathy, Reference Fernandez, Gomathy, Narrain and Bhan2005). Although homosexuality is no longer classified as an illness or abnormality within mental health professions, cases have been reported where queer men and women have been forced to go through ‘treatment’ to ‘cure’ them of their sexual orientation by their families, and mental health professionals have extended such services, including shock therapy and aversion therapy in some cases (Fernandez and Gomathy, Reference Fernandez, Gomathy, Narrain and Bhan2005; Joseph, Reference Joseph2005; Narrain, Reference Narrain and Menon2007). Section 377 emerges as an important vehicle for homophobic violence in this context. Whilst very few queer people have been formally charged by the police under this law, Section 377 has been frequently used by police to threaten MSM, especially in urban public spaces, for purposes of money extortion and blackmail (Joseph, Reference Joseph2005; PUCL-K, 2001). This law has also been used to attempt to forcibly separate lesbian couples by their families through police assistance (Fernandez and Gomathy, Reference Fernandez, Gomathy, Narrain and Bhan2005). Because of this law, LGBT people find it difficult to report homophobic physical and sexual violence against them to the authorities, since such a step would be self-incriminating. When cases of police intervention in the lives of LGBT people make news in media, queer rights activists often find such reporting to be ‘prurient’, which serves to ‘[whip] up a climate of public hysteria’ (Narrain, Reference Narrain and Menon2007: 57), which results in further reinforcement of queer sexualities as deviant and unnatural. Research evidence on oppression and violence faced by LGBT people is in its nascent stages and is largely confined to academic texts or LGBT-friendly spaces, such as internet-based discussion forums and non-profit organisations, as opposed to being discussed in the mainstream. The lack of such evidence, combined with popular prejudice and absence of strong political interest, diminishes the utility of illustrations of oppression faced by the LGBT people as an effective agenda-setting strategy. Problems faced by LGBT people may invoke little empathy if those concerns are considered illegitimate or inconsequential within the larger socio-political environment.
In this context HIV/AIDS emerges as a crucial issue. While some of the concern regarding this issue develops through the stereotype that accuses homosexuality of spreading AIDS, a more genuine concern has emerged out of the need to provide health services to sexually active marginalised population groups. The issue of HIV/AIDS has assumed significance in India due to its threateningly large and growing magnitude. According to official estimates, there were a total of 5.134 million cases of HIV infected people in India in 2004 (NACO, 2006).Footnote 7 The enormity of this magnitude has necessitated the implementation of several prevention and response programmes to arrest the spread of HIV/AIDS. However, social stigma and legal threat have made health and support services largely inaccessible for LGBT people. At the same time, these factors have also made it difficult for support agencies to reach out to this population. Therefore, HIV/AIDS has developed as a site around which much of advocacy against Section 377 is centred (Narrain, Reference Narrain2004; Narrain, Reference Narrain2005). Evidence of this is the fact that both the writ petitions asking for change in Section 377 have used HIV/AIDS as the premise for their claim.
To a certain extent the government also has acknowledged problems with non-recognition of the LGBT population, and therefore acknowledges MSM as a category for prevention intervention through National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) – a government agency under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Policies
The struggle against Section 377 has seemingly encountered problems on account of value non-acceptance by the policymakers. This is evident in the government's response to the writ petition by Naz Foundation, in which it stated that Indian society did not tolerate homosexuality (Narrain, Reference Narrain2004). Both the right- and left-wing political parties seem to hold value bases that perceive homosexuality as an aberration and divorced from the Indian socio-cultural context, and therefore the opposition towards LGBT rights appears unequivocal. While right-wing parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party see LGBT groups as obscene and irrelevant, the left-wing parties such as the Communist Party of India view homosexuality as a corrupting Western influence imported into India through agreements such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Kapur, Reference Kapur1999). Women's groups linked to leftist political parties have at times opposed the inclusion of lesbian women's rights into the women's rights agenda, because they believe it might take attention away from other issues such as economic oppression of women (Menon, Reference Menon and Menon2007).
At the same time, a recent development in social policy signifies a shift from the strict adherence to a rigid patriarchal value base. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005 is noteworthy for its use of the term partner instead of wife/spouse as a possible victim of domestic violence. This is evidently a progressive departure from viewing domestic violence through the dominant lens of patriarchy by including only married women, to a broader outlook towards violence against all women in Indian households, including, but not limited to, women in marital or live-in relationships. While this development may not share an immediate link with Section 377, it signifies a landmark event in the history of Indian social policy, in recognising and extending legitimacy to hitherto unacknowledged alternative lifestyles and alliances among people.
Sexual abuse of male children has often been cited as a defence for Section 377, based on the argument that repealing this section would negatively impact male victims and survivors. Such defence exists in spite of some child rights activists' contention that since the basic intent of Section 377 is not to address sexual violence, it does not provide a comprehensive legal framework to punish perpetrators. For example, rape of a boy by a woman would not be considered a crime under this section if it was limited to penile−vaginal intercourse. Also, sexual violence through non-penetrative acts such as genital fondling, sexualised kissing and masturbation would not receive attention under this law. Nonetheless, child sexual abuse has remained a defence against modifying Section 377. Certain child rights organisations have also, from time to time, expressed concern over repealing Section 377 as that would erode the existing protection for sexually abused boys. This tension has effectually pitted one rights group against the other. LGBT rights groups have asserted that they do not demand a repeal of the Section 377 but are only asking for removal of ‘adult, private, consensual same-sex acts from the ambit Section 377’ (Voices Against 377: 312). However, this assertion does not seem to have been acknowledged or shared by policymakers. This is not surprising since violence against children as an issue tends to enjoy much greater support than LGBT rights among the public as well as policy makers, and therefore a threat that modifying Section 377 might leave children more vulnerable to sexual assault is likely to produce lines of division between those who support children's rights and those who support the rights of LGBT people. Consequently, the relationship between these two issues remains tumultuous and at the centre of debate. However, a recent development promises to change the status quo. The Ministry of Women and Child Development is actively involved in development and advocacy for the Offences Against Children Bill 2006 (Ministry of Women and Child Development, 2006). The Bill promises to be a gender-neutral and comprehensive law to address all forms of physical, sexual and emotional violence against all children. If the Bill becomes a law, it would eliminate the need for using Section 377 as a legal remedy against child sexual abuse and make policy change technically more feasible.
Another significant development of a similar nature is the HIV/AIDS Bill 2006 (Lawyers Collective, 2007), which is pending with the Government of India. It addresses the issue of discrimination against LGBT people, stating unambiguously that no person can be denied the opportunity of prevention against HIV and its treatment, thereby bringing LGBT people on a level platform with the mainstream population with regard to access to health services, at least on paper. In effect, this would signify an acknowledgement of non-heteronormative sexual activity as non-criminal, and could be used as an agenda-setting strategy. Compston and Madsen (Reference Compston and Madsen2001: 130) note that ‘the dynamics of the formulation of policy alternatives in the policy stream are likened by Kingdon to a primeval soup in which proposals and alternatives float around searching for problems to which they can be construed as solutions’. The HIV/AIDS Bill, together with a change in Section 377, provides a potentially efficient solution to the problem of making health services accessible to LGBT people with regard to HIV/AIDS that has been discussed in the previous section.
Politics
The third and final stream of the Multiple Streams framework encompasses the national mood, pressure group campaigns and administrative and legislative turnover (Zahariadis, Reference Zahariadis and Sabatier1999). In terms of agenda-setting efforts, not much might be accomplished with respect to administrative and legislative turnover, since the response towards appeals for amending Section 377 has been of indifference and opposition by both left- and right-wing parties.
The term national mood refers to ‘the notion that a fairly large number of individuals in a given country tend to think along common lines and that the mood swings from time to time’ (Zahariadis, Reference Zahariadis and Sabatier1999: 77). It has a strong bearing on the priorities of policymakers, as they tend to prioritise certain conditions as problems while ignoring others, depending upon their perception of the national mood at that point in time. Besides, policymakers' idea of national mood on a particular condition is also influenced by the support or opposition of specific interest groups lobbying for a particular cause (Zahariadis, Reference Zahariadis and Sabatier1999).
Though little research-based information is available about people's perceptions and attitudes towards queer sexualities in India, the scenario is essentially located within an environment of homophobia and hegemonic heterosexuality (Joseph, Reference Joseph2005; Narrain, Reference Narrain2004). As a consequence, the national mood toward the LGBT rights campaign is not one of support. On the contrary, sexual minorities face stigma, shame and violence. However, it is noteworthy that LGBT people are more visible today than before, and spaces for discussions and debates on sexuality have grown, though they are still very few (Vanita, Reference Vanita2002; Narrain, Reference Narrain2004; Joseph, Reference Joseph2005; Chandrashekhar, Reference Chandrasekhar1997).
Pressure group campaigns are another dimension of the politics stream. Often pressure group campaigns spearhead the campaign for a particular cause. A major part of such campaigning is connected to purposeful and motivated networking of likeminded people, communities and organisations. Besides non-government organisations' individual pressure-building efforts, there is a concerted effort going on to bring about change through the Voices Against 377 coalition. Formed in 2003, it already is a strong network of various LGBT and pro-LGBT organisations. Since 2006, the coalition has been facilitating a pressure group campaign in the form of an online petition based on an open letter written to the government, judiciary and citizens of India by prominent public figures that include authors, journalists, theatre and film personalities, activists, academics and artists. This letter emphasised that Section 377 was an ‘archaic and brutal law’ that violated fundamental constitutional rights of sexual minorities as well as international laws that India is a party to, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.Footnote 8 The petition continues to solicit public support through the coalition's website and the list of supporters has grown over the years. There are two things about this petition that are noteworthy from an agenda-setting perspective. Firstly, the signatories of the open letter are not members from the common public but renowned public personalities that include Indian citizens as well as persons of Indian origin from other countries. Secondly, an analysis of the list of people who have signed the online petitionFootnote 9 reveals that a large number of supporters of the petition identify themselves as residents or citizens of countries other than India. While the petition is an important pressure building strategy and can potentially contribute much towards achieving the desired change in the law, it might fall short of successfully deconstructing the crucial obstacle of queer sexualities being perceived as a consequence of Western influence upon Indian socio-cultural norms and values. The Government of India, in response to Naz Foundation's writ petition to change Section 377, stated in 2003 in an affidavit before the Delhi High Court that there existed no tolerance to ‘homosexuality and lesbianism’ in Indian society (Narrain, Reference Narrain and Menon2007). The Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), an agency established by the Government of India to monitor the human rights situation in the country, informally stated about psychiatric abuse of a homosexual person that one of the reasons that the Commission did not want to get involved with cases of violence against LGBT people was that ‘most of the organisations were foreign-funded, without any real grassroots support’ (Narrain, Reference Narrain and Menon2007: 75). The rhetoric of homosexuality being a ‘Western vice’ or that of support for LGBT rights being engineered by people and groups from industrialised countries disrupts the processes of building favourable national mood.
For effective agenda setting, the intersectional approach becomes crucial with respect to networking aimed at strengthening pressure group campaigns. The intersectional framework is not driven by identity-based politics of sexuality, but perceives different forms of oppression as intertwined and mutually connected, thereby necessitating a holistic view of sexuality rights and oppression inclusive of their intersections with caste, class, gender and (dis)ability (Sharma and Nath, Reference Sharma, Nath, Misra and Chandiramani2005). Such a framework can be pivotal to find allies that are potentially instrumental in galvanising public support for a cause that at this point does not find favour with a large slice of the population in India. One of the major allies are feminist and women's rights groups that have an established history of fighting subjugation and demanding equality. However, the relationship between LGBT rights groups and women's rights groups has not been of seamless harmony and solidarity. In an event on International Women's Day in 2001, women's groups disallowed LGBT groups from carrying banners that mentioned the word ‘lesbian’ (Vanita, Reference Vanita2002). Earlier in 1994 at the Conference of Autonomous Women's Movements, there occurred a heated debate over the need for embracing lesbian women's issues, although the conference eventually passed a resolution that acknowledged these issues as part of women's movement (Menon, Reference Menon and Menon2007). The opposition by women's organisations linked to left-wing parties to inclusion of lesbian rights agenda within women's movement has already been mentioned earlier. Having said that, it must also be noted that there have taken place some constructive developments in this regard in the recent past. The second shadow report on Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) that was written with contributions from a wide variety of women's rights organisations and presented to the United Nations in 2007 carried a chapter entitled ‘Violence against women on the basis of sexual orientation’.Footnote 10 In 2005 at the conference of the Indian Association of Women's Studies a resolution was passed which demanded that Section 377 be abolished (Menon, Reference Menon and Menon2007). In spite of such a step, engagement of women's rights groups with issues of LGBT people (and not just lesbian women) remains sketchy. A critique of patriarchal institutions, such as heteronormative monogamous marriage, can be a natural point of convergence for women's and LGBT groups and offer a productive site for intersectionality driven activism. However, as Menon (Reference Menon and Menon2007: 36) observes, ‘feminist critique of the family and feminist responses to LGBT/queer politics has tended to run on parallel lines’.
Other attempts to focus on intersections of issues include participation of LGBT activists in the World Social Forum in 2004, as well as engagagement of children's rights organisations in pro-LGBT struggle.
As the current trends and developments described above show, the environment around queer activism in India is both complex and complicated. While on one hand, there have occurred some progressive developments fuelling the struggle against state control over sexuality, on the other hand there continue to exist norms, values and practices that marginalise queer communities. The multiple streams of problems, policy and politics prove useful in identifying some of the key factors and significant happenings that can boost or impede efforts to change existing policy under Section 377.
Discussion
According to Multiple Streams framework, coupling occurs when the different streams converge (Zahariadis, Reference Zahariadis and Sabatier1999). Coupling results in opening of a policy window, through which policy change becomes viable and achievable. An overall analysis of the different streams vis-à-vis decriminalisation of queer sexualities in India indicates critical activity going on within each of the streams. The problem stream is centred around HIV/AIDS, and the significance and magnitude of the problem has succeeded in engaging the government into acknowledging the MSM community as a stakeholder. At the level of policy stream, recent law and policy developments such as the The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005, Offences Against Children Bill of 2006 and HIV/AIDS Bill of 2006 provide a unique opportunity for a policy solution that allows for recognition of LGBT rights, without jeopardising the interests of other vulnerable populations, such as abused children. Finally, the third stream of politics also seems to be changing with increased media exposure, pressure group campaigns and availability of forums for LGBT people to discuss their concerns. These streams intersect at different points, indicating a possible convergence.
These developments in recent times suggest that a policy window may not be open currently, given the relative lack of support from both social and political structures. However, the current socio-political developments provide a productive opportunity to make rapid advancement towards a policy window.
Since anti-LGBT laws stem from the socio-cultural fabric of the nation, it becomes imperative to question patriarchy, heteronormativity and homophobia by engaging in a process of dialogue with the mainstream society. This is crucial from the perspective of agenda setting, as any meaningful investment in the process of initiating and sustaining such a dialogue will help people review and revisit their own stereotypes and myths, affirm those who find it difficult to conform to the structures of hegemonic heterosexuality and assist informed choice making by people regarding their own thoughts and actions. Eventually, such a process can be instrumental in developing a national mood that allows for mutually consensual non-coercive expressions of sexual diversity. Such spaces are now beginning to develop and grow, such as through interventions with young adults, creation of helplines on sexual and reproductive health information, online advocacy through the Internet, publishing of age-appropriate information on sexuality for adolescents, making of documentaries on the lives of LGBT people etc. Such pluralisation of sexuality is important to challenge popular prejudice in order to make allies of people who may not identify themselves as queer.
While the educational value of the law ought not to be underestimated, it needs to be acknowledged that changes in the law will not by themselves translate into a change in public attitudes toward queer sexualities (Bull et al., Reference Bull, Pinto and Wilson1991). As Narrain (Reference Narrain2005: 469) observes, ‘legal reform can be a rallying point for queer activism, [but] it is limited in terms of functioning as an effective strategy to address homophobia’. On the other hand, a change in social mindset is more likely to translate both into legal reform, as well into a lasting positive change in the lives of LGBT people.
Provision of professional and peer-based support services is another key area. Currently only few organisations work on LGBT issues. There is a paucity of mental health services and lack of knowledge among mental health professionals with respect to LGBT issues (Parekh, Reference Parekh2003). Organisations working with MSM on HIV/AIDS often limit their interventions to modifying their clients' sexual behaviour without addressing larger issues of gender and sexuality. The few available support services are usually confined to a few big cities and cater to middle- and upper-middle-class population groups (Sharma and Nath, Reference Sharma, Nath, Misra and Chandiramani2005). Improving the quantity as well quality of services available to LGBT people in different regions (urban, semi-urban and rural) can lead to a greater awareness among the public and higher confidence among LGBT people to articulate their concerns and assert their rights more openly, eventually contributing towards a stronger national mood favouring sexual plurality. In the short run, this could mean providing multi-language support services given the wide linguistic variety of population groups in India, and training for helping professionals to enhance their understanding and sensitivity of LGBT issues.
Conclusion
Agenda setting, as described through this Multiple Streams analysis, is a crucial component of policy process. The Multiple Streams approach is useful in illustrating the need for agenda setting, and in discussing the current environment around claiming and advocating for sexual rights in India by LGBT and pro-LGBT groups. Many favourable developments have occurred in India in the recent past that can support the agenda-setting process for a change in Section 377. The recommendations offered by this paper may also provide impetus to this process of agenda setting, which then may prove instrumental in convergence of the three streams of problems, policy and politics, and create a favourable environment for opening a policy window that may not only change an almost 150-year-old oppressive law, but also create opportunities for further activism and dialogue around the issues of state, morality and sexuality.
