The reason we in Delhi and Bangalore marched on June 29th, yesterday, was because we are following the lead of Calcutta, which has been marching for many years, and they declared their parade would be on June 29th.
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ESTEVES: You know, gay pride began in the U.S., in New York, and it spread across the world, and it's caught the imagination of the queer community across the world. But what did you see that was distinctly Indian about what was going on yesterday? The very date of the protest is clearly, you know, it's to commemorate - the gay rights parades in the United States commemorate the Stonewall Uprising. ESTEVES: That is the question which is being asked right now, in fact, exactly that process, where a petition has been filed in courts in India asking that they declare the law unconstitutional because it obligates the right to life, equality, freedom of expression of a large section of Indians. If the law is to be overturned, would it be on constitutional grounds? Is that how the legal system works in India? I was browsing the Indian constitution, which is the largest in the world. Now, in the United States, the sodomy laws were overturned because they were unconstitutional. PESCA: People who want it overturned say it's antiquated.
#Gay pride day 2008 code
PESCA: So Section 377 is the statute in the code that goes back to British colonial times. Also, in India, you're not targeted with Section 377, we're also targeted with obscenity and public nuisance laws, more commonly. It is societal attitude and workplace attitude. I'm out, but I would like to say that in India, the problems facing gay people is not just Section 377, which actually criminalizes homosexuality. PESCA: We read that many marchers wore rainbow-colored masks because it's illegal to be gay in India, and also, so that their friends and family might not know, you know, to stay in the closet, essentially. I thought there would be about 150 to 200 people there, but there were nearly 1,500 people in New Delhi alone. ESTEVES: The turnout was about 10 times beyond what we expected. Others would ask us what it was about and the reaction would be mixed, but always friendly. I know my colleagues and my relatives and a lot of us queer people, our relatives turned up to support it, and our straight friends, and also, were sometimes joining up. ESTEVES: Certainly, well, you know, we had a lot of support from non-queer people. PESCA: And the public? Did they come out - even if they had people come out to gawk, people come out to support? And so we asked for permission, and the police were extremely supportive, and they provided police protection to protect us.
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ESTEVES: The police were extremely supportive, because in India, it's a democratic right to protest. PESCA: What was the reaction to the parades from the police and the public? ESTEVES (Magazine Editor, New Delhi, India Pride Parade Organizer): Hi. Lesley Esteves helped organize the New Delhi parade. In India, homosexual acts are illegal, though prosecutions are rare, rarer than parades, it would seem. There were also marchers in Calcutta, although not for the first time. Yesterday marked the first ever gay pride parade in Bangalore and New Delhi, India. The annual Pride March began in 1970 as a commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, a clash with police at a Greenwich Village bar that was a cornerstone event in the popularization of the gay rights movement. There were gay pride marches in many American cities this weekend, New York, San Francisco, Chicago among them. Hi, welcome back to the Bryant Park Project from NPR News.