The article states that according to media reports, men are queuing up with their ‘partners’ in front of the consulates of countries like Belgium, USA, UK, Canada, which give legal recognition to same sex relationships. These men are claiming to be gay couples seeking asylum in the foreign country arguing that India does not accept homosexual relationships.

Nothing to be surprised. Seeking asylum on the grounds of sexual orientation is permitted by the immigration laws in certain developed countries, like the ones mentioned above along with others such as Norway, Greece, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Latvia and a few others.

Based on the 1951 international Convention Related to the Status of Refugees, a person can seek refuge (asylum) when he/she is being persecuted on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion. During the World War II and the period following immediately after it these were the types of persecution that had shocked the world opinion. In the recent past, among the most well known ones, literary authors such as Salman Rushdie, Tasleema Nasrin and the spiritual leader of Tibet the Dalai Lama have taken asylum in other countries due to threats to their lives.

Along with the four grounds the Convention also cites a fifth ground- membership in a social group, on the basis of which a person can seek asylum for fear of being persecuted. According to the refugee laws of most countries, a social group is defined as a group of persons all of whom share a common, immutable characteristic. The common characteristic must be one that the members of the group either cannot change, or should not be required to change because it is fundamental to their individual identity or conscience.

Under this ‘group’ law, homosexuality falls under the category of immutable characteristic. A homosexual person can apply for asylum in the countries mentioned above, if he can adequately prove that his bodily integrity and security are under threat in the country of origin. For instance, the Australian High Court ruled in favour of a Bangladeshi gay couple who were seeking asylum on the grounds that they had been ostracized by their families and had been mobbed and beaten for their sexual orientation in Bangladesh.

The article cites an example where the son of a powerful business family, had come out with his sexual identity when he was abroad. His family managed to lure him back to India, took away his passport and locked him up at home. The boy managed to escape; secured his passport and fled the country. He applied for a visa to UK under the refugee/asylum law. Investigations and evaluation by a gay rights group, The Humsafar Trust, gave the authorities the necessary certification to corroborate the boy’s application.

These examples do not mean that the procedure for seeking asylum is a cakewalk where simply claiming ‘membership’ of an ostracised group will ensure refuge. Asylum authorities have a two-fold requirement: proving persecution as well as authenticate ‘membership’ of the group in question. This is not as simple as it may sound. As the director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered rights programme of the NGO Human Rights Watch states, “Asylum authorities could point out that many gay men are living openly, if never quite easily, in India as proof that persecution doesn’t exist.” He also says that “ Identity can be culturally variable so that what constitutes being homosexual in Bangladesh can differ considerably from the West. Class and other factors also come into play. The only constant is presumably same-sex attraction and that can be hard to prove in an administrative situation.”

While on the one hand, immigration laws pertaining to asylum are being refined to include cases where truly a person’s life is being threatened due to sexual orientation, on the other hand people have begun to misuse this law and use it as a getaway opportunity to foreign lands. Here are some of the exerpts from the article which show how straight men are quick to take advantage of such laws and politicize the issue:

“A man applying for asylum stated that he had a girlfriend who knew this was just a ruse to get abroad, and once he was settled there, they would marry.”

“Another said his father had put him up to it.”

“There are stories of straight Indian men in places like New York who go to gay South Asian parties and take pictures of themselves with the more obviously gay men there, to use as evidence of their homosexuality in asylum applications.”

“Ashok Row Kavi, of Humsafar Trust, recalls a case from the time of the BJP-led NDA government. The US authoritites asked Humsafar if they would support the case of an affluent gay man who had apparently applied for asylum on the grounds that the right-wing government was killing homosexuals.”

Activists who are fighting violence against gay people are irritated by this type of politicisation and the appropriation, by people with no interest in gay issues, of the problems faced by gay people. In any case India is culturally far more amorphous than any developed country where physical affection between the same sexes is displayed publicly without any self-consciousness and therefore viewed neither with suspicion nor malice. A pot pouri of belief systems and lifestyles, the cultural fabric of this vast land mass offers far more oppurtunities to ‘live your truth’ as long as you refrain from belligerance and ‘in your face’ histrionics of western gay movements.

No doubt this type of misuse of law by a group of people diminishes the seriousness of the problem faced by the actual group for who the law is meant. But what amuses me in this entire episode and misuse of the law is the ease with which the men are flowing in and out of their sexual identity. A father who otherwise would have disowned his son if he found that his son was gay, is asking him to pose as a homosexual. Young men who otherwise would display homophobic attributes are prompt to disrobe from their heterosexual costumes and dawn a homosexual mask, hold hands and click intimate photographs with their more ‘effiminate’ counterparts.

Is this just yet another instance which points towards the hegemony that heterosexuality has over other forms of sexualities which allows the former to manipulate the situation for its own gain? Or are these men implying that sexual identity is independent of sexual orientation? If so then why all the hulla-bulloo about heterosexuality and homosexuality? If it’s right for the goose then it should be right for the gander. If you can ‘use’ an identity to manipulate a system and feel indifferent to people’s perception of you then why the moral sabre rattling against homosexuality at all?