Walking Into A New Dawn

Keshav Suri, the scion and executive director of LaLiT Hotels, has been an active campaigner for LGBTQI rights in India. Here, he reveals what the recent Supreme Court verdict on Section 377 IPC means to him and the impact it’s set to have on India.

- Keshav Suri

As afternoon set in on September 6, 2018, the roots of a just and equal society were being sown. Chief Justice Dipak Misra delivered a landmark verdict in the Supreme Court and the country swelled with pride. It means – I, and many others like me, will now live freely, without the fear of being falsely prosecuted by law. It meant equality, and that we, as a nation, have been ushered into a new era. My belief in my country has been reiterated.

In his historic judgement, Chief Justice Misra said, “In Puttaswamy (supra), the right to privacy has been declared to be a fundamental right by this Court as being a facet of life and personal liberty protected under Article 21 of the Constitution.”

He went on to add, “In view of the above authorities, we have no hesitation to say that Section 377 IPC, in its present form, abridges both human dignity as well as the fundamental right to privacy and choice of the citizenry, howsoever small. As sexual orientation is an essential and innate facet of privacy, the right to privacy takes within its sweep the right of every individual including that of the LGBT to express their choices in terms of sexual inclination without the fear of persecution or criminal prosecution.”