VIKRAM SETH

One of the most popular contemporary Indian writers in English, Vikram Seth is a proponent of LGBTQIA+ rights, and has instrumentally lent his voice for the decriminalisation of same-sex relations and other causes of the community

- ANMOL ARORA

“To sneer at love, and wrench apart/The bonds of body, mind and heart/With specious reason and no rhyme:/This is the true unnatural crime.” The popular novelist and poet Vikram Seth wrote these lines in response to the Supreme Court ruling in 2013, which shoved the LGBT+ people back into the closet. The apex court had just overturned the Delhi High Court verdict of 2009, which held the provisions of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalised same-sex relations unconstitutional. It was now criminal to have same-sex relations again; it was ‘unnatural’ to be gay and to be in love again as depicted in the law.

The usually reticent Seth also appeared on the cover of India Today magazine, looking resigned and angry, his hair dishevelled and his face unshaven. In what appeared to be a prison mugshot, he was carrying a chalkboard that read, “Not A Criminal”. Those three words were enough to say what needed to be said. This single image signified the dread we all felt at the time.

In a brief but powerful essay in the magazine, he wrote about how love and to know that you have loved and been loved makes life bearable: “To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away. To do this to someone else is to murder their soul.” Referring to the cover in an interview with the BBC, he had said that the 2013 judgement took away the liberties of millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in India, and he called it “inhumane”. His penchant for wit was apparent in this remark: “... and if you wish, you can remove the at the end of that word.”