Two review petitions have already been filed against the recent Supreme Court judgment ruling that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises multiple sexual practices, is not unconstitutional. The two national parties are divided on the issue. The Congress is in favour of removing Section 377, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) agrees with the two-member Supreme Court bench's ruling.
There has been little debate about the numbers involved. How large is the Indian LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community? In theory, it should not matter. Any real democracy should protect the fundamental rights of even tiny minorities.
In practice, the history of the global movement for LGBT rights indicates that it requires a critical mass of numbers. In America, Britain and Scandinavia, the laws changed and mainstream politicians started taking cognisance of pro-LGBT sentiments only when it became apparent that it affected votes.
Surveys show between four and 15 per cent of national populations tend to self-identify as "LGBT". The higher numbers correlate with nations that have no legal barriers or social stigma against LGBT lifestyles. In the 1950s, when it was very much a criminal act in the US, the Kinsey Report claimed 37 per cent of Americans reported at least one "homosexual experience".
India should have somewhere between 50 million and 180 million individuals with potential LGBT orientation if the four per cent to 15 per cent bandwidth holds. Just for comparison, there are roughly five million Jains, 25 million Sikhs, 28 million Christians and 170 million Muslims in India. Again, since roughly 725 million Indians are legally adults, there should be somewhere between 30 million and 108 million voters of LBGT orientation.
Declared LGBT numbers amount to a fraction of such estimates. The Naz Foundation estimated the male homosexual population numbered at least 2.5 million in 2006, with lesbians amounting to "several lakhs" more. Let us say this declared population of "LG" individuals amounted to about three million in 2006.
In 2013, the Supreme Court bench accepted the Naz estimates while calling those numbers "minuscule". This seems odd since three million adds up to three Lok Sabha constituencies, and over half the Jain population, in aggregate.
In the four years since the Delhi High Court judgment of 2009, which ruled that Section 377 of the IPC violated Article 14 of the Constitution, the self-confessed LGBT population has more or less doubled. Lakhs and lakhs came out of the closet to friends, families and colleagues between 2009 and 2013.
Will this make a difference to voting patterns in 2014, and in future elections? The BJP may be gambling that it will not, or that the anti-LGBT vote outweighs the pro-LGBT vote. It may even be correct in assuming that a conservative majority would prefer alternative sexual practices to stay underground.
But voting patterns elsewhere suggest the BJP's stance may be misguided. The anti-LGBT voter will weigh that consideration, along with many other variables such as governance, caste alliances, development, etc, before voting. LGBT rights are unlikely to be a deciding factor. They are, however, a one-point agenda for LGBT persons. Nobody is likely to vote for a party that explicitly advocates discriminating against them. That consideration overrides every other variable.
We've seen this in the US, for instance, where Democrats receive an overwhelming share of the LGBT vote because Republicans are anti-LGBT marriage. Some Indian gay rights activists who were pro-BJP have publicly disassociated themselves from that party since it declared its pro-Section 377 stance.
India's secret ballot enables closeted LGBT people to comfortably vote against a party with an anti-LGBT stance. Every declared LGBT person also creates a multiplier effect since friends and family will vote to save that person from legal harassment.
Could this hurt the BJP? In a close election, if it amounts to an appreciable vote swing in a few specific constituencies, it might. The LGBT community will also be a permanent anti-BJP lobby in future.
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