Indian opposition parties name LGBTQ+ activists to key posts in 'major moment'

By Arpan Chaturvedi and Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India's main opposition Congress party set up a new internal group this week to promote LGBTQ+ rights, while another party has named a person from the community as its spokesperson, in the first such political recognition after many setbacks.

The Supreme Court decriminalised homosexuality in 2018 but greatly disappointed the LGBTQ+ community last year when it declined to legalise same-sex marriage, leaving the matter to parliament to decide.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, which has also said the legislature is the right platform to decide, canvassed public opinion this week on how best to ensure policies for the community inclusive and effective.

Same-sex ties are mostly taboo in the largely conservative country of 1.42 billion people, and the government told the Supreme Court last year that such marriages were not "comparable with the Indian family unit concept".

This unit comprised a husband, a wife and children, it added.

Congress, whose political clout has risen after doing much better than expected in the April-June general election, named LGBTQ+ activist Mario da Penha this week to head its new unit for the community, under its its All-India Professionals’ Congress division.

The appointment follows Congress's poll promise to bring in a law to legalise civil unions between same-sex couples.

It was the "only representative framework for queer people within any recognised national political party in India", Da Penha said on X.

Da Penha's appointment was "a major moment for queer inclusion in Indian politics", said Anish Gawande, who last month became the first person from the community to become the spokesperson for a big party, the opposition Nationalist Congress Party - Sharadchandra Pawar.

Speaking of the Nationalist Congress appointment earlier, Gawande said on social media: "If you'd told me 10 years ago that it would be possible to be out and in Indian politics, I would have scoffed in disbelief."

The government says its measures to benefit the community include access to food programmes for same-sex couples as families, allowing them to open joint bank accounts and choose each other as nominees, as well as provision of medical and other care without discrimination.

In a statement on Sunday, the social justice department said it had sought suggestions from the public to ensure policies and initiatives for the community were inclusive and effective.

The ministry's top bureaucrat did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A government official said on condition of anonymity that authorities were focused on ridding policies and initiatives of discrimination against the community.

"Stakeholders and the public are free to express their views on how to have inclusive policies and initiatives," the official said in a text message, without mentioning any law to recognise same-sex marriage.

(Reporting by Arpan Chaturvedi and Krishna N. Das; Editing by Jan Harvey and Clarence Fernandez)