More Women in India Divorcing Gay Husbands

When India decriminalized homosexuality in 2009, GLBT equality advocates rejoiced. But the high court's historic ruling has proved to be a victory also for heterosexual women, who are now leaving fraudulent marriages and marriages of convenience to gay husbands.

Expressindia.com reported in an Oct. 25 story that a change in the social mindset is taking place, and women whose marriages have not been consummated, or who have other grounds for believing that they have married gay men, are now starting to seek divorce or annulment.

"It isn't that such cases have not been filed with the courts earlier," a lawyer in Bandra, Shabnam Kazi, told the press. "We have had many women who after a lot of prodding and investigations spoke up. A change, even though slight, has been seen in the court when women narrate their case. That is a major mind change."

Another lawyer, Audrey D'Mello, described the case of a woman whose marriage to a businessman went unconsummated for months. "When she discovered her husband was involved sexually with a much younger boy, she confronted him and her parents-in-law," D'Mello said. "It was a shocking revelation for her when she discovered that his parents were aware of his preference. His marriage was just a counter to the social stigma." D'Mello said she knew of a dozen similar instances in which women had married gay men, not realizing that they were, in effect, cover for gay men caught in a society that until recently punished gays with steep penalties.

D'Mello described another marriage of convenience in which the relationship had been consummated, making it more difficult for the wife to seek an annulment. "It is a very tricky case, said D'Mello. "She has had evidence collected where she can prove that her husband is involved in a gay relationship. She hacked into her husband's email and found various interactions he had with a gay partner. But here she could not file for nullity on the grounds of non-consummation of marriage. We suggested the ground of cruelty and fraud."

With the end of gay criminalization, the frequency of such marriages may fade over time. Already, a few same-sex marriages have taken place between Indian men--in one case, between a Hindu and a Moslem, a sign that love can transcend even deep-rooted hostility between religious traditions.

The 30-year-old Muslim man, identified only as S. Khan in an Aug. 17 article at the Times of India, explained why the couple needed to travel despite the recent decriminalization of homosexuality in India. "We read on the Internet that Nepal's Supreme Court has approved of same-sex marriages," said Khan. "Since they are still not legal in India, we decided to come to Nepal to get married."

The wedding, which took place Aug. 17, was officiated by a Hindu cleric and included an exchange of vows and rings. Officially, however, Nepal has not yet made marriage equality legal. "Though Nepal's apex court has approved same sex marriages and instructed the government to enact laws in accordance, the actual laws are yet to be formulated," said Sunil Pant, an openly gay member of Nepal's parliament and the founder of the Blue Diamond Society, which advocates for LGBT equality.

"We were hoping the new constitution would be promulgated in May and legally validate same-sex marriages," added Pant. That did not happen, so now "we hope the marriage laws will now be ready when the constitution comes into effect in May 2011."

The men may have overcome social and religious obstacles, but they have yet to navigate the bureaucratic hurdles that await: the Hindu groom, identified in an Associated Press story as Sanjay Shah, a 42-year-old social worker who lives in Britain, plans to return home and take his spouse with him.

Pant said that Pink Mountain Tour Company--a GLBT travel service that he also established--has already made plans to host two additional weddings in Nepal, one for an American lesbian couple and one for another transnational family, an Arab-Filipino couple. The travel company was started earlier this year, with an eye to the international same-sex wedding market.

Gays in India are still celebrating the victory of no longer being treated as criminals--or subjected to crushing blackmail demands--following the July 2, 2009, High Court verdict that scrubbed anti-gay language from Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. Family parity remains outside of the grasp of LGBT Indians, but simply not being persecuted remains a cause for joy.

"It does mean a lot. People don't avoid us these days," Anshuman Bludagoti told the Associated Press for an article on the occasion's first anniversary. That joy is tinged with apprehension, however, as the country's Supreme Court has yet to confirm the High Court's finding.

Social pressures also remain. Only two days after the first same-sex wedding in the Indian state Manipur last March, the families of the two men who had wed called the police in to convince them to split up, lest their marriage stain their families' honors.

The two men were wed on March 25, reported the India Gazette that same day. The 25-year-old groom--identified only as Sandip--referred to his 28-year-old male spouse Nikhil as his "wife," and told the media, "We are indeed happy."

But though the men had been together for six years, their marriage displeased their families so much that they went to the police for help in breaking up the marriage, which ended on March 27.

Though so much time has elapsed since India's High Court struck down the law that criminalized physical intimacy between consenting adults of the same gender, anti-gay religious leaders continue to press for the Indian Supreme Court to reverse the High Court's finding, according to a July 2 Associated Press article.