While inaugurating a newly constructed girls hostel in Patna on May 23, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said, "Taking dowry for marriage is a useless thing. If you'll get married then only children will be born.What will happen to childbirth if a man gets married to another man?", reported news portal ANI.
His comments are fairly in line with the view of most politicians in India, as there is no real constituency of voters who vote on the basis of LGBTQ rights.
On the other hand, there are almost certainly more women than men in India, according to preliminary data from the National Family Health Survey; although it is impossible to know with an acceptable degree of certainty until the census figures are out in late 2023. ECI data already confirms that there are more women than men who vote in the country.
Nitish Kumar is noted for his assiduous courting of women's votes, as evidenced by his policy of prohibition on liquor in Bihar, which is a proven vote winner in the state due to the high rates of alcoholism and associated issues among men in rural Bihar.
However, it seems that when it comes to the rights of the LGBTQ community, the forward thinking CM is yet to catch up.
There are no official demographics for the LGBT population in India, but the government of India submitted figures to the Supreme Court in 2012, according to which, there were about 2.5 million gay people recorded in India. These figures are only based on those individuals who have self-declared to the Ministry of Health, and thus is all but certain to be underreported.
Public discussion of homosexuality in India has been inhibited by the fact that sexuality in any form is rarely discussed openly in the country.
Before striking down the colonial-era law, known as Section 377 of the IPC, several organisations had expressed support for decriminalising homosexuality in India, and pushed for tolerance and social equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer people, and others with marginalized identities traditional to India.
Mental, physical, emotional and economic violence against the LGBT community in India continues to be a problem, even after the aforementioned draconian law was struck down.
