INDIA: Thousand March At Mumbai Pride In Renewed Hopes That Gay Sex Will Be Decriminalized [VIDEO]

The Times Of India reports:

Mumbai: The amiable Sindhi lady, waiting at Kemps Corner signal, carefully propped up her shopping bags against her leg, and trained her phone’s camera on the profusion of colour that had suddenly poured down the road. “It is for gay rights, no?” she asked a couple of passing reporters. “Yes, I read about it in the newspaper. Everybody should have the right to live as they wish, after all.”

Usha Vacchani was one of several onlookers lining the road on Saturday afternoon, when Mumbai’s annual Pride March commenced from Tardeo’s August Kranti Maidan. Organized by the Queer Azaadi Mumbai collective, the walk for equal rights for LGBT individuals had over 7,000 participants – both from within the community as well as straight allies.

“We have had a growing number of heterosexual people participating in the Pride to show their support and that’s been a great thing,” said Ashok Row Kavi, activist and founder-chairman of the Humsafar Trust. “And there are people from all walks of life taking part – from students to commercial sex workers from Kamathipura.”

The diversities among the crowd — sexual orientation, profession, nationality — were united by a common purpose: to protest against the archaic section 377 that criminalises same-sex relations between consenting adults.

Last week the Indian Supreme Court agreed to revisit the issue and assigned a three-judge panel to review a “curative petition” to repeal Section 377.