Kolkata, Jan 1,2023: Without the active and spontaneous participation of the bigger and extended society, no popular movement has finally touched the success line.

Although in the recent past, there has not been examples of the involvement of the bigger and extended civil society in any major movement in West Bengal, by the closing half of the last month of 2022, a ray of hope emerged on these lines.

The manifestation of the bigger societal participation was evident in the expression of solidarity towards a movement for protection of basic rights for the sexually marginal community in the society, known as the LGBTQ or queer people.

The occasion was the Kolkata Rainbow Pride Walk, the oldest LGBTQ annual pride walk in India as well as in South Asia, which took place in the City of Joy on December 18.

Besides attracting a record crowd of over 12,000 people this year as against just around 25 participants in the first edition of the walk 25 years back, the event was different from another angle this time.

Quite a few parents having queer children participated in the event this year and chose to walk a mile to send a message to their society, not to equate their children with aliens or anti-social elements.

“So what if my kid is gay or a transwoman. He or she is not a murderer or a rapist. They can’t just be discriminated against because of their orientations,” said Rituparna Antia, an NRI based out of Canada with roots in Kolkata. A proud mother of a transwoman, she participated in the walk.

For Tracy Shivangee Sardar, a popular face of queer rights movement in the city, the battle was long to establish her own sexual identity.

“The initial resistance was from the family and it took me years to convince my parents to accept me as what I am. Finally, now they are convinced. Though my parents did not participate in the walk this time, my father gifted me with a special dress for the occasion so that I can participate in the walk with added colours,” Tracy said.

She added: “I also met my former boyfriend with whom I broke off eight years back and he was a bit secretive about his orientation then. I thought he would avoid me. But to my surprise, he came and talked to me normally in front of everyone with a sense of respect and even at times did some leg-pulling as he used to do earlier. These two events made me realise that the closet has started breaking somewhere.”

That the bigger and extended society is coming out in support of the queer movement was evident from the participation of Jayita Sarkar, a school teacher who always takes extra care about protecting students who have a different sexual orientation from the bullying by their classmates.

She said: “Often these students become victims of bullying. Unfortunately, in many cases, when such students approach the teacher, the inevitable reply is in the form of advice for the students concerned to change himself or herself since others are �normal’.

“So, I participated in the walk to send a message across to my students that their mam is different. This is the day when my students find their mam in a different mood out of the serious ambit of the classroom.”

Kaushik Gupta, a senior counsel with the Calcutta High Court, feels that sensitising the bigger and extended society to acknowledge the right of the queer people is an ongoing process and the process will continue.

“A major legal hurdle is yet to be crossed,” he pointed out.

“Just recently, the people from the community celebrated the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court partially striking down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code decriminalising same-sex relationship between consenting adults. The major hurdle now is the legalisation of same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court has given the Union government time till January 6 to respond,” Ghosh said.

He added: “I think that the two pillars of the country, namely the legislature and the executive, should favourably consider this legal aspect. When a relationship between two consenting same-sex adults is no more a crime as per the decision of the apex court, what is the harm in giving that relationship a legal stamp?

“This will remove a lot of other hassles that the people from the community are facing, such as inheritance of property and making the partner a nominee in bank accounts and insurance policies, among others.”