Colonialism and Homophobia

Today we discovered that the Supreme Court of India recriminalised gay sex ("sodomy") - a ruling which will have a potentially devastating effect on gay men in this country of 1.3 billion people. 

The Indian statute that prohibits "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal" dates back to two years after the establishment of the Raj, namely 1860.  It is widely interpreted as referring to gay male sex.  My understanding is that lesbian sex continues to be ignored, as under Victorian British law - women are incapable of having "carnal intercourse" together.  The law has been criticised by Human Rights Watch to harass HIV activists, gay men and other LGBT groups.  It is in their view a "continuing threat to public health" as well as a violation of protections in India’s constitution for the rights to equality and to personal liberty.

The Indian Supreme Court

Before British colonisation there were differing, often far more ambivalent views towards homosexuality in India.  The obvious example of the Karma Sutra shows a very inclusive relationship towards all aspects of human sexuality.  This is a common theme in many countries around the world that became part of the Empire, specifically including Africa.  The outlawing of consensual same-sex male acts was an export of the British, along with their desire to Christianise indigenous populations.

I don't think the preceding paragraph is too controversial.  The question is then to what extent, if any, state sponsored homophobia today can be seen as a lasting legacy of British rule.  The Kaleidoscope Human Rights Foundation carried out a report in 2011 that identified some striking facts:

• There is "state sponsored" homophobia in 40% of nations worldwide
• Gay sex is illegal in 42 of the 53 Commonwealth nations (with India now included)
• Non-Commonwealth states where gay sex is illegal make up just 24.5% of the total
• So, as Kaleidoscope puts it "the Commonwealth has a big problem"

France legalised gay sex in 1791.  The Netherlands did so in 1811.  The experience of countries which were part of the French or Dutch empires is markedly different to those under British rule.  That is not to say that homophobia does not exist in those places - of course it does to some extent - or that it the British empire was the sole cause of it: consider, for example, Saudi Arabia.  But it is a fair, broad-brush generalisation to conclude that where the British were the imperial power, they brought with them legalised state sanctioned homophobia and this has clearly, by the numbers above, left a lasting legacy.

The brilliant historian and writer, Alex von Tunzelmann, put it extremely succinctly for me this morning - this is in her opinion an example of "internalised colonialism":

Earlier today Sunny Hundal picked up on a tweet of mine that quoted from the Guardian report of the Kaleidoscope report and commented that:

Note the "partly".  No one is saying that today's decision in 2013 is the exclusive fault of Britain today.  The judges were the ones who made their decision today - nobody else - and successive parliamentarians in India since 1947 who decided not to decriminalise gay sex are the ones who are responsible for the law still being on the books.  Sunny was, however, quite rightly pointing out that the British left behind a cultural legacy that continues.  The legacy of homophobia that was exported under the long period of Empire still shape attitudes and affects people.  I really don't see what is so contentious about that.

Louise Mensch apparently disagrees - along with various other right wingers who then joined in the fun.  I'm puzzled why this should evoke such a reaction - presumably it's somehow unpatriotic or offensive to suggest that Britain did some bad things and the effects of these linger on. 
Louise incidentally clearly missed the "partly" when she read Sunny's tweet. 

 

In response, I asked Louise whether she believed colonialism had left behind any positive enduring legacy anywhere.  Clearly it has: right wingers are normally ever so keen to point out the railways, education, infrastructure, church building and all that jolly stuff that Empire brought with it.   Yet Louise didn't answer.  I wonder why.  Perhaps it was because she knew she'd fall right into the trap of admitting that if it's possible and valid to praise previous governments for the legacy they've left behind, then one can also "blame" them.  It's two sides of the same coin.  Either Empire left some kind of mark that endures to a greater or lesser extent today, or it didn't.

It's fairly clear to me that decades, and sometimes hundreds of years, of Empire leaves a cultural legacy on a nation and on a people.  Some of this will be positive, some of it will be negative.  In the time since independence nations will make their own decisions and go their own way.  But to dismiss out of hand the finding that homosexuality is illegal in 42 of 53 Commonwealth states, and to fail to see any causation when it was Britain that introduced these laws is just a bit baffling to me.  

So to conclude, yes, Britain has moved on and I'm tremendously proud it has done so.  What it should be doing now is to speak positively to seek to influence its fellow member states in the Commonwealth to realise that what was considered acceptable in 1860 is not in 2013.  We - in part - created this mess.  I'd like to see us attempt to help clear it up, if that is at all possible.