ABSTRACT
On 6 April 2010, the day before he died, Prof. Shrinivas Ramachandra Siras, a professor and poet aged 64, who had suffered intense persecution and public humiliation for having sexual relations with a man, told a journalist on the phone that he wanted to move to America because it was the only place where he would be ‘free to be gay’ (Edmund, Indian Express, 9 April 2010). Politically incorrect and naïve though this statement is, it expresses the frustration of many Indians who suffer injustice arising from homophobia. In 2009, the Delhi High Court had declared the antisodomy law (Section 377 of Indian Penal Code, instituted by the British in India in 1861) unconstitutional. Despite this, in February 2010, cameramen authorised by Syed Adil Murtaza of the television channel TV100 burst into Prof. Siras’s home and filmed him having sex with a young man named Irfan. On 9 February 2010, Aligarh Muslim University in North India, where Dr Siras had taught for 22 years, suspended him on grounds of gross misconduct. He was forced to vacate his university residence and was shunned by many former friends. LGBT organisations came to his aid, and following a public outcry, the Allahabad High Court, on 6 April, placed a stay on his suspension.
