India re-instates colonial law to criminalize homosexuality. Blame the British!

[Sheilbh]

The issue though is that there isn't a specific correlation between imperial status and anti-homosexual laws. In the time period in which colonialism was a fact of life, there was a near-universal belief among colonizers and colonized alike that gayness was bad and ought to be legally proscribed.

I think there is. It's not universal but look at any list of countries where homosexuality is still illegal and chances are they're either Muslim or former British colonies.

To me there's two things that really show the imperial element. First of all there are a lot of countries that ban homosexuality that have nothing in common except the British Empire and the penal code Britain took to her colonies - first India and then with adaptations all over the world. That is the only link I can see between Belize, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Kenya and Papua New Guinea (I mean in the 19th century there was a lot of sodomy in Papua New Guinea ). They don't have the same religion, or culture, they're not equally poor. But they all have some form of British colonial law which include sodomy laws. Also many of them have the same penalty because imperial administrators mainly used existing colonial penal codes for different colonies.

Secondly you can look at an area that was colonised by more than one European power and, chances are, the ones that have sodomy laws will be ex-British colonies. So homosexuality is legal in Cote d'Ivoire, Niger and Burkina Faso, but illegal in Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. It's illegal in Belize and Guyana, but legal in the rest of mainland America. Illegal in the Cook Islands and (until recently) Fiji but okay in French Polynesia and New Caledonia.

You're right that at the time sodomy was frowned upon in most societies. The difference is the British Empire imposed on her colonies a penal code with varying degrees of harsh sentences for it, while most other empires didn't.

Since the end of colonization, countries formerly within the Empire have gone different ways on the topic - former imperial bits like Canada, Australia and New Zealand have very liberal and progressive approaches.

Canada and New Zealand I'll give you. Australia's not terribly liberal. They don't have civil unions or adoption by gay couples (but gay single people can adopt ) and they've constitutionally banned gay marriage. Legally I think South Africa may be the most liberal. The ANC started supporting gay marriage in the 90s (though it didn't come in until recently) and their constitution was the first to explicitly prohibit all discrimination on the grounds of gender, sex or sexual orientation. It may still be the only one, I don't know

In short, there is nothing to indicate that being part of the British Empire, or not, made much of a difference in the matter.

But I think it is a key indicator. The majority of OIC states ban homosexuality, and it affects the majority of people too. The only other organisation I can think of like that is the Commonwealth where 41 of the 53 countries ban homosexuality and again it affects the majority of people in the Commonwealth. As I said there's only around 80 countries that do ban homosexuality and the majority of them are former British Empire.

It is not claiming that, it is claiming the British Empire in particular is.  Which, again, I found unconvincing due to how that Empire functioned.  It tended to be hands off and rule through local elites and I found it unlikely they would have dictated such personal laws.  I hypothesized that these laws strike me as ones mostly applying to the British themselves when operating in those countries.  Am I wrong here?

I think you're wrong. I could be wrong myself here, but I think there was a shift in the mid-19th century from a sort of laissez-faire, mercantile, plundering imperialism to High Victorian, reform the world imperialism.

The Indian Penal Code - which is still the basis of laws against gays in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Burma and Singapore - was imposed in 1860, in part I think because of the Indian Mutiny. To an extent Neil's right. It's clearly a pretty decent code of laws given that it's still in use. It was also a model for other penal codes in different colonies. So there are oddities, Nigeria got a penal code adapted from the Indian one. Jamaica had one written by a liberal jurist so the punishments for 'buggery' (not sodomy) are far lower, but then Jamaica got one based on the Nigerian one and Ghana got the one written for Jamaica. These penal codes were in the briefcase of every colonial administrator sent to run a district - and as a Victorian writer noted, with praise, they didn't have to pass any Parliament or ask any local opinion so they could be imposed on purely moral and rational grounds.

But you're right, from my understanding, they didn't apply in the princely states - but did then become the basis for most post-colonial legal systems.

I think there was a concerted effort to try and make the world a little more English. These penal codes all of which include specific sections on sodomy were part of that. It was an attempt to make model, moral Victorians. Partly I think because there was a sort-of sexual panic about Empire. There was a fear of Indian mistresses and wives at this period. I think similarly the perceived native incontinence was seen as a problem to be fixed. In doing so you'd be making them more moral and more civilised.

The codes definitely were aimed at the local population rather than just the British. I read that the expansion of the IPC's definition of unnatural acts to include oral sex was in the prosecution of two Indian men who were caught but it couldn't be proved that there'd been anal penetration.

As an aside, I can't work it in so I'll just shove it here, I always loved Edward Coke's suggestion that the English were introduced to sodomy by Italian traders in the City of London as indicated by the word being of Italian origin

There are a number of things with which one can correlate anti-gay statutes, but being a former British colony isn't one of them.

I'd say it and being an Islamic state are probably the two strongest indicators.

Edit: One other thing is how it's interesting that basically the roles have reversed. These laws were put in place to impose English morals on colonies, but now the argument is that they're important to preserve Indian/African/Singaporean identity against the tide of Western liberalism.

[Admiral Yi]

The Atlantic?!? 

[Eddie Teach]

Worst magazine I never read.

[Queequeg]

I'd say it and being an Islamic state are probably the two strongest indicators.

Haven't seen Before Night Falls, have you?

I think it's fair to say that there were roughly three types/periods of legalized sexual orientation discrimination we are dealing with;
Ecclesiastical-Frequently based on Abrahamic sexual hangups, but TBH generally speaking I think the image of non-Western societies as non-homophobic is radically overblown.  Just because the various courts practiced pederasty does not mean  toleration for equal, exclusive relationships between adult men.  There are actually relatively few of these even in radically non-western sexual cultures like that of Ancient Greece.  I think maybe Aristophanes is in this category, but not sure, don't know enough.
Modernist-Homosexuality as psychological problem, dealt with harshly by various Socialist and Fascist regimes, as well as Victorian Empires.  Adopted in Decolonization process.
Postmodern-Something new we're seeing in Russia and perhaps India, homophobia as a rejection of spiritually corrupt West.  Kind of a vague Slavophile vibe in Russia, but probably some combination of anti-European sentiment and post-colonial nuttery in India.

[Admiral Yi]

Worst magazine I never read.

Dip your toe.  You won't  regret it.

[Ed Anger]

I read Highlights.

[Savonarola]

I read Highlights.

[crazy canuck]

Worst magazine I never read.

Did you ever read the articles in Playboy?

[Eddie Teach]

Articles?

[Syt]

Articles?

the, a ...

[crazy canuck]

 

[Malthus]

I think there is. It's not universal but look at any list of countries where homosexuality is still illegal and chances are they're either Muslim or former British colonies.

To me there's two things that really show the imperial element. First of all there are a lot of countries that ban homosexuality that have nothing in common except the British Empire and the penal code Britain took to her colonies - first India and then with adaptations all over the world. That is the only link I can see between Belize, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Kenya and Papua New Guinea (I mean in the 19th century there was a lot of sodomy in Papua New Guinea ). They don't have the same religion, or culture, they're not equally poor. But they all have some form of British colonial law which include sodomy laws. Also many of them have the same penalty because imperial administrators mainly used existing colonial penal codes for different colonies.

Secondly you can look at an area that was colonised by more than one European power and, chances are, the ones that have sodomy laws will be ex-British colonies. So homosexuality is legal in Cote d'Ivoire, Niger and Burkina Faso, but illegal in Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. It's illegal in Belize and Guyana, but legal in the rest of mainland America. Illegal in the Cook Islands and (until recently) Fiji but okay in French Polynesia and New Caledonia.

You're right that at the time sodomy was frowned upon in most societies. The difference is the British Empire imposed on her colonies a penal code with varying degrees of harsh sentences for it, while most other empires didn't.

Your own article notes that many French, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and Belgian ex-colonies have high penalties for gay sex too. However, it lets the colonizers off the hook in those cases because the laws were introduced after de-colonization:

However, in these cases colonialism isn't the culprit. Nearly all of the non-British former European colonies with stiff penalties for homosexual relations instituted them after independence.

An astute reader will notice that something the British ex-colonies and other European ex-colonies that punish homosex have in common, is a culture that frowns on homosex - either because of tradition pre-dating colonialism, or as an anti-Western thing - which even applies to places that were never colonized, like Russia.

In short, the fact that some of these countries were former British colonies isn't a very strong predictive factor. Sure, the Brits had a penal code that made gay sex illegal. The interesting thing is why some contries have deliberately chosen, many years later, to retain it (or introduce it, in places which did not have it - like other former Euro-colonies).

What's the theory here - that the former Brit colonies just forgot the laws were on the books since decolonization? That's not what has happened. See India.

[garbon]

Homosex?

[Malthus]

If only those Indian judges had more exposure to Garbon. 

[crazy canuck]

If only those Indian judges had more exposure to Garbon. 

Are you advocating torture before execution?