DEFIANT TURN OUT FOR MUMBAI PRIDE

Despite India recently outlawing homosexuality, a record number of participants turned out for the seventh annual Mumbai Pride march on Saturday.

The event was especially significant in that it was the first Pride to take place in the country since its Supreme Court recently recriminalised homosexuality.

The thousands of revellers and activists proclaimed their outrage at being once again marginalised; waving rainbow flags and holding placards that read “Our fight is for human rights” and “Rule of law = Rule of love.”

“Ideally, the march is about taking pride in what you are. But this year’s upsurge in numbers is a reflection of the community’s anger and hurt over being recriminalised,” LGBT rights actisvist Ashok Row Kavi told Dnaindia.com.

“If courts think they can brush us off and treat us like sub-humans they need to see how they have ended up giving the movement a shot in the arm instead. This movement will grow and succeed.”

The parade was the conclusion of a two-week-long LGBT festival in Mumbai, the country’s financial capital.

In December, last year the Indian Supreme Court reversed a 2009 lower court ruling that decriminalised gay sex.

The Supreme Court said that the law should only be repealed by parliament and outrageously stated that the LGBT community was too small to be afforded constitutional protection. The court has since been petitioned to reconsider its ruling.

Watch a video of Saturday’s Mumbai Pride by Shibu Thomas below.