Speaking at the India Today Conclave on Thursday March 17 at a discussion titled ‘Does Hindutva Unite or Divide?’, RSS Joint General Secretary Dattatreya Hosable commented upon homosexuality in a way that contradicted the party’s previously conservative views on the matter. He was asked whether homosexuality should remain criminalised under Section 377, and responded stating, “I don’t think homosexuality should be considered a criminal offence as long as it does not affect the lives of others in society.”
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalises sexual intercourse that isn’t penal-vaginal in nature, and carries a maximum punishment of 10 years in jail for ‘unnatural’ unions. Last month, the Supreme Court referred the curative petition to a constitution bench to review Section 377.
A few months ago, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s private member bill to decriminalise homosexuality was voted out at the introductory stage itself, with BJP MPs at the lead in the voting out process. While the wider political spectrum deems homosexuality as a crime, there are pockets of voices in support of decriminalising. For instance, BJP Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has previously stated publicly that the Supreme Court had taken a “conservative view”.
Contrary to what majority of BJP and RSS have expressed, Hosable said at the Conclave on Thursday, “sexual preferences are private and personal. Why should RSS express its views in a public forum? RSS has no view on that. It is for people to have their way. Personal preference of sex is not discussed in RSS and we don’t even want to discuss that.”
After what seemed to be a progressive statement in support of the LGBTQ community, one day later, on Friday March 18, he added a caveat to clarify his stance by tweeting, “Homosexuality is not a crime, but socially immoral act in our society. No need to punish, but to be treated as a psychological case,” which was followed by another tweet stating, “Gay marriage is institutionalization of homosexuality. It should be prohibited.”