What the recent Orlando shooting teaches us.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m pretty sure you’ve read about the Orlando shooting that took place recently and is being dubbed as the most horrific and deadliest mass shooting in the US. The shooting left a 50 people dead and hundreds injured and millions scarred for life.

So why the unrest? Probably because the shooting took place in a Gay night club. Or because the shooter belonged to a particular religion (read Islamophobia). Or because the IS took responsibility for the attack. Or because Donald Trump had to politicize the incident with one mean tweet. Or because Indians and many others who can be best described as homophobic are suddenly enraged by it. Or because you’re one of those people who’ll complain how the world does not care about what is happening in most areas of conflict throughout the world. I could go on and on…

But the fact of the matter remains that lives were lost and since it was an attack on certain people who are still trying to find acceptance from certain classes of people, the whole thing turns all the more nightmarish.

While Donald Trump uses this incident to propagate his anti-Islam agenda, I read a post by a member of the LGBTQ community who said that even in such difficult times, love is the only answer there is. That they may be enraged but there’s no place for Islamophobia in their world because at the end of the day we’re all the same people- made of same flesh and blood. And that is all the answer that one needs. If a person who’s so deeply and personally connected with the tragedy can see the situation so clearly, why is it that we are not able to do so?

Is it because we’re inherently racist but refuse to acknowledge it? And we use incidents like these as an outlet to justify our racism or our hatred? These are just plain facts that I am laying down over here. And it is amazing that for a society that prides itself on being so advanced, scientifically, we have failed to perhaps find the meaning of humanity.

There are hundreds of people out there trying to change the narrative of what happened but we have to realize that it is doing us more harm than good. Maybe it is time to process this all in a more positive light- for example, we Indians are enraged over what happened, atleast that’s what our social media accounts say, but how many of us feel no qualm in cracking a gay joke? Or terming a friend as ‘gay’ if they do something that is not in consonance with our definition of ‘manliness’. Or how many of us realize that we are guilty of the crime as much as the shooter till the time Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code is not repealed? 

These are some very hard questions with no easy answers but the recent Orlando shooting is the wake up call that the world has needed since long to be more accepting towards everyone not for some huge reason but simply because we’re all human beings and that is all the reason that we need to love and support each other.

To Supreme Court, with Love (An open letter by one of 'them')

Let's face it, most of us hate the Supreme Court for not repealing Section 377 even after more than 60 years of independence. A barbaric and an archaic law that criminalises homosexuality has no place in the 21st century. So now that the Supreme Court is set to hear a curative petition on this matter tomorrow, a friend shares their view-

"Dear Supreme Court, I neither know nor care much about your legal mandate or how your hands might be tied in times of saffron politics but I can only hope you rise above personal misconception and find in your hearts the compassion to let people love because love is oh so powerful. So it's about time we say goodbye to another colonial hangover- IPC 377, a law not made by elected representatives of free India but a law carried forward from our former rulers, who have far too long ago corrected their historical blunder in their own country. So, tomorrow, February 2nd as you hear the Curative Petition, will you do the right thing Supreme Court? I write today not with hope but a bit of anger and a bit of desperation.

Section 377 of the IPC criminalises homosexuality.

We all know deep in our hearts that Section 377 which criminalises homosexuality has no place in today's India because in the land of Gandhi, hate and prejudice has no place. Are we truly free if in independent India colonial laws like IPC 377 govern our collective conscience? If our laws reek of prejudice and hatred do we stand true to principles of fundamental rights, the true spirit of which was to treat each and every human being in the land of free India as equal. Are we truly equal if our laws see us differently? As an apex institution can you not find in your own history the courage to rise above popular misconception and do the right thing? Please don't disregard us by calling us 'unnatural' or 'minuscule'. We're not minuscule. We're everywhere but sadly you don't look inside those closets too often, do you? You don't know how many people live troubled lives and you don't know how many souls you have crushed, how many souls we all have crushed. In the world's largest democracy is the world's largest closet. 

Section 377- left behind by the Britishers is archaic and needs to be repealed.

But would you care? The real question in front of the Supreme Court is really just this- Can we not find in our hearts the compassion to let people love and be happy? Are our hearts so small that we can't see people seek happiness in their most primitive and natural selves. Are our hearts so small that we can't find the courage to let love win and set the course of history right? When history will be written which side of it would you want to be on? The side that let love flourish or the side that crushed and repressed true happiness? A 100 years down the line, would you want to be remembered as an institution that did injustice or as one that corrected the errors of human prejudice? One that realised that a law cannot govern who people love or how they express themselves. So tell me Supreme Court, is it so hard to let people love? Have you not even once in your lives felt the power of love? Love cannot hurt anyone, Supreme Court. Love breeds love, and hatred breeds hatred. So what is it going to be? What different would you be from Khap Panchayats that sentence couples to death because they dared to love? What different would you be from our colonial oppressors who enslaved people in their tyranny? Why enslave people in a law that still haunts millions in this country? 

I don't know about you but I don't want to leave behind a world for my kids where they are judged by who they decide to love.

A 17 year old boy in Agra set himself on fire because he was bullied for being gay and he was so embarrassed that he gave up. How many more young souls do we need to set ablaze for us to realise it's okay to let people love? How many times must we be reduced to jokes and ridicules of others before we realise how badly we've messed up. Our movies, our songs often demonstrate the power of love, so why can't the constitution of free India demonstrate the same? What good is a religion that preaches hatred? What good is any religion that can't let people seek happiness in being themselves, being how God intended them to be? So in the words of a song to which 33 couples got married on the stage of Grammy Awards 2014- 

"A certificate on paper isn't gonna change it all 

But it's a damn good place to start, 

No law is gonna change us 

We have to change us 

Whatever God you believe in 

We come from the same one 

Strip away the fear, 

Underneath it's all the same love""

The article was originally posted to Facebook by Maya Vashi.