Members of the sexual minorities were not blackballed, however, sometimes recognized for having godly faculty. The Kama Sutra proclaims that ‘pink’ experience is like one of the arts that is to be passionately enjoyed by the curious bones.

Then where did it all go wrong in Bharatvarsh?

And wrong to the extent that a restorative solicitation was filed, and a constitutional bench was put to work?

Bharatvarsh, the abode of the oldest religion, never in its libraries shunned a sexual minority. Hindu belief hearts the ceaseless cycle of birth and revitalization that at the end frees the spirit from the body and ego, called moksha. The process includes emancipation from sensual experiences and fornication.

“The Vedas” vaguely defined the “third sex” as procreative either due to barrenness or lack of want for the contrary sex. Vedic culture empowered transgender people of the third sex, also called hijras, to live openly according to their gender integrity. According to scholars’ 2000 essay collection on same-sex love in India, Hindus welcomed a range of gender and sexuality as far back as around 4000 B.C.

Hanuman, in the Ramayana saw the Rakshasa women kissing and caressing other women. Another instance from the Ramayana is the tale of King Dilip who had two wives and died without leaving an heir to the throne. Lord Shiva emerged in the dreams of the widowed women and deduced them to make love to have a child.

The Mahabharata had the most enthralling story about the transgender warrior Shikhandini who defeated Bhishma.

As the wheel of birth and rebirth rotated, the soul kept on casting off the old flesh and replaced it with a new one. The yugas changed and swapped again. The pious and sterling times were over, and the world started taking shape. India and Indians endured and put up with foreign attacks, migrations, and invasions which were followed by their settlement and establishment on our land. One of which was of the Aryans. Large-scale battles were fought between the indigenous and migrants as well as among the migrants and the wheel kept on rotating. New empires came into force and were overthrown every few years.

Among the few powerful kingdoms that ruled India then, was the Mauryan Empire. But things gradually went downhill. The Mauryan Empire was a vast and ever-growing Empire, and this is exactly when the tables started to turn... but woefully for the bad. Chandragupta Maurya started the Mauryan Empire. His Prime Minister, Kautilya who was famous as Chanakya, wrote The Arthashastra, an ancient discourse on political science, affairs of the state and military strategy. It also has signific mentions of homosexuality, but it states that the king must discipline those indulged in the same and summons the ruler to fight against the “social evil.” The delinquent turn has been taken and the path ahead is labyrinthine.

Traveling to the 1500s... the situations became grim; the punishments became harsh. Though the precedent times never enamored homosexuals or the third gender, the Mughal Empire in India steered the hate to new heights.

The “Fatawa-e-Alamgiri.”

A law system during the Mughal Rule that governed letter for letter, EVERYTHING. From forceful girl-child marriage to polygamy, from possessing sex slaves to invigorating Jihad, from female slaughter to female rape, it normalized and aggrandized everything, and hence the poor sexual minorities could never escape its clutch. It prescribed appalling punishments that ranged from 50 whiplashes for a slave, 100 for an infidel, and death by stoning for a Muslim.

Indeed, the Mughal Laws were harrowing and indeed they never made it to our constitution but what about the indelible impact? What about the hideous vantage point they developed which homogenized the routine harassment of sexual minorities and effaced harmony, rational thinking, and most significantly the knowledge of our roots. Nevertheless, the same laws still mirror in today’s Muslim bill of rights, but now it is like a lavish paint on hollow ply.

During the epoch of European Empire Building and Colonialism, they became cognizant of same-sex love acceptance in the Pacific Islander and American culture. They were dumbstruck by the idea and declined any deviation from their limited preconceived notions about gender and sexuality, which dampers it to masculinity and femininity. They prohibited any form of cross-dressing. Biblical explanations declared it illegal for females to wear pants or for males to adopt female dressing patterns. Defying the legal code, cross-dressing proliferated in America and certain European nations to rise from the prevailing sexism.

Hereupon comes one of the most cardinal eras of colonialism in India. The British Empire in India. The British consociationalism left an anti ‘sexual minority' legacy in many parts of the world. Currently, there are over 50 countries in the world that have pronounced it illegal to be gay, more than half of which were under some form of British canon at some point in the saga. In outline, the sole purpose for the erroneous behavior of the Britishers was fear. They wanted to protect their soldiers from the absurdly erotic Asians and Middle East people. They believed that regulations were essential to prevent their soldiers from getting wide off the mark. Ascribed to their fear, there were several codes followed by the Britishers, the prominent one in India was the Indian Penal Code which came into force in 1852. It had Section 377, which stated that "whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal would be punished.”

We carried on this legacy for over 150 years until May 2008 when the case was heard in the Delhi High Court. On 12 June 2009, the Delhi court decriminalized consensual homosexual sex. But soon this was called into question by various religious heads, hence in 2013 the Supreme Court silhouetted that this issue must be left in the hands of the parliament. After years of struggle, drudgery, and turmoil, when all was said and done, Section 377 of the IPC was completely erased in September 2018.

With this triumph, India did achieve a lot, but is that enough? Is that enough to blossom a soft corner in our hearts for someone we have eschewed so deliberately for ages? The constitution has declared it but to get the ball rolling we need to be compelled to publicly champion LGBTQ+ causes. India needs acceptance. Indian hearts need righteousness. We need to be acquainted with the knowledge of the journey from Bharatvarsh to India. The first step towards welcoming the truth is to know the truth. We need to be friends with our roots that gave us being. We need to comprehend that legalizing gay sex in India was NOT a Western idea, it is going back to our roots. We as Indians need to feel honored for our birth on this sanctified land and invariably vindicate its kosher doctrine.

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