India may become the largest country to legalize same-sex marriage. Here's how that could happen
CBC
Supriyo Chakraborty and Abhay Dang first connected on a dating website in December 2012, and they've been together ever since.
Over the next five months, the two men met each other's families and were accepted by them, and they moved in together. In 2021, they had a commitment ceremony to mark their ninth anniversary, with more than 100 friends and family — and their dog — attending to celebrate their love.
"We always wanted to get married because, in India, marriage is the main step that you take, you know, to make your relationship official," Dang told CBC News in an interview at the couple's home in Hyderabad.
Chakraborty described the affair as a "bouquet of different traditions" that combined a "beautiful fusion" of their heritages — Chakraborty is Bengali and Dang is Punjabi — with an exchange of vows and rings.
But no matter how much pride they take in their union, it was only a ceremony in the eyes of the law. It granted them none of the rights and privileges afforded to married couples of the opposite sex in India, such as making health-care decisions for one another or getting health insurance together.
The couple is fighting to change that. On Monday, the Supreme Court of India will begin hearing a collection of cases challenging the country's prohibition on same-sex marriage.
If the court rules in favour of legalizing same-sex marriage, it will be a landmark moment for LGBTQ people in India and the entire world.
The majority of the 32 countries and territories that have already enacted marriage equality laws are in the Americas and Europe — and, when it comes to religion, are predominantly Christian — so a positive outcome in India could influence laws elsewhere in the region.
Chakraborty and Dang were one of two couples who initially petitioned the Supreme Court to change the law — the other is Parth Phiroze Mehrotra and Uday Raj Anand, a gay couple in New Delhi — but the number of petitioners has since grown, and the Supreme Court has also transferred several cases from other high courts, including those in Delhi and Kerala.
Their petition argues that India's Special Marriage Act, 1954 should allow same-sex couples to have the same legal right to marriage as opposite sex couples and that denying them that right violates several articles of India's constitution.
The Special Marriage Act solemnizes marriage outside of the religion or faith of either spouse, as opposed to unions registered under laws related to religious unions, such as the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
There is also the Foreign Marriage Act, which pertains to marriages overseas in which at least one spouse is Indian. (There are also petitions before the court to change each of those acts to permit same-sex marriage.)
The way the Special Marriage Act is written assumes the parties entering into a marriage are biological male and female and identify as such. It also refers to the "husband" and the "wife."
"[It] should be read as 'spouses' so that it encompasses people irrespective of their sex or gender identity," said Jayna Kothari, a senior advocate who practises in the Supreme Court and is the co-founder of India's Centre for Law & Policy Research. She is also representing three petitioners in one of the cases before the Supreme Court.
