NEW DELHI – India’s top military commander has said that gay sex is not acceptable in the ‘conservative’ armed forces of the South Asian country.
Addressing an annual press conference, General Bipin Rawat was of the view that “in the army, LGBT issues… are not unacceptable. We will still be dealing with them under various sections of the Army Act”.
The Indian army chief’s comments came in the wake of the country’s top court ruling that decriminalised homosexuality last year, the NDTV reported Thursday.
“We are not above the country’s law but when you join the Indian Army, some of the rights and privileges you enjoy are not what we have. Some things are different for us, but we are certainly not above the Supreme Court,” he added.
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“We will have to see how we take a call, let us also see how it comes into the society, whether it’s accepted or not… I can’t say what will happen 20 years down the line.”
Last year in September, a five-judge constitution bench of the supreme court unanimously decriminalised a part of a colonial-era law under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which banned “consensual unnatural sex”, saying it violated the rights to equality.
Gen Rawat termed his forces as “very conservative” when he was asked about the supreme court’s ruling that adultery is not a crime. The commander added, “We are neither modernised, nor westernised.”
