Interview: Queer movement has rethinking to do amid fractures of caste, religion but must draw lines

In July, the Supreme Court began hearing pleas seeking a review of the Court’s verdict refusing to legalise queer marriage. In its ruling in October 2023, the Supreme Court held that there was no fundamental right to marry.

For Supreme Court advocate Rohin Bhatt, whose pronouns are he/they, marriage equality for the queer community remains crucial to the broader social movement for equality as well as the legal battle for greater rights.

“Social movements cannot solely focus on legal routes to achieve equality,” said Bhatt, but in the case of marriage equality in India, this is a diversion, he added. Bhatt said that this is because petitioners in the case had provided the Court with evidence that though the matter came up before Parliament, “the legislature had chosen not to act on it”.

“Given that there is a void, and that the legislature has not acted on it, the Supreme Court was bound, constitutionally and legally, by precedent it has itself laid down, to act on the egregious violation of fundamental rights,” said Bhatt in an interview.

That said, Bhatt pointed out that the queer rights movement in India has some “rethinking and recalibration” to do amid fractures over questions of caste, religion and urban/rural divides. “The time has...

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