Would India accept and welcome an openly gay Prime Minister’s husband as a First Gentleman?
The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a tiny European country with the second highest per capita GDP in the world. We know it better as the place where rich people hide all their black money. Needless to say India shares excellent diplomatic and economic relations with the little landlocked nation.
Luxembourg’s First Couple
In June 2014, Luxembourg’s legislative body, the Chamber of Deputies extended marriage and adoption rights to gay couples in a landslide 56-4 vote. Their current Prime Minister, 40-year-old (some would say dashing) Xavier Bettel married his partner Gauthier Destenay on Friday at the capital’s City Hall. Incidentally, Luxembourg’s Deputy PM is also openly gay.
Now, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister has visited India only once and that was 16 years ago. But with Modi’s penchant for foreign affairs, who’s to say Mr Bettel could not be our next foreign guest and who’s to say he would not travel with his betrothed?
Protocol Nightmare
What it definitely will do, is raise the hackles in the Ministry of External Affairs. To be gay is still considered taboo by a majority of Indians and to engage in gay sex is still a crime as per the Supreme Court’s final verdict. Neither the UPA nor the NDA made any move to take the legislative route to de-criminalize Section 377.
Speaking to The Quint, Former Indian Ambassador to Italy, Rajiv Dogra, acknowledged it would be a new situation for the MEA to deal with.
As far as a gay partner is concerned, Indian protocol cannot go against the law of the land. It would be a sensitive situation and it is equally incumbent on the head of the visiting state to appreciate the fact that he is doing something which is not in accord with the law of the land that he’s visiting.
– Rajiv Dogra, Former diplomat, TV commentator & writer
The last time protocol officers faced such a conundrum was when French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited India with Carla Bruni. Sarkozy had not yet formally divorced Neuilly-sur-Seine and the MEA did not know if a separate schedule had to be drawn up for Bruni, like it would be for a First Lady, or if she would be treated like a delegate. The matter was mutually settled and Bruni was treated like a delegate.
But things have changed since, says Rajiv Dogra.
In retrospect, perhaps Carla Bruni and Sarkozy were to visit in that same status today, perhaps we may have treated the matter differently. So countries move on, times move on and with changing time, your position also can change on issues of protocol.
– Rajiv Dogra, Former diplomat, TV commentator & writer
The contrast is stark. Homosexuality is illegal in India, whereas, there are nations who elect openly gay people as heads of state. The best way to avoid embarrassment is perhaps to match strides with the rest of the world?
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)