Delhi awash in rainbow colours as Queer Pride Parade celebrates identity, freedom

The one kilometre-long stretch on Tolstoy Marg leading up to Parliament Street was decked in rainbow colours as people marched in the Delhi queer pride parade on Sunday — for the first time after Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which criminalised homosexuality, was scrapped on September 6.

Around 3pm, people dressed in colourful costumes, holding balloons, flags and placards, assembled near the Ranjit Singh Flyover — at the intersection of Barakhamba Road and Tolstoy Marg — before marching towards Jantar Mantar as part of the 11th annual Delhi queer pride parade. Enroute, they sang, danced and chanted slogans.

“For us it is a formal celebration of winning the battle over Section 377 two months ago,” Shiv Sahu, a volunteer at Alliance Francaise, a French language and cultural institute, said.

“We don’t chant the slogan ‘kaunsa qanoon sabse battar, teen sau sattatar teen sau sattatar (Which law is the worst??Three seventy seven)’ anymore,” he added.

From over a hundred participants wearing masks to hide their identities in its first year in 2008 to more than 5,000 people from all walks of life identifying with their sexual orientations and genders as they marched in central Delhi in 2018, the pride parade has come a long way. Participation kept multiplying before the parade culminated at Parliament Street around 7pm.

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Organised on the last Sunday of every November, the Delhi queer pride is a community–driven endeavour planned by volunteers. Leading up to the march, events include a fundraiser party as well as a picnic. Unlike in the west, the pride parade in Delhi doesn’t allow organisations or other support groups to use their branding while participating in the march.

At each traffic light on the route towards the final destination, the police and traffic personal had to put in extra effort to streamline traffic without affecting the passage of the march on the sunny Sunday afternoon. A group of people danced their way under the nearly 15-metre-long pride rainbow flag, accompanied by dholakwalas. Participants in bright, colourful sarees and feathered head accessories posed with onlookers for selfies and videos, as they marched for more than four hours.

“Homosexuality is not a choice, but homophobia is,” read one of the placards.

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“I can hold my partner’s hand without feeling weird about it,” Rythma (first name only), a participant in the parade, said, as she marched, chanting “Azadi (freedom)” and “Hum honge kamyaab (we shall overcome)” slogans.