Kelsang In September 2018, the Supreme Court of India declared Section 377 of the Indian Constitution as unconstitutional, as it infringed on the fundamental rights of autonomy, intimacy, and identity of citizens. Do these constitutional rights of children of the LGBTQIA+ community in India thrive in educational spaces too? At Turn the Bus, we wish to continue this dialogue, even after the Pride month.
The stakeholders in the Indian education system are conservative, a reflection of the Indian society at large. When educational spaces like schools are supposed to be places for childrens’ personal and intellectual growth, there is an urgent need to inspect whether these spaces cater to a minority- the LGBTQIA+ community. Unsuspectingly, an in-depth study by UNESCO in Tamil Nadu, India brought out findings of bullying and discrimination faced by students of the LGBTQIA+ community. In its sample of almost 400 sexual and gender minority youth, 84% reported to have been bullied, mostly by peers. A sad shocker was that 20% of the participants reported being harassed by a male teacher. The forms of bullying reported were physical bullying, verbal bullying and social bullying. Various news articles also cover prevalent incidents of how LGBTQIA+ students are made to feel uncomfortable and unaccepted in school spaces, where even authorities like teachers and school principals often turn a blind eye to incidents of bullying at schools. While we hope and work towards a gradual behavioural change in society to stop discrimination against members of the LGBTQIA+ community, there is also equally an immediate need for strict adoption of policies that implement the same. In other developing countries, like the Philippines, there are laws that make it compulsory for school authorities to seriously address school bullying and discrimination, including those based on one’s gender identity and sexual orientation. In India, very recently, the High Court of Madras officially suggested measures that come as rays of hope shone on the issue, by an Indian judiciary body. The suggested measures include: