Gay lawyer Krishna Omkar on India same-sex marriage ruling: ‘We’ll win next time’

Lawyer Krishna Omkar has spoken about his role in decriminalising same-sex relationships in India, giving a speech as leader of the financial & legal category of Attitude 101, empowered by Bentley.

Speaking during a ceremony to mark the event at the Rosewood London hotel, the UK-Indian lawyer also spoke about the roles of priveledge and predujice in society.

On the 2023 attempt to decriminalise same-sex marriage, Omkar said: “It was really the activists who, way before I was even born, were on the ground trying to make that change happen. The case of marriage equality, we lost this time round. We’ll win next time.”

He also expanded on his journey of first arriving in the UK, beginning as a student at the University of Oxford to getting a job in the City of London.

“From being asked whether I was actually gay or just foreign, to taking a career in the City and being mistaken for the other Indian guy in the office, my presence has always been a provocation.

“But of course it’s also come with privilege because I’ve had access to incredible rooms and of course I’m an immigrant, I’m a gay man, but also I’m a man. And so certain doors open to me that don’t open to my colleagues who don’t happen to have that kind of privilege.”

Omkar helped decriminalise same-sex relationships in India

Omkar is renowned for his pro bono involvement in the 2018 Indian Supreme Court case to decriminalise same-sex relations. In a separate interview with Attitude, he elaborated: “My work in this case involved collaborating with lead counsel and producing a brief referred to in the Supreme Court’s judgement.”

He added: “One of the most powerful aspects of it was being able to articulate and situate queer identities within the context of Indian culture and talk about the fact that what we were trying to remove was a colonial-era law that was not actually inherently or culturally Indian.”

Read Krishna Omkar’s speech in full below:

“’I wanted you to see what real courage is. Instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand, it’s when you know you’re licked before you begin. But you begin anyway. And you see it through no matter what.’” Now, Atticus Finch says these words to his son, Jem, in Harper Lee’s 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. And whilst it is an imperfect narrative and potentially a problematic one, it certainly has a lot of lessons for us to take away.

The novel is set in 1936 Alabama, and it deals with the issues of racialised violence, prejudice and deep-seated discrimination. Atticus wants his children to understand the value of real courage. Courage does not mean a hyper masculine or violent expression of strength. It doesn’t mean wielding power as a weapon like a gun in your hand. It means finding the power within you, the power to do the right thing. That is real courage. That is real strength.

And it’s a great privilege to be part of this celebration. Today, during LGBTQ+ history month here in the UK and also Black history month, across the other side of the Atlantic. And I look around me and I have been because I’ve been sitting right there, so I’ve been looking around me quite a lot all afternoon. I see a sea of faces. I see people who are different, who are diverse, who are proud of who they are. I see power. Power to make a difference, to help shape a better and more equitable world. And I see courage. Courage to do the right thing.

Now, by now, we’re used to hearing talk about diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI, and how it’s good for business. And the business case for DEI. We’ve also heard from certain billionaires who I won’t name with immense power that DEI must die. And this sort of debate is far too tired and old and it’s far too binary. And I think in this room we can safely say that we are none of the above, not tired and certainly not binary. So do we really need a business case for equity other than it’s the right thing to do? Because profit and a focus on profit divides us, but a focus on purpose unites us and brings us together.

Now, for nearly a decade and a half, I’ve had the privilege of being in rooms where I could change the narrative, sometimes by just being in the room, sometimes by doing something, and sometimes by speaking up. From moving to the UK in 2005 and thinking I would finally meet other queer people at uni to discover that I was the only non-white person in the room at LGBTQ freshers weeks drinks. Except that at that time it was LGB. There was no T or Q in the name. From wanting to have a career in the theater and film and being told in, around 2007, 2008, when Slumdog Millionaire came out and being told that the only roles that really I could play were taxi driver or terrorist or IT guy, and all the roles that I could play were already taken by Dev Patel anyways, so why try?

From being asked whether I was actually gay or just foreign, to taking a career in the city and being mistaken for the other Indian guy in the office, my presence has always been a provocation. But of course it’s also come with privilege because I’ve had access to incredible rooms and of course I’m an immigrant, I’m a gay man, but also I’m a man. And so certain doors open to me that don’t open to my colleagues who don’t happen to have that kind of privilege.

But what I’ve also seen is change. And change has come slowly but surely from setting up the first LGBTQ and racial diversity networks at my firm. Certain people in the room here who I know we’ve had conversations about that to helping in the course of decriminalization and more recently, marriage equality in India, one of which we won after trying the first time losing and then trying again. And I should say it was, you know, the lawyers do a great job and I’m a lawyer, so I’ll say that. But it was really the activists who, way before I was even born, were on the ground trying to make that change happen. The case of marriage equality, we lost this time round. We’ll win next time. And to bringing business and civil society leaders together for the U.N.. Cliff [Joannou – Attitude’s editor-in-chief] was there when we did that in Berlin a couple of years ago or at Davos.

What I have really learned is not the power of binary opposition, but of building coalitions, of reaching across, of finding common ground because things only get better if we stand together. Now, Martin Luther King Jr. speaking in 1967 to the American Psychological Association, which a couple of years later reclassified homosexuality, as not being a mental condition, said, “On some positions cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question ‘Is it popular?’ But conscience must ask the question, ‘Is it right?’” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it’s right.

Now, today, we’re not being asked to fight dragons. You know, I mean, maybe if you work in the city or, you know, if you are in a particular part of the tech industry or a particular part of entertainment, you might have dragons, but for the most part, we don’t have dragons. But we are being asked to do the right thing. And that means being upstanders, not bystanders, and speaking out, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when we don’t have all the answers, even when we might get it wrong. And we might, because I certainly have, and I certainly will again. But we must never give up, because what we’re doing is right. We’re on the right side of history, and we’re not alone.

So, in closing, let me leave you with the words of the great Audre Lorde, who said, ‘Your silence will not protect you.’ So speak up, stand up, and be the change you want to see in the world. Thank you.”

The post Gay lawyer Krishna Omkar on India same-sex marriage ruling: ‘We’ll win next time’ appeared first on Attitude.