Event to be held in Connaught Place on November 28

'Gay parade about celebration, awareness'

Event to be held in Connaught Place on November 28

If you are planning to visit Connaught Place this Sunday, you might be in for a surprise. There's expected to be a riot of colours and celebration at the third edition of the Delhi gay parade to be held in the area. But the event will also see participants speaking out against discrimination faced by homosexuals every day.
Around 2,000 people are expected to participate, the organisers claim.

"Just like the previous years, this year too the funds for the march were raised by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community. On the day of the march, we will distribute masks, rainbow coloured scarves, whistles, candies, amongst other things," Mohnish Malhotra, one of the organisers, said.
However, he said the march was not just about celebration.

"We will also protest against discrimination faced by the LGBT community. The community is often subjugated to violence by police and thugs, they are blackmailed and forced into marriage by families, which lead to suicides," he said.

"But even as we demand that the government extend anti-discrimination laws, we will nevertheless celebrate the Delhi High Court's judgment earlier this year which decriminalised consensual homosexual relationships," he said.

Participants of the Delhi gay parade, popularly referred to as queer pride, will march from Barakhamba Road to Jantar Mantar off the posh commercial district of Connaught Place.

In 2008, the parade was organised for the first time in the national capital. The previous two editions of the march were organised in the months of June. On July 2, there was a march by the gay community in the capital to mark a year of decriminalisation of homosexuality in India.

Two-way street

On 29 June 2008, four Indian cities (Delhi, Bangalore, Pondicherry and Kolkata) saw coordinated pride events. A rainbow parade was held at Chennai the next day. About 2,200 people turned up overall.u00a0 On August 16, 2008 (a day after the Independence Day), the gay community in Bombay held its first ever formal pride parade (although informal pride parades had been held earlier), to demand that India's anti-gay laws be amended. Delhi High Court ruled on 2 July 2009, that homosexual intercourse between consenting adults was not a criminal act.

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