Love is free. Love is not bound by the laws of nature, person, species, gender. Love can happen
between any two individuals. It doesn't even have to be a person whom one chooses to love. Seers and saints have expressed love for Gods. Poets have expressed love for liquor. There are people who love trees, animals, motherland etc. Similarly, love can happen between two persons whether they are of the same gender or different genders.
Love manifests itself in different ways. Expressions of
love are as varied as the people expressing it and the people it is being expressed for. For some, it could just be a
touch, while for others it could be a smile. Unfortunately, the law in India tries to
define what forms of expression of love are legal, nay natural, and which are
not. The legal notion of expressions of love are based on a number of
assumptions about the gender, the general health, the physical condition, and personal
preferences of the members involved. Do these assumptions apply to all the people under
all circumstances? What happens to those who do not fulfill the assumptions made
in the law? Are they to deprive themselves of any kind of love? How does a
couple where one person is paralytic from waist down express love for each
other? Does that expression fall in line with the legal notions of love? Perhaps
it is time we re-look the laws and give everyone the freedom to express love in
whatever way they wanted. This is the least a country that promises freedom to
its citizens must do.
There is however a caveat and I would like to point it
out without being judgmental. While an individual may have the
freedom to do or say something, it does not automatically mean that there is a
social sanction for it. Social sanctions evolve over a long period of time and
undergo changes in an organic fashion. Therefore, while the law allows for a certain
word or action, there has to be space for the society to make its choices too.
For example, while a law may permit members of the same gender to marry each
other, it must make allowances for social organizations and institutions to
choose to accept or reject them, or be indifferent to them in the existing
social setups. So if a social organization refuses to conduct marriage of same-sex couples, or refuses to offer children for
adoption to same-sex couples, they must be allowed to do so, or if they welcome them,
they must be allowed to do that too.
Any attempts by law to force a concept
down the throats of social organizations can effectively destroy any
constructive path for the society to evolve organically. Essentially, the
concept of freedom must not only apply at the level of individuals, but also at
the level of the society.
That’s as far as the law must go. Neither short of it
nor further.
