The Fading Rainbow - Can India Inc. Revive It?

A handful of companies from Godrej to Infosys have progressive policies to protect gay employees. But is the corporate world doing enough to change attitudes? The evidence is damning. One thing is clear though: Diversity improves profits.

- Soumya Gupta

AFTER THREE ROUNDS OF WHISKEYS AT THE PRESS CLUB in Delhi, the conversation has graduated from work gossip to matters of graver import. We pass around a plate of tandoori chicken as cheap food and drinks stir up frenzied chatter in the packed open-air restaurant. Amid the cacophony, our group of business journalists is holding forth on caste (turn to page 92 for our story) and arranged marriage.

Lighting up a Gold Flake Kings, an ex-colleague in his mid-forties declares that his son is free to marry anyone he wants whenever he is ready. The boy, who is studying for his Class XII board exams, wants to be an architect (which in the hierarchy of professions is a few rungs below engineer, his father's preference). Engineer or not, he won't hold his son hostage to the parochial family tradition of marrying within his own Kurmi caste. So far so good, everyone at the table salutes his progressive worldview with a clink of glasses. Then, out of the blue, the narrative takes an unexpected twist.

"There is just one thing I won't tolerate," he says, puckering out a ball of smoke. "I won't allow him to be gay." His expression betrays disgust, as if the image of his son bringing home a grizzly boyfriend has triggered a gag reflex. "This thing ... gays ... it is unnatural," he spits. Homosexuality, he tells us, is a revolting perversion that can be "cured" or at the very least “avoided by heterosexual marriage".

When those colleagues with whom we drink and socialise harbour such vehement prejudice against homosexuality, it is easy to understand why so few members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community are willing to come out—perhaps the first and most crucial step towards wider acceptance and inclusion.