First Witness

The Supreme Court’s verdict on Section 377 will go down in history as a spectacular moment of positive change in 2018. But for Anand Grover, the lawyer who has dedicated decades to the cause, the fight for a life of dignity for all isn’t yet won.

- Niha Masih

On September 6, as the Supreme Court’s packed Courtroom 1 broke, a battery of black-robed lawyers, gay rights activists and journalists spilled out. History had just been made, as the court had decriminalised homosexuality – a 157-year-old colonial law had finally been struck down. Amid the euphoria, the gaze of those gathered outside centred on a tall, lean man with a shock of white hair. The 67-year-old senior advocate, Anand Grover, had spent much of his 37 years in law fighting for the rights of the LGBT community in India.

Instrumental but unassuming, much like his eventful legal career, Grover ensured that his juniors were included when the media pressed for photographs.

When I meet him at the end of October, the case hasn’t left him. He’s just returned from a trip to the United States, speaking at universities about the landmark judgment. “People now feel that they don’t need to hide any more, that they can have relations publicly,” he says. “This has been the biggest impact.”

But Grover’s interest in the fight for rights often doesn’t stop at legal intervention. He’s recently helped a lesbian couple in their twenties get a court order protecting them from any action that their families may take. The two girls from rural Rajasthan had approached his office after reading about the judgment in the paper; he organised a safe house for them, and also got one of them a job.