India At A Crossroads
Reason magazine|January 2019

India is known as the land of contradictions, and recent events do little to undermine that reputation.

- Shikha Dalmia
India At A Crossroads

On the one hand, its Supreme Court is rapidly extending more rights to more groups. On the other, its ruling Hindu nationalist government is busy assaulting the longstanding rights even of incumbent groups. How things play out in this country of 1.35 billion people will have immense consequences for the entire region.

In September, India’s Supreme Court scrapped a colonial-era law that, for two centuries, had held that gay sex was “against the order of nature.” Thousands of people every year had been imprisoned under the law, and many more faced intimidation, harassment, and blackmail at the hands of corrupt law enforcement.

This doesn’t mean that same-sex marriage is now legal in India. But for a place where arranged marriages are still the norm, decriminalizing homosexual acts is nothing short of revolutionary. The court even declared that gays and lesbians deserve the same rights and protections as everyone else and apologized for how the country had treated them.

In a great leap forward for gender equality, the judiciary recently rolled back a cuckoldry law, another gift of the Victorian-era British, giving a husband— but not a wife—the right to prosecute his spouse’s lover and have him imprisoned for up to five years. The Supreme Court ruled that such a law reduced a wife to the status of “chattel,” the property of her husband. This offended “constitutional morality,” it said. It apparently did not offend the Hindu morality of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongly supported the law, even though it was enacted by “foreign invaders” against whom the BJP otherwise constantly froths.

この蚘事は Reason magazine の January 2019 版に掲茉されおいたす。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トラむアルを開始しお、䜕千もの厳遞されたプレミアム ストヌリヌ、9,000 以䞊の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしおください。

この蚘事は Reason magazine の January 2019 版に掲茉されおいたす。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トラむアルを開始しお、䜕千もの厳遞されたプレミアム ストヌリヌ、9,000 以䞊の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしおください。

REASON MAGAZINEのその他の蚘事すべお衚瀺
Libertarianism From the Ground Up
Reason magazine

Libertarianism From the Ground Up

ARGUMENTS FOR LIBERTARIANISM typically take two forms. Some libertarians base their creed on natural rights-the idea that each individual has an inborn right to self-ownership, or freedom from aggression, or whatever-and proceed to argue that only a libertarian political regime is compatible with those rights.

time-read
5 分  |
January 2025
Lawlessness and Liberalism
Reason magazine

Lawlessness and Liberalism

THE UNITED STATES is notorious both for mass incarceration and for militarized police forces.

time-read
5 分  |
January 2025
Politics Without Journalism
Reason magazine

Politics Without Journalism

THE 2024 CAMPAIGN WAS A WATERSHED MOMENT FOR THE WAY WE PROCESS PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

time-read
10+ 分  |
January 2025
EVERY BODY HATES PRICES
Reason magazine

EVERY BODY HATES PRICES

BUT THEY HELP US DECIDE BETWEEN BOURBON AND BACONATORS.

time-read
10+ 分  |
January 2025
The Great American City Upon a Hill Is Always Under Construction
Reason magazine

The Great American City Upon a Hill Is Always Under Construction

AMERICA'S UTOPIAN DREAMS LEAD TO URBAN EXPERIMENTATION.

time-read
10 分  |
January 2025
Amanda Knox Tells Her Own Story
Reason magazine

Amanda Knox Tells Her Own Story

\"OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM RELIES UPON OUR OWN IGNORANCE AND THE FACT THAT WE DON'T KNOW WHAT OUR RIGHTS ARE.\"

time-read
10+ 分  |
January 2025
Trade Policy Amnesia
Reason magazine

Trade Policy Amnesia

WHILE HE WAS interviewing for the job, President Joe Biden demonstrated an acute awareness of how tariffs work. It's worrisome that he seems to have forgotten that or, worse, chosen to ignore it-since he's been president.

time-read
2 分  |
January 2025
Civil Liberties Lost Under COVID
Reason magazine

Civil Liberties Lost Under COVID

WHEN JOE BIDEN was sworn in as president in January 2021, he had good reason to be optimistic about the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic.

time-read
2 分  |
January 2025
Bye, Joe
Reason magazine

Bye, Joe

AMERICA'S 46th president is headed out the door. After a single term marked by ambitious plans but modest follow-through, Joe Biden is wrapping up his time in office and somewhat reluctantly shuffling off into the sunset.

time-read
1 min  |
January 2025
Q&A Mark Calabria
Reason magazine

Q&A Mark Calabria

IF YOU HAVE a mortgage on your home, the odds are that it's backed by one of two congressionally chartered, government-sponsored enterprises (GSES), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

time-read
3 分  |
January 2025