Congress forms cell for LGBTQ+ community
The All India Professional Congress (AIPC), which is the frontal wing of the Grand Old Party for working professionals and entrepreneurs, has set up a committee for the LGBTQ+ communities
Mumbai The All India Professional Congress (AIPC), which is the frontal wing of the Grand Old Party for working professionals and entrepreneurs, has set up a committee for the LGBTQ+ communities.
“The idea is to promote values of equality and inclusiveness for an insignificant minority. Many from the LGBTQ community do not even have voter identity cards. Hence, this (the initiative) is not important from a political point of view, but from the perspective of equality,” said Mathew Anthony, president, AIPC, Maharashtra.
He added that they would work on providing employment to members of these social groups by skill enhancement and promoting their acceptability in the private sector.
The AIPC has Shashi Tharoor, author, former international civil servant and Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram, as the chairman.
“We feel strongly about many political issues, but we feel unrepresented by any political party. There is always a lip-service to our causes. We want to change this… We are the party of progressive values and I think if any social change on the LGBTQ issue has to evolve naturally, it will have to evolve with the Congress,” said Mario da Penha, the state coordinator of the LGBTQIA affairs committee.
He added that the LGBTQ+ community felt that they were not part of the political system, and the AIPC would work to change this. Penha pointed to how the AIPC members had hoisted the rainbow flag at the Congress Bhavan in Pune last year to celebrate the third anniversary of the Supreme Court (SC) decriminalising same-sex relations between consenting adults.
“We will speak to ministers of departments like education and social justice in Maharashtra and see what they can do to help the community… we want to create awareness about mental health as some parents, who cannot deal with the sexual preferences of their children, take them to some psychiatrists who administer shock therapy in an attempt to ‘cure’ them. We plan to involve the state government in ensuring that this does not happen,” said Penha, adding that the AIPC also planned to develop skilling initiatives and employment avenues for sections like transgenders.
The AIPC has also organised webinars by Akkai Padmashali, transgender activist and Congress member from Karnataka, and with parents of queer people, where they spoke about their experience in accepting the sexual preference of their child. Aid was also provided to members of the transgender community, for whom the lockdown was particularly harsh, as they have limited sources of income like begging and sex work, which requires social interaction.
In 2020, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which is an ally of the Congress in the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in the state, had also set up an LGBTQ+ cell. Congress also formed a cell for transgenders in Kerala that year. However, mainstream political parties have done little to promote sensitisation and acceptance of these social sections by the larger society.