Discrimination against LGBT continues: Student asked to leave BHU girls' hostel for 'homosexual' tendencies

Despite numerous Queer Pride parades and lesbian, gay, intersex and transgender (LGBIT) rights marches, homosexuality remains a cause for discrimination in India. From getting fired because of their sexual orientation to tackling disturbing questions about their marital status, homosexuals in India continue to face harassment and discrimination while battling for equality. [caption id=“attachment_3963073” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] The latest example of this comes from Mahila Maha Vidhyalaya (MMV), affiliated to the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi. According to an The Indian Express report, an undergraduate student was allegedly asked to leave the girls’ hostel of MMV, which is inside the main BHU campus in Uttar Pradesh, last week for showing tendencies of homosexuality and indiscipline. While the college maintains that the student was suspended for harassing other boarders, a professor — a member of the institute’s disciplinary committee — told The Indian Express that the first year BA student was showing tendencies of being homosexual. Another student of the Mahila Maha Vidhyalaya said that the FYBA student was suspended without inquiry or counselling. This is, however, not the first time when homosexual students have faced discrimination in educational institutions. St Joseph’s College in Bengaluru sacked professor Ashley Tellis in March this year citing his involvement in “anti-college activities” and for hurting the “sensitivities of undergraduate students from heterogeneous backgrounds,” The New Indian Express had reported. Tellis, who is an LGBT rights activist, wrote in a Facebook post that the principal of the college penalises a girl and a boy for sharing headphones and accused the college of carrying out a charade to expel him from college. He also alleged that the management of the Catholic institute was against him as they did not approve of his homosexuality.

The issues with homosexuality also became the subject of the much-acclaimed film Aligarh, based on the life of Dr Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras, a professor of Marathi at Aligarh Muslim University. Siras was suspended from his job because of his sexual orientation. In 2010, two men found Siras getting intimate with another man and subsequently AMU suspended him citing “gross misconduct” by the professor. He filed a case with the Allahabad High Court and went on to win it because homosexuality was not a crime back then, according to a Business Insider report. However, he died under mysterious circumstances a day before he was to get an official letter from the college revoking his suspension.