Manvendra Singh Gohilis an Indian prince who is the son and probable heir of the Maharaja of Rajpipla in Gujarat. He is the first openly gay prince in the world. He runs a charity. Manvendra is the Chairperson and Co-founder of Lakshya Trust. He is also the Founder and Chairperson of Ekta Transglobal Foundation registered in USA, aiming at providing a platform for global advocacy on social issues. And an Ambassador Consultant (India) to AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the oldest organization in USA working on HIV/AIDS.
Apart from his social involvement, Manvendra is also passionate about Indian Classical Music (Vocal) and has performed across various platforms in Indian and abroad. Besides music, Manvendra is also a trained yoga teacher.
After these years of overturn of Section 377 criminalizing same-sex relationships, the fight for equality is far from over. India's LGBT community has marked the anniversary with a call to for civil rights for gay couples – though marriage equality is not the immediate priority. The country embarks upon another year of freedom for same-sex couples, discrimination remains and progress has been slow. The anniversary still called for celebrations to commemorate the ground-breaking and unanimous decision of India’s Supreme Court on 6 September last year, which decriminalized homosexuality in the socially and politically conservative society. All this while, this law was used to discriminate and harass us. But we can now be free and step outside without fear. In the past year, we have got to do, now we want to be.
The Delhi high court in the year 2013 had decriminalized non-natural sexual activity between two consenting adults. Section 377 IPC criminalizes all the sexual activities which are against the order of the nature including the homosexual activities. The main idea behind the starting of this petition was to enhance every gender of the society and make them inclusive in nature. India has a commitment to provide democratic right to each and every citizen and the decriminalization to the section 377 IPC leads to the breach of enhancement of the rights of the citizen. There have been constant news in the past years where the police has arrested LGBT people- leading to more harassment, threatening and extortion. The section 377 IPC enabled and encouraged the police to harass the homosexuals and exploit them in a certain way where, it led to the breach of their fundamental rights to live with dignity. But, the implication of unnatural intercourse also involves most cases of child abuse. There were a lot of child victims who were sexually abused and it was noted that a lot of cases were not related to the issue of the same gender sexual activities. We are living in the 21st century where each and every day there have been some progressions done and there is still a law which denies and violates the basic
fundamental and human right of the citizens. I believe that nobody is allowed to earn harassment or non-equal treatment just on the basis of their different sexual preferences. What a man does in his own private room is none of anyone’s concern and the state should not hinder with their right to live with dignity and without discrimination.