More than 7,000 people participated in
Mumbai's annual Pride March.
Organized by the Queer Azaadi Mumbai
collective, marchers stepped off at Tardeo's August Kranti Maidan, a
park in central Mumbai, and wound their way through the streets of
Mumbai, the
Times
of India
reported.
The marchers were united in their
opposition to a law that bans gay sex in India, a holdover from
British colonial rule, known as Section 377 of India's penal code.
In 2013, India's highest court
overturned a lower court's 2009 finding that intercourse between two
consenting same-sex adults is legal, effectively reinstating the ban.
India's Supreme Court said that only lawmakers could change Section
377.
Earlier this month, the high court
agreed to reexamine its decision.
Ashok Row Kavi, an activist and
founder-chairman of the Humsafar Trust, told the paper that
Saturday's march had grown in its diversity: “We have had a growing
number of heterosexual people participating in the Pride to show
their support and that's been a great thing. And there are people
from all walks of life taking part – from students to commercial
sex workers from Kamathipura.”