India could soon get its first openly queer MP

When Menaka Guruswamy walks into Parliament gathering for the Rajya Sabha predetermination successful mid-March, she volition perchance beryllium the archetypal openly queer idiosyncratic connected the ballot. From the Sept 2018 Supreme Court verdict decriminalising Article 377 to a imaginable spot successful the Upper House has been a agelong journey.

The Trinamool Congress has nominated her arsenic its Rajya Sabha candidate.Perhaps cognizant of the enormity of the moment, Guruswamy connected Saturday posted connected X, "I americium profoundly honoured to beryllium nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the All India Trinamool Congress. I americium grateful to the Hon'ble Chief Minister of West Bengal Ms Mamata Banerjee for reposing her religion successful me. Our Constitution's values of equality, fraternity & non-discrimination person guided my beingness & work, I anticipation to transportation these ideals guardant into Parliament.

I look guardant to representing the interests of the radical of West Bengal & to service 'We the People' of India."Guruswamy has been nationalist astir her narration with chap lawyer Arundhati Katju. In 2023, erstwhile diplomat Vivek Katju wrote a idiosyncratic portion connected his travel successful accepting his girl Arundhati and her partner, expressing his archetypal daze and despair erstwhile helium recovered retired astir her sexuality.Guruswamy is the girl of nationalist argumentation expert Mohan Guruswamy, who was advisor to the concern curate successful Vajpayee govt.

She started her vocation successful 1997 nether erstwhile Attorney General Ashok Desai.The information has besides invited a backlash. Union MoS Sukanta Majumdar says that Guruswamy was nominated arsenic "payback" for warring Banerjee's case.Guruswamy was connected Foreign Policy magazine's database of 100 astir influential Global Thinkers for 2019 on with Arundhati Katju. In 2017, her representation was unveiled astatine Rhodes House successful Oxford University.Guruswamy was educated astatine Oxford University, Harvard Law School and National Law School of India. She was a Rhodes Scholar astatine Oxford and a Gammon Fellow astatine Harvard. She has been visiting module astatine Yale Law School, New York University School of Law and University of Toronto Faculty of Law. She was the B R Ambedkar probe student and lecturer successful instrumentality astatine Columbia Law School from 2017-2019, wherever she taught law plan successful post-conflict democracies.