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Comment by voltooid | Hacker News Reader

There is more history to this. The introduction of the law relating to making gay sex illegal "... dating back to 1861, (that was) introduced during the British rule of India (modelled on the Buggery Act of 1533) criminalised sexual activities "against the order of nature", including homosexual activities"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_377_of_the_Indian_Pena...

It is the truth for a lot of countries that were under colonial rule. Colonial powers left their mark behind in so many unfortunate ways that are just too complex for countries to deal with even today. It is simple and lazy to label something "backward".

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> It is simple and lazy to label something "backward".

Couldn't agree more. Having said that, I'm not sure the "blame the colonials" is vastly better. For at least 2 reasons:

1) One of the laws the Penal Code replaced required death by stoning as a punishment (unless you were a slave in which case you were just flogged). As poor as the law was, it wasn't really replacing an enlightened legal framework.

2) Post-colonial India didn't exactly rush to replace the law. The first attempt wasn't until 2009, and that was overturned.

The simple truth is that, even supposedly liberal, countries have made these changes disappointingly recently. Personally, I'm glad this is happening but blaming others for the slow progress is somewhat disingenuous.

You make a good point.

It is simplistic and lazy to blame the colonials for all the ills of a society too. But the slow progress in fixing something like this is not so much because of a backwards attitude. Nation building takes time. Especially when things around the world are changing fast. There is a long long way to go. And it is definitely going to take a very long time getting there. Especially because there are way too many issues that need the attention of an already strained legal system.

> Colonial powers left their mark behind in so many unfortunate ways that are just too complex for countries to deal with even today.

What does that even mean? They are free countries. No one forced India to hold onto that law. No one forces other countries to hold onto colonial era laws. If they don't change it that's their choice, their decision and their problem in the end. Not that of some long gone boogeyman.

> What does that even mean? They are free countries. No one forced India to hold onto that law. No one forces other countries to hold onto colonial era laws. If they don't change it that's their choice, their decision and their problem in the end. Not that of some long gone boogeyman.

Not so easy. Once you have a law in place you have vested interests who want to oppose any changes to the law. Either you need a dictatorship to make any changes you desire or respect democratic principles. You can't have both. Once a law was codified, albeit in a previous era, that itself becomes an excuse for vested interests to latch onto and demand that the law continue to be in place.

In my opinion, no social norms should be codified as laws as societies change and so do people. That creates more harm than good. This should serve as a lesson to all that laws should be generic in nature and not targeted towards one community/religion/caste/creed (be it either as a benefit or otherwise). This is again a by-product of Colonialism as British crown used personal laws to keep the country divided. Hopefully India fixes that next by codifying the Uniform Civil Code[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_civil_code

>> Not that of some long gone boogeyman.

Since the boogeyman has been "gone", the entire region (not just India) has gone through several wars, a very messy, violent and tumultuous process of nation building. The region is not even used to existing as one nation yet. It takes time. Not making excuses for slow progress. Just trying to make the point that there isn't a magic wand to make everything all nice and shiny. It takes time. And as we see from this supreme court ruling, the intention is good and it is there.

Making a country free doesn't make it immediately free from thoughts and misconceptions that come with a colonial rule. You will still find Indians who assume every white person they see is rich, smart and attractive. For example: YouTube India is full of people viewing 'Foreigner reactions' on Indian content. Inferiority complex among Indians is sometimes surprising.

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