It makes no sense. Corporate lawyers in India are paid upward of Rs 12 lakh a year; American law salaries (even post-Lehman) are close to a crore. And these are just starting salaries. Why, then, should India’s brightest young lawyers—the world at their feet—be working at minimum wage, even free, arguing for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in India? It just makes no sense.

The case itself is more straightforward. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, drafted in Victorian India, criminalises “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”. This has been interpreted to include sodomy, effectively criminalising homosexuality. A century-and-a-half later, the law is being challenged in the Delhi High Court. The petitioner, Naz Foundation, has challenged it on medical grounds, arguing that it prevents India’s 23 lakh gays, many of whom are at high risk from AIDS, from receiving treatment. The other group challenging the law, ‘Voices against 377’, relies more on human rights, contending that Section 377 violates the constitutional rights guaranteed to homosexuals. The court’s judgement is expected anytime now.

The jury might still be out, but there is no doubt who the better lawyers are. “You seem to have gathered much medical evidence that homosexuality is not a disease,” Chief Justice A.P. Shah told the petitioners while hearing the case, “unlike the (other side’s) lawyer, who argued in court that ‘homosexuality is a matter of fun’.”

This asymmetry in the legal arsenal is no coincidence. A team of highly educated young lawyers has committed its time to this case. These young lawyers, four of whom are profiled here, are only a small slice of India’s horde of activist lawyers, many of whom have fought for years against Section 377.

... contd.