The pride parade took over two hours, with people carrying rainbow flags, balloons and messages
Queer pride parades around the world are a colourful celebration of the LGBT identity and a demand for equal rights, and Delhi's 10th annual queer pride parade was no different.
Crowds bedecked in rainbow colours thronged to Delhi's Connaught Place on Sunday, demanding freedom from homophobic laws and discrimination against the queer community.
"Pride is very important to me because it turns around the idea of queerness," said a participant in the parade. "It's not simple victimhood, it turns the idea towards celebration."
The 1 kilometer march took over two hours, with people carrying rainbow flags, balloons and signs that read "Love is Love," "Strike down section 377," and "Keep your laws off my body." Participants danced to drum beats and raised "azadi" slogans, demanding freedom from homophobia, transphobia and discrimination.
"I'm taken up by the emotions out here, its pretty raw. There's going to be a huge outcome out of this," said a woman at the parade.
"At the end of the day you're just people looking for love, looking to be accepted for who they are, their identities," said another woman, marching with face paint and a sign.
Under the colonial era section 377, sex against the order of nature is a crime in India. The Delhi High Court read down the law in 2009, but it was reinstated in 2013 by the Supreme Court. Currently, the Supreme Court has admitted a curative petition to reverse its 2013 decision. The date for the hearing has not been announced yet.
"We cannot wait for the law to accept us because we will lose a lot of people to diseases by then, and drug abuse and depression," said a man at the parade. "You're probably losing your son and daughter to them being homosexual and you being a homophobe. Educate yourself."