On 6 September 2018, the Supreme Court of India decriminalised homosexuality by declaring Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) unconstitutional which regarded homosexuality as against the order of the nature and held it as a criminal offence. Similarly, on 27 September 2018, in it’s another ruling, the Supreme Court of India struck down as unconstitutional section 497 of IPC that punished a married man for the offence of adultery if he had sexual relations with a married woman “without the consent or connivance of her husband.”

If we see this in a global perspective, both these judgments are not just the isolated ones that took place in India, but a part of a global effort to promote and impose Western values and culture on the world. Countries of Americas and Europe were made to adopt them in the second half of the past century. Now these are being imposed in Eastern countries. After Japan, China, South Korea, now India too has joined this list.

From religious point of view, not only all the religions of the world consider these social evils as taboo, but they also advocate harsh punishments for its committers. Historically too, no culture of the world endorsed these evil social practices. Even Europe which is fond of these social practices, gave harsh punishments for its perpetrators until the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, it is the first time in the human history that these practices have been legally sanctified, and efforts are being made to promote them not only regionally but globally.

These evil practices are being promoted with the slogans that they will eradicate prejudices against the woman; it will provide sexual freedom; and gender equality will be established. Whereas, in fact, these legislations will violate women’s rights; their difficulties will increase further; it will add to their owes; and it will make the exploitation of the women easier both by excitement and intimidation. What is more interesting here is that according to the Supreme Court this practice could be a valid ground for obtaining divorce, as if the Court admits that this is an evil morally and socially at-least although not legally.

As far as the implications of these laws are concerned, the family system will be the epicenter of these legislations. They will poise to shake the family system from its roots; fill the streets with illegal children; make men inclined towards fulfilling their sexual lust by making women wicked and depraved; and it will tend to scrape and eradicate the concept of chastity from the human society. Today, the Western society has become a living and dreadful example of all these social evils and problems. The ratio of illegal children in Europe and Americas today has crossed 50%, to the extent that asking name of anyone’s father is considered as an abuse; the ratio of divorce cases in these countries too has crossed 50%, while in some counties it is as high as 70% and 80%. Adultery is on rise beyond any limit. To put in a nutshell, the whole Western society has trapped in the swamp of social tribulations and evils, and their thinkers are unable to find any way out from this mess. So instead of overcoming its own problems and troubles, the West is hell bent on exporting them to the countries of the third world by putting attractive and beautiful labels on it. It is true that the West has taken a big lead in science and technology today, and has made the life comfortable and easier with a plethora of inventions and discoveries in various fields; nevertheless, it does not mean that we should pay heed to each and every idea and philosophy of the West blindly. Instead, if the East is dependent on the West in science and technology today, the West too is in need of the East in ethics and spirituality.

Secondly, extramarital relationship and homosexuality are not only against religion and moral values, but they are also fatal and devastating for humans and human society naturally and scientifically, and they cause spread of fatal and deadly diseases. We will deal with these aspects in a separate article in the next issue of Tameer-e-Fikr Inshallah.