India might be the big fish in South Asia but when it comes to LGBTQ rights its northern neighbour, Nepal has just come out ahead.
That’s Maya Gurung telling the media that she wants to bring same-sex marriage to all sexual minorities in Nepal.
Maya Gurung, a trans woman has been fighting with the courts to have her marriage to Surendra Pandey, a cis-man, recognised by law.
Now its finally happened.. After repeated rebuffs from local courts, the municipal registrar in Gurunng’s hometown in a remote mountainous region in Nepal has issued them an official marriage certificate.
Sunil Babu Pant, founder of Blue Diamond Society, which has been advocating for LGBTQ rights in Nepal for over 20 years says its a historic moment not just in Nepal but all of South Asia.
SP1: This is the first in South Asia. We are very excited. All the sexual gender minorities in Nepal.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
The road to same-sex marriage in Nepal has been long and winding. In 2007 Nepal introduced laws to protect gender and sexual minorities. The Supreme Court told the government to form a committee to look into legalising sex marriage.
And then nothing happened. In October sitting outside my hotel in Kathmandu Sunil Babu Pant told me that the directive got stuck in bureaucracy. For 16 years!
SP2: Um, it somewhere lost or, uh, you know, pending at the either Home ministry or the law ministry or the women's ministry.
Death by committee? Sunil says he saw the home ministry’s response to the concept note on allowing same sex or non traditional marriages
SP3:The four other first questions relevant with the fifth question was how much the economic burden to the country's treasury if they allowed to marry a same sex marriage and third genders to marry.
So for 16 years same sex couples in Nepal were stuck in a waiting game
SP4: Parliament is not saying they wouldn't do it. Government always says, yeah, but lingering, they never even have drafted the bill
So they decided enough was enough
SP5: So, you know, you cannot trust the same government in Parliament who hasn't done anything for 16 years.
Maya Gurung and Surendra Pandey were among 9 activists who filed a writ petition with the Supreme Court early this year demanding action
SP6: After three weeks, the first hearing, the court gave a interim order to allow same sex marriage , and then it issued a so-called order to the government.
SP7:The bill, but it is also, as an interim relief, asked the relevant authorities to keep a separate temporary register book and allow same sex marriage and other non-heterosexual marriages.
But there’s many a slip between court and registrar. When Gurung and Pandey, armed with the court order went to register their marriage they were in for a rude shock. The district court judge refused to register their marriage.
SP8: Playing with the words, saying that it was not a clearly in order for us to implement. And the word is marriage registration. And we are not the institution that do marriage registration. We are only do a registered marriage, meaning court marriage only.
Registering a marriage vs marriage registration. This sounds like nitpicking semantics. But the court sent them back to square 1 by saying
SP9: You go to a local body and then there you fill up the form where, you know, husband should be a man and the wife should be a woman. meaning that, you know, until unless there is a, you know, heterosexual couple, there is no marriage provision.
There is a lesson in there for everyone fighting for marriage equality via the legal route. A court can hand down an order but parliament can drag its feet and throw up roadblocks if it wants. Until now.
Finally Maya Gurung and Surendra Pandey have that all important piece of paper that recognises them as a couple in the eyes of the state. Pandey says that’s why their marriage is important not just for them but all sexual minorities in Nepal
And while much needs to be done Sunil Babu Pant says he’s proud of how far his country has come.
SP10: slowly, eventually we are making progress in having one of the very few country that guarantees, you know, inclusion, non-discrimination, equality by the Constitution, huge achievement.
And this marriage certificate, 16 years in the making, shows sometimes there aint no mountain high enough to keep love from winning.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW