6 Jul 2011

Furore over remarks by minister

11:40 am on 6 July 2011

A Cabinet minister in India has sparked a furious row over comments in which he described homosexuality as a ''disease''.

Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told a conference on HIV/Aids that gay sex was ''unnatural''. Later he said he had been misquoted.

One leading Aids campaigner said the minister was ''living on another planet''.

Gay sex was decriminalised in India in a landmark judgement in 2009 but anti-homosexual discrimination remains widespread.

Mr Azad told the meeting in Delhi on Monday that homosexuality ''is a disease which has come from other countries.

''Even though it is unnatural, it exists in our country and is now fast-spreading, making it tough to detect,'' he said.

He said men having sex with other men ''should not happen, but does''.

He also said that "though it is easy to find women sex workers and educate them on sex, it is a challenge to identify men having sex with men''.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi were also present at the conference, along with a number of government ministers, but had reportedly left before Mr Azad made his comments.

Anand Grover, the United Nations special rapporteur on health, criticised Mr Azad's comments.

''It's unfortunate, regrettable and totally unacceptable that a minister of his stature ... is still insensitive to a vulnerable groups such as MSM (men who have sex with men)," the Hindustan Times newspaper quoted him as saying.

Other comments

Anjali Gopalan, who heads the Naz Foundation, a HIV/Aids campaign group, told the BBC she was ''horrified'' by the minister's remarks.

''He's living on another planet - either he's very ill-informed or he's speaking to a very narrow constituency of his own,'' she said.

''My blood pressure must have gone through the roof. I'm so angry, I can't put it into words. These guys shouldn't be in these positions.''

Gay sex is now legal in India but the BBC reports that harassment and discrimination remain rife.

In a news conference on Tuesday evening, Mr Azad said his quotes had been taken out of context and that when he spoke of disease, he was talking about HIV/Aids and not homosexuality.

''Some people have played with the words. I have been quoted out of context,'' he said.

''My reference was to HIV as a disease. As health minister, I know (male homosexual sex) is not a disease.''