Section 377: Abhay Deol’s post on Alan Turing is worth exploring

Murtuza Nullwala September 08 2018, 2.12 pm

On September 6, 2018, Supreme Court decriminalised s*x between consenting adults of the same gender. Section 377 was ruled out, marking a historic judgment making India a better place to live in. Many Bollywood celebs took to their social media handles to applaud the court’s judgement. But well, there was one celeb who actually posted an interesting detail about Section 377. We are talking about Abhay Deol.

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We finally put to rest an old Victorian law! Even the British ended it in ‘67 after the death of Alan Turing, possibly one of its most famous victims. Better late than never! #equality #nohate #progress #section377 #knowyourhistory
A post shared by Abhay Deol (@abhaydeol) on Sep 7, 2018 at 6:10am PDT

Section 377 was a law implemented by the British when they ruled India. It was introduced in 1861. Even though the British rule came to an end in 1947, the law still had its place in the law book of India. However, in 1967, the British ruled out this law in their country. Alan Turing was one of the most famous victims who suffered the most due to this law.

Turing was a computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. But he was convicted for homosexual acts in 1952. As a part of the punishment, he was given two options either to take the imprisonment or to undergo hormonal treatment designed to reduce libido. He opted for the latter one. The treatment went for a year, resulting in Alan turning impotent and causing gynaecomastia.

It was in 1954 when he was found dead in his house. A post-mortem report stated that the cause of death was cyanide poisoning. In 2009, a petition urging the British government to apologise for Turing's prosecution as a homosexual was signed by 30,000 people. The then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, had acknowledged the petition and had given out a statement in which he had apologised Turing and had stated that the treatment he went through was appalling.