Vadodara, India — AS a maharajah's son, Manvendra Singh Gohil grew up in a bubble of prestige and privilege, surrounded by hangers-on who treated him so reverentially that he was 15 before he crossed a street by himself.
So the public snubs and rejection of the last nine months have been a new experience. Yet the mild-mannered Gohil couldn't be more content.
At last, he says, he is living an honest life -- albeit one that has touched off a scandal in the royal house of Rajpipla, one of India's former princely states. Last March, he revealed a lifelong secret to a local newspaper, which promptly splashed it on the front page.
"The headline was: 'The Prince of Rajpipla Declares That He's a Homosexual,' " Gohil said with a rueful chuckle. "The newspaper sold like hotcakes."
In the uproar that followed, disgusted residents in Gohil's hometown flung his photograph onto a bonfire.
His parents publicly disowned their only son, printing notices in the press that he was cut off as heir because of his involvement in "activities unacceptable to society." Gohil's mother has threatened contempt proceedings against anyone who refers to him as her son.
For scandal-mongers, the tale of India's gay prince is an irresistibly juicy affair full of details worthy of a tabloid tell-all: his teenage affair with a servant boy, a sexless marriage to a minor princess, a nervous breakdown.
For Gohil, his very public unmasking has brought him a bully pulpit from which to speak out against a law that makes him not just a pariah of noble birth but also a common criminal.
Here in the world's largest democracy, home to 1.1 billion people, sex between two people of the same gender remains a punishable offense. Decades after India threw off the yoke of British rule, the country still clings to a Victorian-era statute established by its colonial masters nearly 150 years ago, which demands up to life in prison for anyone committing "carnal intercourse against the order of nature."
In practice, few prosecutions are brought to court. But reports abound of police using the law to harass and blackmail gay men and lesbians.
Human rights advocates, lawyers groups and the government's AIDS coordinator are lobbying for repeal or revision of the law. In September, dozens of Indian luminaries, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen and author Vikram Seth, added their voices to the campaign. Activists are guardedly hopeful about the chances of a legal challenge now pending before the Delhi High Court. A hearing is scheduled for this month.
