The last two years have also seen large gay pride parades in New Delhi and other big cities, including Mumbai and Kolkata. Many bars have gay nights, and some high-profile Bollywood films have dealt with gay issues. Over the last decade, homosexuals have slowly gained a degree of acceptance in some parts of India, especially its big cities. While actual criminal prosecutions were few, the law frequently was used to harass people.

Sex between people of the same gender had been illegal in India since the 1860s when a British colonial law classified it as 'against the order of nature'. The high court had said that treating consensual gay sex between adults as a crime was a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's constitution.

Many will be left confused by today's events in which the government appeared to announce differing views on laws allowing gay sex Chaos: Homosexual rights supporters take part in the Gay Pride Parade in New Delhi in 2010.