5 things to know about Prince Manvendra, India’s first openly gay royal
Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil is India’s very first openly gay royal figure. When news broke about the prince’s sexual preference in 2006, reactions were polarising. People from his hometown burned effigies of him, while others praised his courage. Celebrity talk show host Oprah invited him onto her show for the “Gay Around the World” segment to talk about his experience.
The Indian government has oscillated on gay rights. First it criminalised gay sex, then decriminalised it, before re-criminalising it with up to 10 years in prison.
Thankfully, in 2018, the persistence of LGBTQ+ activists prevailed and the Supreme Court decriminalised gay sex by ruling Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to be unconstitutional. This animosity towards the LGBTQ+ community has its origins in part to the colonial occupation by Britain, which brought anti-gay sentiments and a legal institutions to persecute gay people.
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“Section 377 was imposed by Queen Victoria for her own vested interests when she was ruling India; Prince Manvendra told the San Francisco Bay Times. “She wanted to break the power of Indians, including the influence of Hijras, a very old transgender community in India, and of female sex workers. Queen Victoria also employed the strategy of ‘divide and rule’ to divide Hindus and Muslims to safeguard British interests.”
Manvendra has been an active and powerful voice for the LGBTQ+ community in India. Here are a few things you should know about him.
1. First gay royal
Well, not exactly. History has had a bunch of queer figures across the globe. Alexander the Great, King Hyegong, Abraham Lincoln and as depicted in The Favourite, Queen Anne. But, when Prince Manvendra announced his sexuality, he was the first to talk about himself openly; going against all forms of royal decorum and etiquette. His parents were shocked. His mother took out an advert in the local paper to disown him. “I wasn’t shocked”, the prince told Oprah. “I don’t blame her. I blame her ignorance”. It took almost a decade for them to reconcile.
2. He was married once
In 1991 the prince had an arranged marriage at the time with Chandrika Kumari. That’s how things were done back then, royal or not, and there was huge pressure on him to continue the families’ lineage. Just for the context of pressure, “parents [would] blackmail their children and force them to get married to the opposite sex,” said the prince. “People in the community tell me their mothers have threatened to kill themselves if they are gay. They do not want their mother to jump into a well, so they are pressured to get married.”
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The marriage was consummated. A year later, the pair divorced and the prince went into a spiral of depression and had a mental breakdown in 2002. He is finally living his truth after much work on self-acceptance.
3. Hollywood figure
The prince returned to Oprah on two more occasions in 2011 and 2014 to speak about his advocacy work. He also appeared on Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The prince met Kendall Jenner when she was doing a shoot for Vogue India, and the two became good friends. Jenner felt a connection with the prince after her own father came out as transgender. So, she invited him onto the show so that he could share his compelling story.
4. ‘A prince who is a queen’
Most queer people usually develop a good sense of humour as a tool for survival. Prince Manvendra is no different. He regularly introduces himself to strangers as the “prince who is a queen” to break the ice. When he’s not joking around, he knows how to have a good time, having recently celebrated World Pride in New York City.
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5. The great giver
With his status and privilege, the prince decided to use his power for good and prop up the LGBTQ+ community in India by starting The Lkashya Trust – an organisation to educate the community about HIV/Aids prevention.
And in an effort to battle LGBTQ+ homelessness, the Prince donated a 15-acre pink palace and is converting it into a clinical centre and shelter for those most in need.
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His mother publicly disowned him by placing an advert in the local paper, and it took almost a decade for them to reconcile, in a nation where LGBTQ+ activists only recently prevailed in having gay sex decriminalised