Why gay employees need to come out

By: Parmesh Shahani/ Forbes India

Parmesh Shahani recounts the small changes that are happening in the Indian workplace. But this change in mindsets needs one prerequisite: Gay employees need to come out

One cold spring evening in March 2006, I was having dinner with Anand Mahindra at the highly rated Tamarind Bay restaurant in Harvard Square. I had sought Anand's advice about whether I should stay on at MIT, helping run the think tank I had co-founded as a graduate student the year before, or return to India, and put my newly-minted master's degree to use in the "real world". If I decided to return, he told me, the Mahindra group would be happy to have me.

The offer took me by surprise, which is perhaps why, without thinking too much, I responded that I would love the opportunity, but was wondering if Mahindra had a diversity policy that included LGBT as a category and more specifically, if my then partner would be offered spousal benefits. Anand's answer was short and simple. He told me that there wasn't any specific policy that addressed LGBT issues but were I to join the group, I should be assured that I wouldn't be treated any differently from other employees. This assurance was a key factor in making me return to India and join Mahindra & Mahindra and it has also ensured that I will be a lifelong ambassador for the company, even though I may not be working there any more.

I would certainly never have had the courage to articulate these concerns to any employer before I left India for Boston. In the different jobs that I had held previously, I was deeply closeted and lived in fear of being outed. I remember that at Sony Entertainment Television, when I first encountered a gay colleague, I tried very hard to pretend that I was straight, and when that failed, I swore him to secrecy to not reveal "the secret" to anyone else.

When I was a writer at Elle magazine, my then magazine editor had assigned me a feature on the changing gay scene in Bombay, with a smile. This had irked me no end. Why me? Did she suspect anything? I had a persecution complex and simply denied being gay.

Going to Boston and living freely and openly as a gay person for the first time in my life was a liberating experience. I witnessed history firsthand as Massachusetts became the first US state to allow gay marriage during my stay. This feeling of freedom inspired me to organise a university-funded South Asian LGBT film festival and also work on contemporary Indian sexuality as my master's thesis, which would eventually be published as a book.

Being gay was such a non-issue in Boston and the matter-of-fact manner in which my then boyfriend and I applied for joint health insurance at MIT, or as co-tenants in a rental apartment meant that by the time the Anand conversation took place in Harvard Square, enquiring about equal rights in the context of a job offer seemed almost natural.

My decision to be open about my sexuality within the Mahindra group, on my return to India, stemmed from the confidence that the head of the group respected me for my professional skills and didn't discriminate against me based on my personal life. In July 2009, the Delhi High Court in a landmark verdict, decriminalised same-sex relationships between consenting adults, which meant that it was finally legal to be gay in India. Post this verdict there have been companies that have come out with diversity policies that address LGBT issues, but I think we should acknowledge progressive companies like Mahindra for their commitment to employee equality even before the court decision.

There are two main reasons for the Indian corporate world to become more LGBT-friendly. It makes good business sense since LGBT people are customers and don't like buying products or services from companies that discriminate against them. More importantly, LGBT people are talent to be pursued and they don't like working with companies that discriminate. This is why I am happy that the rubric under which the Indian corporate world is looking at LGBT employees is "diversity and inclusion" - this framework actually reflects the wordings of the 2009 Delhi High Court judgement perfectly.

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