Aditya Bandopadhyay

Aditya Bandopadhyay (sometimes transliterated at Bondyopadhyay) is a lawyer in India. He is known for promoting gay rights activism.

Aditya Bondyopadhyay, born February 1972, is a lawyer based in New Delhi India. Aditya grew up mostly in Agra, Uttar Pradesh State, India. Although he did spend parts of his childhood in Assam, India. Over the years Aditya has lived in the cities of Agra; Chabua; Guwahati; Kolkata; and Delhi, all in India. He first attended Calcutta University and thereafter studied Law in the University of Burdwan, both in West Bengal, India.

Aditya Bondyopadhyay has been an ‘out’ activist for the rights of all sexualities since 1993, including playing a leading role in the movement for decriminalisation of sodomy in India. He has also worked for the same time with the HIV/AIDS movement in South Asia for prevention intervention of male to male sexual [MSM] transmission and for care support and treatment issues of PLHIV MSM.

As part of his work he has been associated with the Lawyers Collective, one of India’s leading Human Rights Groups, and with the Naz Foundation International, a London-based agency that has helped set up over forty community owned HIV projects for MSM in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. He Also coordinated the Secretariat of the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM) from its inception in October 2006 till December 2008.

In 2001 when raids were conducted in the city of Lucknow, India on NGOs working for HIV prevention with MSM and offices were sealed and AIDS workers arrested, he represented the organisations and the arrested individuals in court, and ensured the unsealing of the offices and the continuation of their work. He was also part of the legal team that aided Blue Diamond Society, Nepal’s leading Gay Group, in defending a challenge to their existence and functioning brought before the Nepali Supreme Court.

He was part of the legal team that researched and drafted the petition filed in the Delhi High Court challenging the constitutionality of India’s anti-sodomy law, Section 377 Indian Penal Code. This petition (Naz Foundation v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi and Others) resulted in the 2 July 2009 decision of the Delhi High Court decriminalising homosexuality in India and reading down the Section 377 to imply that it shall not apply to private adult consensual sexual activity.

He was the first Asian and the third queer person in the world to testify before the United Nations Committee on Human Rights, against the state supported and sponsored oppression of sexual minorities in India.

He has conducted extensive research on Human Rights violations of sexual minorities in South Asia, and regularly tours the region to conduct legal/Rights literacy training and workshops with Sexual minority groups. As part of his HIV activism he also continues to work for the Human Rights concerns of other affected populations like sex workers, transgender people, drug users, and HIV positive people.

He is the Director of Adhikaar, an LGBT Human Rights organisation based in Delhi, India and working for securing equal citizenship rights for all sexual minorities in India. He is a founder member of the Global Forum for MSM and HIV and sat on its Steering Committee from its inception in 2007 till May 2014, he is a member of the Governing Board of APCOM, and is the Male Director for Asia on the Board of ILGLaw. He also acts as adviser to various other international development agencies.

His research and publications include the following:

Laws Affecting LGBT Persons in South Asia, A Desk Review

Same-Sex Love in a Difficult Climate; A study into the life situation of Sexual Minority (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Kothi and Transgender) persons in Bangladesh; co-authored with Shale Ahmed

My Body is Not Mine; Violence and hope in the lives of Kothsi; co-authored with Vidya Shah and photographs by Parthiv Shah

From the Frontline; Study into the violence faced by Kothis and MSM in six cities of India and one city in Bangladesh; co-authored with Shivananda Khan

Against the Odds; The impact of legal, socio-cultural, legislative and socio-economic impediments to effective HIV/AIDS interventions with males who have sex with males in Bangladesh; co-authored with Shivananda Khan

Schools/Colleges/University Aditya Bondyopadhyay has attended: Air Force School, Agra, India

Kendriya Vidyalaya, Chabua, India

Kendriya Vidyalaya Borjhar, Guwahati, India

Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 1, Air Force Statin Agra, India

Goenka College of Commerce and Business Administration, Kolkata, India

Hooghly Mohshin College, Law School, Chinsurah, India

Indira Gandhi National Open University