KOLKATA: Senior Supreme Court advocate Menaka Guruswamy took oath as a Trinamool Congress MP from West Bengal, becoming India’s first openly queer member in Parliament. She is widely known for being one of the lawyers who argued in the Supreme Court case that led to the reading down of Section 377 in 2018.She was among 19 newly elected or re-elected members who were administered the oath by Rajya Sabha Chairman CP Radhakrishnan in the Upper House.From the September 2018 Supreme Court verdict decriminalizing Section 377 to a seat in the Upper House, Guruswamy’s journey has been significant. The All India Trinamool Congress nominated her as its Rajya Sabha candidate. Acknowledging the moment, she posted on I am grateful to the Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal Ms Mamata Banerjee for reposing her faith in me. Our Constitution’s values of equality, fraternity & non-discrimination have guided my life & work, I hope to carry these ideals forward into Parliament. I look forward to representing the interests of the people of West Bengal & to serve ‘We the People’ of India.”Guruswamy has been open about her relationship with fellow lawyer Arundhati Katju. In 2023, former diplomat Vivek Katju wrote a personal piece about accepting his daughter Arundhati and her partner, describing his initial reaction upon learning about her sexuality.She is the daughter of public policy analyst Mohan Guruswamy, who served as an advisor to the finance minister in the Vajpayee government. She began her legal career in 1997 under former Attorney General Ashok Desai.Guruswamy featured on Foreign Policy magazine’s list of 100 most influential Global Thinkers in 2019, alongside Arundhati Katju. In 2017, her portrait was unveiled at Rhodes House, University of Oxford.Educated at University of Oxford, Harvard Law School and National Law School of India University, she was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and a Gammon Fellow at Harvard. She has also served as visiting faculty at Yale Law School, New York University School of Law and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. From 2017 to 2019, she was the BR Ambedkar research scholar and lecturer in law at Columbia Law School, where she taught constitutional design in post-conflict democracies.In Kolkata, Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha nominees — former DGP Rajeev Kumar and Guruswamy — made their political debut alongside chief minister Mamata Banerjee.After being introduced at the dharna mancha, she began with “Jai Bangla” and added, “Jai Samvidhan, Jai voting rights”.Guruswamy said: “For 200 years, we tolerated the British. We fought. We then adopted the Constitution — ‘We, the People.’ The Constitution which we have adopted says two primary things about all of us: that we are all equals. We are equal irrespective of our religion, community, gender or the place we belong to. And the second most important point the Constitution emphasizes is that every citizen of this country has the right to vote. Today, this Constitution binds all of India.”“I am a lawyer. And I am an ordinary lawyer. But I have only one thing in my heart — the Constitution of India,” she continued.“The Constitution has, for the first time, given every citizen the right to vote. I have not seen this before… that 60 lakh people in Bengal will now be adjudicated. You may even be stripped of your right to vote. If that happens, how will elections be free and fair? We will fight against this in the Supreme Court, and in every other court,” she said, her speech punctuated by applause.
