India’s health minister has said that homosexuality is unnatural and is a ‘disease’ brought to India by foreigners.
Speaking at a national meeting of district and mayoral leaders on HIV/AIDS prevention, the minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, stated that gay sex was ‘unnatural and not good for India.’
‘It is a disease which has come from other countries,’ he added.
He said gay sex 'was found more in the developed world, has now unfortunately come to our country and there is a substantial number of such people in India'.
'Even though it (homosexuality) is unnatural, it exists in our country and is now fast spreading, making it tough to detect it,' he said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the president of the ruling Congress party also attended the meeting, but had left before Mr Azad spoke.
Coming almost two years to the day after a landmark Delhi High Court ruling that decriminalised homosexuality, his comments prompted a storm of protest and calls for an immediate retraction.
There was particular anger that the comments were made at a meeting of officials tasked with promoting and enforcing HIV/AIDS prevention policy at a grassroots level across the country.
Despite the High Court ruling and gay pride events in some major cities, homosexual culture remains shocking to many Indians, who often treat the topic as taboo.
Very few high-profile Indians are openly gay or lesbian whether in the fields of sport, politics or entertainment.
