My Indian Visit

[Guest guest]

Hi Eldred and Forum subscribers,

My journey to Mumbai began on 11th October and ended on 19th October when I

moved on to Ahmedabad. Of course the main interest in Mumbai was the ILGA

convention where I was a delegate.

Gay-Bombay was an agency I had some business with and the only other

agencies related to my work that I had identified some potential interest

was CRS and " STOP " Delhi, both at Mumbai , but neither of whom answered my

emails so I did not catch any grass roots agencies in Mumbai. Often just one

contact in a large City is enough to trigger suggestions for others with

similar interests, but Mumbai was strangely quiet apart from the convention

itself.

I will of course be doubling back to Pune because the ILGA convention

precluded me stopping there on the way through. My suggestions about actively

involving police cadets before they emerge with ingrained prejudices has

resulted in some very interesting differences in India where the country is

definately siding with the USA in holding firmly to a Zero Tolerance law

enforcement policy.

In Australia and other parts of south east asia harm minimisation policies

overlay their enforcement systems and there is a direct comparison to better

epidemiology results with the latter.

The Senior Police Inspector person with whom I began some preliminary

discussions seemed interested in my suggestion that education might allay

some of the fear of HIV-AIDS that is endemic in the force. He was prepared

to introduce any presentations that might be trialled in the Hyderabad

academy where all senior officers are centrally trained and from where all

Police districts are staffed in India.

He was emphatic that India was holding strictly to a zero tolerance attitude

to enforcement and surprised by the correlation between that attitude and

the greater risk behaviours that such enforcement generates with a

corresponding rise in infections. I don't think he had ever discussed the

implications from any point of view other than strict and impartial law

enforcement so if his brain cells could be challenged then maybe some others

might also be able to be helped as well.

There is of course much work to be done to generate competent and

knowledgable trainers before attempting to introduce modules that might

challenge police behaviours and fears in the field.

I am posting this reply both to you and the egroup for two reasons, because

I need to reply to your request promptly and because there might be other

readers whose focus on this issue might need to be identified. I will

eventually describe the 14 State whistlestop tour which took over a month

and was interspersed with events that turned it into a bit of a precarious

adventure.

Geoff Heaviside

E-mail: <gheaviside@...>

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