Pride parade in India cancelled after protests and threats by religious groups
A pride parade in the northern Indian state of Punjab has been cancelled after it was threatened by Sikh religious groups.
Organisers said over the weekend they had cancelled the march, prioritising the safety of participants.
The march was scheduled to take place on 27 April in Amritsar city, some 450km north of the national capital Delhi.
'This year, due to opposition, we are informing that Pride Amritsar is cancelling the Pride Parade 2025," organisers Ridham Chadha and Ramit Seth said in a statement.
"We do not intend to harm the sentiments of any religious or political groups. The safety of our members is our first priority and we will take measures to safeguard it."
The acting leader of the Akal Takht – the temporal authority in Sikhism – had condemned the march and called it "unnatural", Punjab News reported.
Paramjit Singh Akali, a leader of the Nihang Sikh community, had also reportedly urged local authorities to deny permission to the march.
Amritsar is home to the Golden Temple, a gurudwara on a lake that is considered one of the holiest sites in Sikhism. Nihang Sikh groups argued Amritsar was a religious city where 'nothing like this should happen on this soil".
'If it happens, the administration will be responsible for the deteriorating atmosphere,' Mr Singh Akali was quoted as saying by the local broadcaster ETV Bharat.
If the administration did not stop the parade, he warned, Nihang Sikhs would 'stop it in their own way".
Members of the LGBT+ community in over a dozen Indian states hold pride parades most summers. The tradition began as an act of defiance in the eastern city of Kolkata in July 1999, at a time when homosexuality was illegal in the country.
In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down a British colonial law that had made gay sex punishable by up to 10 years in prison and expanded constitutional rights for the LGBT+ community. The ruling was seen as a historic victory for human rights campaigners.
Narendra Modi 's Hindu nationalist government, in its first term at the time, did not oppose decriminalisation during the Supreme Court's hearings. But it has repeatedly resisted the legal recognition of same-sex marriage and rejected several petitions in favour. Some religious groups have also opposed recognising same-sex unions, claiming they go against Indian culture.
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