“So what did you do on your first night?” was the question tossed by Oprah to a prominent gay man on 24 October 2007. He was one of three persons featured in the show entitled ‘Gay Around the World’. Oprah further chimed ” Did you say that you had a headache?”, the man realized that he had told his wife actually that.
This is none other than the first openly gay prince in this free world Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil. He was born at Ajmer, 23 September 1965, as the son of Maharana Shri Raghubir Singhji Rajendrasinghji Sahib, who inherited the title of Maharana of Rajpipla in 1963 and was educated at Bombay Scottish School and at Amrutben Jivanlal College of Commerce and Economics, Vile Parle, Bombay.
When Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil came out as the country’s first gay prince back in 2006, he didn’t know that in the coming years, he would go on to share screen space with Oprah Winfrey, get himself a fan following around the world, set up an LGBT trust and become a strong voice for the homosexual community of the country. Contrary to our thoughts journey was not a cake walk for him.
The 39th direct descendant of the 650-year-old Gohil dynasty of Rajpipla in Gujarat–didn’t have it easy growing up.
Manvendra spent most of his childhood in the company of his illiterate governess, who could not help him clear any doubts about his sexuality which had–by the age of 12-13–started making a way in his head.
“When I was 12 or 13 I realised that I wasn’t attracted towards the opposite sex, but the same sex. Why it was happening, I didn’t know. I had no communication with anyone,” Manvendra said in a recent video for ComeOut Louder–an open platform, introduced to discuss sexual diversities that are yet to be accepted worldwide.
Being brought up in the company of just a governess, without a circle of friends, and a lack of internet, confused the Prince greatly, and he assumed that this “passing phase” would ultimately go away and he would start behaving in sync with “mainstream society”. An effort in that direction was to get married in 1991.
With thoughts of fairy tales and dream castles and hopes and flickers of normalcy, the Yuvraj married Chandrika Kumari, a princess of Jhabua State in Madhya Pradesh. Manvendra says about his marriage:”I thought that after marriage everything will be all right, that with a wife, I will have children and become “normal” and then I will be at peace. I was struggling and striving to be “normal.” I never knew and nobody told me that I was gay and [that] this itself is normal and it will not change. That this is what is called homosexuality and it is not a disease. I tremendously regret ruining her life. I feel guilty, but I simply did not know better.”[1]
The marriage remained unconsummated. He says, “It was a total disaster. A total failure. The marriage never got consummated. I realized I had done something very wrong. Now two people were suffering instead of one. Far from becoming normal, my life was more miserable.”[2]
His wife filed for divorce after just over a year of marriage. Although further requests for marriage were received, he declined them. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 2002.
It was during this nervous breakdown his family got to know about his sexual orientation from the Doctor. For a member of a royal family, who is expected to carry forward his lineage by getting married and bearing sons, to announce he was homosexual was a scandal. It came as an understandable shock for his parents–who wanted him “cured” and were ready to pay a hefty sum to “make him straight” by some form of “mental therapy” and “treatment.”
Like many, parents chose denial over reality.
When the ‘royal secret’ was being out in all the mainstream and vernacular newspapers –Manvendra’s parents put out a public notice and disowned and disinherited him in June 2006. After all, they had to either shun their son or get shunned themselves from other royal peerages in India.
Later, the Prince’s story began spreading like wildfire and reached all the way to Oprah Winfrey–where he appeared as a guest in 2007, on a segment called Gays Around the World.
Manvendra then ended up on the show two more times in 2011 and 2014.
In 2000, Manvendra set up the Lakshya Trust, a charity for LGBT people in his conservative home state, and became a champion for gay rights. Lakshya aims at creating employment opportunities for gay men and also plans to open an old age home for gay men.
His high profile has helped the LGBT community in India enormously, said Harish Iyer, a gay rights activist. He is throwing open his palace doors to lesbians, gays, transgender, and other Indians shunned for their sexuality. He also said that he will offer rooms, a medical facility, training in English and vocational skills to help people find jobs. He has appeared in several TED talks and others educating and explaining people several non-mainstream topics but essential topics like” Be happy and be gay”, “The wives of gay men”, Acceptance of LGBT”, “Essentialities of Contraceptive not just for birth control but to prevent HIV/AIDS”.
Finally in his own words “Gay rights cannot just be won in the courtroom but in the hearts and the minds of the people we live with.”
