The surprise announcement of Arjun Ram Meghwal as the new Law Minister of India, replacing Kiren Rijiju right before the Supreme Court breaks for the summer, could signal a shift in the BJP’s attitude towards LGBTQ+ rights.

Of course, Meghwal’s elevation is clearly geared at bolstering the party’s chances in the lead-up to the Rajasthan state elections later this year. However, the impact of his taking over Rijiju’s job just months before a five-judge constitution bench is set to deliver its verdict on marriage equality petitions cannot be undermined.

Meghwal, after all, has made problematic statements regarding queer rights in the past. In 2012, he introduced a private member bill in the Lok Sabha to reaffirm his stance that “the honourable Delhi High Court’s decision (to decriminalise homosexuality in 2009) is not in accordance with Indian culture.” In 2013, after the Supreme Court put Section 377 back on the statute books, Meghwal welcomed the decision.

So far, the government’s opposition to marriage equality — voiced through Rijiju’s statements to the media — has focused on the need for Parliament (rather than the judiciary) to decide upon the issue. “The government is not interfering in the personal life” of anybody, Rijiju had argued, while emphasising that queer couples were free to live together — as long as they did not get married.

Will Meghwal, who has in the past supported the criminalisation of queer sex, continue to defend personal freedoms while drawing the line at marriage equality? Or will his entry into the Law Ministry lead to yet another shift in the BJP’s stance on LGBTQ+ rights?

Meghwal’s initial stance on LGBTQ+ rights was in line with his party’s position at the time. Rajnath Singh, who was the BJP president at the time, supported the Supreme Court verdict because “homosexuality is an unnatural act and cannot be supported.” Former Gorakhpur MP, and now UP Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, went so far as to say that he would “oppose any move to decriminalise homosexuality” and endorsed Baba Ramdev’s comments on the issue.

In the months that followed, several senior leaders — from Arun Jaitley to Piyush Goyal — personally supported the decriminalisation of consensual sex between two adults regardless of gender and sexuality. The RSS, too, seemed to change its tune. Top functionaries like Ram Madhav and Dattatreya Hosabale made public statements about the need to reconsider their earlier positions on Section 377.

In 2016, the party seemed to take on transgender rights as one of its new social justice crusades. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a parliamentary meeting, said that “humanity is not confined to male or female” and asked BJP MPs “to go and meet them (transgender persons)” and “have meetings and rallies” with their support.

When the Supreme Court finally read down Section 377 in a landmark victory for LGBTQ+ rights in 2018, all the leaders who had previously vociferously opposed any such move fell silent. In fact, several BJP MPs like Poonam Mahajan and Shobha Karandlaje (who has since deleted her tweets) went on to celebrate the verdict as a victory for equal rights across the country.

By 2019, the government had passed the controversial Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill with grand statements about the landmark upliftment of transgender rights in the country (despite opposition from transgender rights activists). And by January 2023, the RSS Sarsanghchalak, Mohan Bhagwat, had come out publicly in the Organiser to affirm that LGBTQ+ people were “also human beings having inalienable right to live”.

After Bhagwat’s comments, the government’s affidavit opposing marriage equality in 2023 arrived as a surprise to several lawyers and activists working on the case.

There had been a small expectation that, like in 2018, the government would refrain from taking a stand and leave marriage equality to the wisdom of the courts. As Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and a battery of lawyers representing an array of states and religious organisations made their case before the constitution bench, however, it became evident that the government was not willing to grant equal rights without putting up a fight.

Importantly, the government’s opposition — both within the court and through its various ministers writing opinion pieces in leading national dailies — has come from an assertion of the supremacy of parliament over the judiciary. Senior leaders, perhaps aware of the upcoming G20 summit and reputational considerations, have avoided dramatic controversial statements on why queerness was “unnatural” or a “disease”.

Like his former boss in the Finance Ministry, Arun Jaitley, Meghwal has consistently opposed judicial overreach. Courts should “stop giving running commentary” during judicial proceedings, he has argued in the Lok Sabha, and instead, leave law-making up to Parliament. This might spell trouble for marriage equality petitions, which have already flared tensions about the nature and extent of judicial interpretation.

Will Meghwal toe his predecessor’s line on marriage equality, arguing for parliamentary debate on an extension of marriage rights but reaffirming the rights of queer couples to live together? Or will he double down on his past statements, making an even stronger case against LGBTQ+ rights?

Predicting the BJP’s stance on any issue is like reading tea leaves amidst a storm. The first person who will be asked to respond after the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on marriage equality will be Arjun Ram Meghwal. We will have to wait to see what he says.

The writer is the founder of Pink List India, the country’s largest archive of politicians supporting LGBTQ+ rights. He is a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford