Nepal Just Ruled in Favour of Marriage Equality. Here's Why That Matters for India.
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On June 18, 2026, right in the middle of Pride Month, Nepal's Supreme Court issued a binding directive to the government to guarantee marriage equality for the gender and sexual minority community. The ruling directed the government to update its civil code to remove discriminatory language and ensure same-sex couples have equal legal access to marriage under national law.
It is, by any measure, a historic moment. And it feels particularly significant from where we sit in India.
What Actually Happened in Nepal
This ruling did not come from nowhere. It is the culmination of nearly two decades of legal advocacy.
The journey began in 2007, when the Supreme Court of Nepal first ruled in the landmark case of Sunil Babu Pant v. Nepal Government, ordering the government to ensure equal rights for same-sex couples and form a committee to study same-sex partnership laws. The government was slow to act, and the National Civil Code enacted in 2018 still explicitly defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
The current case, Pinky Gurung v. Nepal Government, was filed in June 2023 by Pinky Gurung and eight other activists from the Blue Diamond Society network. That same year, the Supreme Court issued an interim order directing local authorities to establish a temporary register for same-sex marriages while the case awaited a final verdict. Some couples were able to register, though the temporary certificates came with significant limitations: same-sex couples could not inherit property, access tax benefits, make spousal medical decisions, or adopt children.
On June 18, 2026, after the final hearing held on May 7 and multiple delays over the years, the full constitutional bench delivered its verdict. The court dismissed a counter-petition that sought to block marriage equality entirely, and issued a binding directive order: making marriage equality a clear constitutional requirement rather than a provisional allowance. The Blue Diamond Society described it as the fourth Supreme Court decision over nearly two decades affirming that the freedom to marry the person you love is a guarantee under Nepal's Constitution.
The responsibility now shifts to the government to revise the civil code and ensure consistent implementation across the country.
Why This Is Significant for South Asia
When conversations about LGBTQ+ rights happen in mainstream media, they tend to centre the West: the United States, the United Kingdom, Western Europe. Progress there is treated as the global standard, and progress elsewhere is treated as the exception.
Nepal's ruling is a reminder that this framing is incomplete. Nepal is a country in South Asia, landlocked between India and China, with a Hindu-majority population, a complex political history, and a constitution that was only adopted in 2015. And yet it has, over nearly two decades, built one of the most progressive legal records on LGBTQ+ rights anywhere in Asia.
For queer people in India, seeing a neighbouring country achieve full marriage equality is not just heartening in the abstract. It is a direct challenge to the argument that marriage equality is somehow incompatible with South Asian culture, values, or constitutional frameworks. Nepal has demonstrated that it is not.
Where India Stands
In India, the legal journey has taken a different shape.
The decriminalisation of same-sex relationships under Section 377 in 2018 was a watershed moment. But the question of marriage equality has remained unresolved, and the Supreme Court's 2023 verdict in Supriyo v. Union of India made clear just how far the gap remains.
In a 3:2 decision on October 17, 2023, a five-judge bench declined to recognise the constitutional validity of same-sex marriages. The court held unanimously that there is no fundamental right to marry under the Indian constitution, and that marriages between queer persons cannot be read into the Special Marriage Act, 1954. In a 3:2 majority, the bench further held that same-sex couples did not have the right to form civil unions, and could not adopt. The Chief Justice, DY Chandrachud, was notably in the minority: he had argued for recognition of civil unions.
The court's position was clear: this is a matter for Parliament, not the judiciary. And in January 2025, the Supreme Court dismissed a series of review petitions challenging the 2023 ruling, stating it found no error in the original judgment.
Same-sex relationships are legal in India. The right to choose a partner is constitutionally protected. But the right to have that relationship legally recognised through marriage remains unavailable: which means same-sex couples in India cannot jointly adopt, cannot inherit from each other without a will, cannot make medical decisions for each other in a crisis, and cannot access the social and legal protections that marriage provides.
What Marriage Equality Actually Means
It is worth pausing on what the absence of marriage equality actually means in practice, because the conversation can sometimes feel abstract.
In India, marriage is not just a social ceremony. It is a legal framework that determines inheritance rights, adoption rights, tax and insurance benefits, hospital visitation rights, and the ability to make decisions on a partner's behalf in an emergency. Without legal recognition, a couple can build a life together for decades and still have no automatic claim to any of these protections.
For queer couples in India, this is not a hypothetical. It is a daily reality. The 2023 Supreme Court ruling acknowledged that same-sex couples face discrimination in these areas. It simply declined to remedy it.
The Psychological Weight of Being Legally Unrecognised
The impact of legal exclusion on mental health is documented and significant.
When a relationship, and by extension a person's identity and family, is not recognised by law, it sends a message about whose lives are considered valid. Research consistently shows that structural exclusion of this kind contributes to minority stress: the chronic psychological burden that comes from navigating environments that treat you as lesser. The absence of marriage equality is not just a legal gap. It is a statement about who belongs.
Conversely, studies have found that the passage of marriage equality laws is associated with measurable improvements in mental health outcomes for LGBTQ+ individuals: including reductions in depression, anxiety, and rates of suicide attempts. Legal recognition matters not just practically, but psychologically.
Nepal as a Mirror
Nepal's ruling does not change India's legal position. But it changes the conversation.
It demonstrates that a South Asian country, operating within a constitutional framework not unlike India's, with guarantees of equality, dignity, and non-discrimination, has found those guarantees to extend to marriage equality. It demonstrates that decades of sustained advocacy by queer activists can move institutions. And it demonstrates that this is not a question of whether South Asia is ready. Parts of it already are.
Change in India, when it comes, will not come quickly. It will require legislative action, and that requires political will that does not currently exist in sufficient measure. But moments like Nepal's ruling matter because they shift what seems possible. They are proof that the arc of history, however slowly, does bend.
As we mark Pride Month this year, Nepal's ruling is one of those reminders.
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References
Blue Diamond Society. (2026). Statement on the Supreme Court of Nepal ruling on marriage equality, June 18, 2026.
Supreme Court Observer. (2023). Plea for marriage equality: Judgement summary: Supriyo v. Union of India.
Al Jazeera. (2023). Unpacking the Indian Supreme Court's verdict on same-sex marriage.
Washington Blade. (2025). Indian Supreme Court rejects marriage equality ruling appeals.
Nepal Lawyer. (2025). Nepal's journey to marriage equality: A legal history of same-sex marriage rights.
Raifman, J., et al. (2017). Difference-in-differences analysis of the association between state same-sex marriage policies and adolescent suicide attempts. JAMA Pediatrics, 171(4), 350-356.