The offence of blasphemy and its implications is one of the critical issues in Pakistan today. This research examines the historical setting and gradual amendment of blasphemy laws and their impact on religious communities in Pakistan. The law of blasphemy belongs to two historical periods. First, the era when the country was under military rule by the British during the colonial period: they originally framed Chapter XV of Offences Relating to Religion of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 1860. Secondly, its application in an independent subcontinent gradually moved from its original intention in Pakistan after 1947. In 1980s Pakistan, both the intentions of this law and its penalties were significantly altered, becoming the law which people now known as the law of blasphemy. Since the law was amended, it has made people in all religious communities, particularly minorities, critically vulnerable to malicious or unfounded accusation and has been interpreted and applied to varying effects. This historical review shows how Pakistan, though claiming to be secular and to protect all religions and communities, has actually become an exclusively Islamic country. Amending Chapter XV of Offences Relating to Religion was one of the important steps to Islamise Pakistan. This research considers a range of legal, political and constitutional questions concerning the law of blasphemy and religious communities both in pre and post-colonial periods, exploring how the law and religious communities have been and are affected by politics and legislation. In so doing, it will appraise politically significant religious laws, values and activities.

This study aims to contribute to the under-researched area of LGBTQI activism in the ‘Global South’ by performing a case study of LGBTQI activism in India, a country that provides an intriguing setting in which a wide range of sexual expressions has developed over time with attitudes towards them varying alongside. Same-sex activities have since the 1860s been considered a penal offence under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code but in September 2018, the Indian Supreme Court overruled the law and decriminalized same-sex conduct. Within this context, frame analysis has been applied to six petitions by LGBTQI activists, filed to the Indian Supreme Court between 2016 and 2018, to unveil how Section 377 was framed by these activists. Results from the study show that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was framed as intrinsically discriminatory, being violative of constitutional as well as human rights, together with an emphasis on how the law relegates the LGBTQI community to second-class citizenship. Within the dominant framing of the law as discriminatory, the activists engaged in highlighting the imposition of Victorian morals by the British as the origin of the issue, along with factors that have enabled the perseverance of the issue, including the phrasing of the law and court failure to adapt to societal and international change. The subsequent consequences of the law were portrayed as stigmatization and personal losses for members of the LGBTQI community, as well as a negative impact on the state economy. By emphasising such aspects of the law, the activists advocated for the Indian Supreme Court to the overrule Section 377.