Bangalore: The better you hide yourself, lesser the fear of being ousted from your work place - and that’s the only option the Indian corporate world offers the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community. The Delhi High Court decriminalized homosexuality in the country making it legal to be gay in India a couple of years back and it’s high time that the corporate world inculcate a culture that respect people for their professional skills than discriminating employees based on their personal life.

Waving the colored flags and dressed in multicoloured turbans and robes, hundreds from the LGBT community paraded the capital city demanding equality and social recognition. However, the so-called highly educated and cultured corporate society has no gay pride to boast for.

The Indian incorporation has no specific policies to address the LGBT issues neither undertakes any awareness programs to prevent them from being treated differently. The conservative mindset of the big daddies in the industry shows no signs of change. The severe discrimination and the different way of treatment force the homosexuals to hide their sexual identity at workplace in India as they fear that being open will cost them a chance of promotion, salary increment or a dream project. They are also often left out of social functions and ridiculed by colleagues.

Although LGBT discrimination is seen in the Western countries, Europe and U.S. have shown greater acceptance towards homosexuals and have taken concrete steps to promote their inclusion at work which is reflected in the fact that corporate America has many gay and lesbian executives today such as Lisa Brummel, Chief People Officer at Microsoft; Barry Diller, Chairman of  New York based digital media giant  IAC/InterActive Corp; and Megan Smith, former Vice President of Google. According to the US Human Rights Commission, nearly 58 percent of Fortune 500 companies offer domestic partner coverage to employees with same-sex partners in that country.

Corporate India doesn’t acknowledge the existence of such a community at all where the gay rights groups argue that in any population, 10 percent of the people would be LGBT. There is an immediate need to take adequate measures to eradicate the discrimination against LGBT community, which is not just for the sake of the employees but it has a business side too. Choosing not to be LGBT-friendly can cost them a lot as the large gay customer base will reject any firm that doesn’t accept their identities and the exceptional talents in the community would refuse to work with those who discriminate them. It’s an undeniable fact that one performs his best when he is free to be himself and by failing to create an inclusive environment in the workplace, Indian companies are missing out many great talents. We need to approach this with greater sensitivity to accepts homosexuals as part of our society than to treat this as a disease.