Repoliticising the Indian Queer Community
June often brings a sudden tsunami of rainbow-coloured display pictures, put up by various brands, flooding our timelines. Their PR teams will spend the entire month portraying how much their company cares about inclusivity and the Indian queer community, even though they might not have an inclusive hiring policy or even something as basic as an anti-discrimination policy within their workspace. The fragility of these superficial ‘initiatives’ is such that with just a flick of the finger all of this could be undone as it has already happened in the US with DEI being undone by the Trump administration. Hence, while it has been 10 years since the NALSA judgement and about 7 since Navtej, two of the biggest victories of the LGBTQ+ community, we still are devoid of the basic protections and rights that all citizens should have.
I was 15 when the Delhi High Court decriminalised queer sex from 377 and I still feel the euphoria that I felt at that moment. This pushed me to mobilise queer people in Allahabad in the following year and come out of the dark corners of dimly lit public parks in the evening and meetup at open spaces as an act to rejoice that euphoria and simultaneously build a sense of community. But as I met more and more people from the queer community, several shortcomings stared right back at me. The most glaring of them all has been the sheer lack of a strong political and ideological base around which the Indian queer movement should stand upon, instead, we have been busy running from one court case to another. It is important to underline that our lives exist beyond the corridors of courts and we face layered marginalisations hence our activism should always acknowledge the need to fight on multiple fronts and create political consciousness amongst fellow queer individuals. Simultaneously, I find it fundamental that our activism whether on ground or social media should be inspired from our own experiences and voices rather than what might be trending in the West which would give us more views.
After the NALSA judgement which recognised several rights for the transgender community and Navtej which decriminalised consensual queer sex, there seemed to be a vacuum within a large section of the community since the majority and more importantly the visible activism revolved around 377, but our lives have always been more than that. The fact that we failed to cultivate a progressive ideology rooted into the ground realities amongst ourselves led to people directly running towards the Supreme Court for ‘marriage rights’ which according to my limited understanding was a humongous mistake. There was no consultation with the community at large to build a strategy before deciding whether to reach out to the SC or not, and this reckless decision led to the transfer of about 20 cases pending before different High Courts to the SC. These petitions were not just about marriage equality but also larger questions of protection from natal family violence, discrimination, etc. The Union government along with several orthodox religious groups heavily contested these petitions but the government offered a consolation prize in the form of setting up a “high-powered committee” which would basically look into the concerns of the queer community and try to come up with appropriate policies barring marriage rights. The constitutional bench picked up on this consolation and dismissed the petitions and passed the buck to the parliament to give the community equal marriage rights. The said committee met with members of the community after more than a year since the judgement was pronounced and it has been close to a year now since that meeting and any progress regarding that is as significant as the promise of Acche Din. Recently positive judgements such as from Kerala High Court allowing a transgender couple to show them as ‘parents’ instead of mother and father in their child’s birth certificate and Madras High Court recognising the right of the LGBTQ+ community to form a family shows how things might have unfolded differently had some refrained from performative activism.
This is just one of the many glaring examples of how the cracks amongst the Indian queer community come back to bite us in our rear end. As I reassess the post-NALSA and Navtej years and how the conversation around attaining equal human rights has evolved within the queer spaces, there seems to be a wide gap in what the ground reality is for the majority of the Indian queer experiences and how it is perceived on a larger scale in the society because of several factors even though it is equally important to note that a few determined community members have been fighting on important issues like horizontal reservation for the transgender community. Our focus has to be on forming a united progressive front asking for better policies for all of us. For example, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act mandates that all states and union territories should have a Transgender board in order to protect the rights of transgender people in that particular region and yet not all of them have complied with it. But more importantly these boards are basically toothless in nature as they haven’t been given any power to implement a change that would make the lives of trans people better and safer. The most that they can do is to request the officials or concerned ministers to act on their recommendations, but it is ultimately up to the discretion of those in power. It is because of this specific problem, in 2022 intersex activist Gopi Shankar Madurai resigned from the National Council for Transgender Persons citing “bureaucratic harassment and insensitivity”. Another problem that persists regarding all such councils, commissions and boards is the political appointments, where people actually working on the ground are ignored for someone who wouldn’t question the ruling dispensation who put them there. This tendency has also left these boards dysfunctional.
Another disturbing trend is that prominent figures from the community who became famous solely for representing it suddenly find it to be appropriate to further divisions within the same community for minor gains. One of the latest examples came from Tamil Nadu where after the High Court gave directions to the state government to come up with holistic policies for the LGBTQIA+ community, a few notable faces from the community who like to assert on international forums that they work for the “entire” community decided it to be fitting to be a part of a press conference where sections of the community were vilified for their sexuality. This replicates the divisive politics that have infiltrated queer communities in the West and if we don’t learn anything from it then we should be ready for the reversal of the few rights and recognition that we have gotten till now. Furthering division amongst the community should never be an option for whatever reasons one might have.
Finally, we need to accept one simple thing, that we cannot escape politics as it surrounds us and affects our very real lives, choices and rights. If we are delusional enough to believe that somehow, we can meander around this conversation altogether as it might force us to discuss some bitter truths and harsh realities, then we should also be okay with being treated as second class citizens as we are today. With the rise of conservatism and religious extremism, not just in our own country but all over the world, the call for going back to some utopian conservative golden age has strengthened. This would be the age where in the best-case scenario, the existence of the queer community might be acknowledged but ultimately denied of any rights whatsoever. Some might think that cheerleading for such hateful forces might someday miraculously change their views about us. Let me be clear: that day will never come. An ideology which is based upon othering will come for you one day or the other, the marriage equality case is a stark reminder for those who have been saying that the current dispensation should be given the credit for the decriminalisation of queer sex in Navtej as they took a neutral stand on the issue in the SC or for passing the Trans Act which mandates getting a TG card about which the officials remain unaware and many are denied in an arbitrary manner. We still have unequal rape laws for the transgender community in the Trans Act where a convicted rapist would get imprisoned for a maximum sentence of only 2 years and under the newly passed criminal laws, rape of men is not even recognised now! And when these issues are raised in the parliament by a few mindful legislators, the only thing one can hear from the treasury benches is them sniggering and sharing a laugh. Recently a few members from the youth wing of the ruling party tried to stop a pride parade in Thane and such activities are emboldened by comments made by their leaders targeting the community and drawing inspiration from the Trump administration.
We need to relook at how we perceive queer rights as it is not just limited to decriminaliastion of queer sex or marriage equality but crosses over to demands which intersect with those of the larger society. Demands such as eradication of inequalities on the basis of not just gender and sexuality but also caste, religion, class, etc., ensuring adequate means of livelihood, equal access to justice, holistic healthcare (which should include gender affirming procedures and mental healthcare),curbing wealth accumulation and prioritising support for the most vulnerable. Fun fact, all these are promised in the Constitution anyway! This Pride Month we need to simply remind ourselves that without dignity and liberation there cannot be any Pride at all.
