Opinion Pride marches have become giant carnivals without a soul
They used to be political and nurtured the idea of liberation and acceptance. After 2018, when Supreme Court wrote down Article 377, these marches have become commercialised
Pride was celebrated in Kolkata on Sunday. (Express Photo) 
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Kolkata hosted its annual pride march on December 15 this year, and the queers were there in droves. After attending a pre-party at a five-star hotel the previous night, they walked down the city’s high street, attended an after-party at one its poshest restopubs, bought overpriced souvenirs from special merchandise trucks and returned home satiated. Happy, super shiny queers.
A bit too happy, cynics would say. But we will come to that later. Let’s first talk about the “pride” history of India. Though the history of Pride Marches goes back decades, India joined the party relatively late. It began, significantly, with a protest in 1992 in front of Delhi police headquarters. The protest came in response to police acting against some men in Connaught Place’s Central Park, on suspicion of them being homosexual. The Aids Bhedbhav Virodi Andolan not only spearheaded this protest but also took the first legal action when they filed a public interest litigation that challenged Section 377.
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalised homosexuality and was not removed until September 2018. The first documented pride march of South Asia happened seven years later, in 1999. Fifteen men from across the country came together at a park in Kolkata, in similar yellow t-shirts, for what was called The Friendship Walk 1999. Since then, pride marches have become important platforms of dissemination. This is when the mainstream media would give us our two minutes and in those two minutes, we were supposed to register all our protests, let the world know we were not criminals and talk about the validity of our existence.
It was a tough ask, but we managed. We managed to remove Section 377 which criminalised gay sex. We achieved that mainly because we were standing on the shoulders of countless grassroots activists, leaders and just brave people from across the country. People who will probably feel ill-at-ease at these shiny spaces, the restopubs, the bars. Because queer movement in India is not just about the urban queers like us, as smooth as we are at appropriating narratives, it’s about our brethren who still have to fight rampant homophobia in our smaller towns, villages and even urban spaces.
Pride marches before 2018, when the Supreme Court wrote down Section 377, were demonstrations where the community came together to talk about issues that mattered, questioning authorities. The march itself was devoid of fancy floats and DJ consoles. It comprised determined queers and allies, determined to make their presence felt. Today, pride isn’t priding anymore. Post 2018, pink money is kosher and corporates want their slice of the pie. So naturally, pride marches have become easy pickings for companies to promote their restaurants, cafes and merchandise. Capitalism is doing what capitalism does.
This is true of pride marches from across the world. In New York too, where pride is televised, the pride march seems to have become a giant carnival without a soul. Since it is televised, it is even more commercialised, with more sponsors and more corporate money. This is a shame because pride marches have always nurtured the idea of liberation and acceptance and they have been largely political in their scope. And in the nicest way, acutely personal. No one forgets their first pride. Before it’s too late, we should try to make our pride marches, and pride events, more inclusive. We should ensure not to alienate the most marginalised and vulnerable members of the community on our route to acceptance. Most importantly, we should not forget that our goals, in a country where crimes against the queer community are rampant despite 377 being off the books, are yet to be achieved.
premankur.biswas@indianexpress.com
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