Written by Sagarika Chaudhary
The Delhi Queer Pride, held on January 8, saw nearly 13,000 people from all walks of life come out to celebrate queerness, after a gap of almost three years. The pride parade, aimed at, among other things, bringing gender and sexuality to the mainstream, was a beautiful experience for many queer people and allies. However, looking at the parade, one is forced to wonder: Does this attempt at inclusion go beyond sexuality and gender as understood in the metropolitan centres? With an explosion of movements as well as organisations that are actively committed to making the world a safe space for self-expression, one must ask the question that looms large in the background: Who is ultimately able to find queer joy?
Feminist and queer discourses over the years have made it clear that it is essential to view gender and sexuality through an intersectional lens. Queer people and gender minorities are oppressed groups throughout the world. In theory, we have an evolved understanding of these overlapping identities. But praxis paints a slightly different picture. Class, gender, race — and caste in the South Asian context — become integral social identities to consider in this conversation, but are usually sidelined. Mainstream movements like Delhi Queer Pride gain momentum owing to their aesthetics, mannerisms and presentations, ordered by an inalienable class character, and access to media channels and the internet which ensures a wide promotion of these events. The same access is not available to people who come from economically-insecure backgrounds.
At first glance, these movements seem to include people from all strata of society. However, most of them remain limited to people who come from similar socio-economic backgrounds and issues like caste and class are generally overlooked in the course of the celebration. This is not to suggest that pride should not be celebrated as an expression of queer joy, but one must remember that most transgender and non-binary persons in India, as well as queer people, live in extreme poverty. Pride is a protest, and that protest must be sensitive to people doubly or triply oppressed in our society.
Feminist scholars like V Geetha have often reiterated how hijras come from and constitute the poorest sections of Indian society. They have to fight for their lives on the streets every day and are abandoned by their birth families. Seldom do the privileged come to their redressal even when they are harassed by the police. Atrocities against poor trans and queer people, who come from marginalised castes are not uncommon, and pride parades should ensure that they fight against those atrocities. In pride parades and in the community altogether, solidarity has become limited to grand celebrations on Instagram stories. The original meaning of pride as protest has gotten lost in all this and the political statement it was created to make now rings hollow.
The sidelining of trans folk and queer persons from marginalised backgrounds makes the parade a way for rich kids to burn holes in their pockets. Each time a slogan of “Jai Bhim!” is raised, it should be met with equal fervour by those who claim to be allies and give all queer people, regardless of background, a sense of community.
As Chandini, a founding member of Payana — an NGO working to empower non-English speaking gender and sexual minorities — said, “… class and caste become extremely important issues when talking of queer liberation, because as trans people, we are the ones fighting on the streets, we are the ones having to beg and the ones caught in sex work. Those with money are usually let off easy.” While the Delhi Queer Pride was a wonderful experience for most people, appropriation of Kashmiri protest slogans, and the deployment of paramilitary forces that advised against raising blue flags made many feel excluded from the place they would hope to find support and belonging.
While pride parades are one place to find queer joy, they definitely aren’t the only places, and for queer people from marginalised communities, they often become the last. It is thus up to people with access to mainstream movements to ensure that queer liberation does not remain limited to people from a privileged socio-economic background. People from the Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities should be included in the mainstream movement. Their symbols of resistance should be included in pride parades at equal footing with pride flags. Being queer is but one aspect of a person’s identity, and it should be one that becomes a source of comfort.
Pride as a protest was never just for queer and gender liberation. Caste, class, religion and race are important social identities that should not be left out. I urge all people at pride parades to engage in groundwork and to fight beside trans and queer people for the liberation they so courageously engage in. One must do all that they can to ensure that their involvement with their community goes beyond performance at parades, because the future is not queer and the future is not non-binary till those kept subservient by other social positions are freed of the marginalisation they experience.
The writer works at Centre for the Studies of Developing Societies: Lokniti
