Many emotions surfaced outside the Delhi high court exactly a year back ecstatic shouts and wide grins,the triumphant flashing of rainbow flags and tears of joy at the twilight of a lifetime of activism.
Its been a year since that historic judgment reading down Section 377 of the IPC promised a dignified life for the LGBT community in India. On July 2,the Delhi Pride Committee plans to mark the first anniversary of this occasion through a series of song and dance performances and readings of the judgment. The expulsion of Dr Siras,a gay professor at the Aligarh Muslim University,and the case of institutionalised discrimination against Ashley Tellis shows the discomfort of public institutions with the expression of queer identity.
Aniruddhan Vasudevan,a gay rights activist with the Chennai-based Shakti Resource Centre observes,It is not really possible to map legal change and social change one-to-one,the dynamic is much more complex. Thanks to the visibility generated by the verdict and the events across the country,many LGBT persons have come to feel that there are millions of people across the country taking ownership of their lives at various levels. While the fight gains momentum,one can discern the increasing visibility of diverse queer cultures that undercut a grand narrative of a single queer rights movement. The organisation of queer spaces in terms of class,gender,accessibility leads to an articulation,sometimes unwitting,of diverse ideological and political frameworks. Post-377 the various shades of the rainbow are all too visible. While some colours complement each other,others are clearly dissonant. Even as queer groups express modes of desire muted by heteronormative forms of representation,their methods gesture towards certain ideological underpinnings.
A non-funded queer collective named Nigah,which has been organising queer film fests in Delhi since 2006 in order to initiate discussions on media representations of sexuality,displays a degree of discomfort with institutionalisation in its own functioning. Deepti Sharma,a member of the collective since its inception,explains,I think of Nigah as a collective. We never registered ourselves as an organisation. We dont have an office. The way we function is linked to our broad understanding of queer as an identity,politics,process that challenges dominant norms. This is how we want to continue to work.
A bunch of energetic young queer entrepreneurs are clearly raking in the pink rupee. Sanjay Malhotra,owner of a travel company named Indjapink,offers travel packages for gay men keen to explore India. Rahul Singh runs a salon for gay men in Faridabad. This trend,while read by some as symbolic of the autonomy granted to the queer subject by a liberatory free market,has raised a few eyebrows among left-liberal academics who fear that a movement of dissent might lose its critical edge through commodification.
Queer Delhi ,a collective which organises queer parties mostly in expensive South Delhi hotels,restricts entry by a guest list. These spaces revel in a celebratory brand of queer culture that is essentially upper class and accessible to few.
This is not to say that this is the only conspicuous and visible brand of gay culture. Nirangal,a two-day LGBT performance festival to be organised by the Shakti Resource Centre in Chennai established the indigenous nature of alternative sexuality by showcasing a dance performance of underprivileged transgender women. The programme included a performance by Lotus,a group that has used a theatre programme to sensitise local self-governing bodies in rural areas of Tamil Nadu towards issues of alternative sexuality.
Queer Campus,a youth collective that is working towards extending informal support to queer students in the initial stages of coming out,is trying to create accessible spaces for them The group,however,wants to steer clear of imposing an ideology on its members. As Rahul Sharma,a founder member points out,We want this to be an informal discussion forum where people with diverse points of view come together.
Julia Kristeva in her influential essay Womens Time questions the category of the Universal Woman and points out how feminism having started with the idea of difference…will be able to break free of its belief in Woman…only to bring out the singularity of each woman,her multiplicities,her plural languages. As we examine the various modes of constitution of the queer subject,it is time to resist this essentialising conception of a queer rights movement with a single aim. While legal and constitutional changes promise a life of dignity for the queer community,the broad framework of the queer movement will remain a site of divergent worldviews and different cultures. A celebratory attitude towards difference is probably the way forward. There is clearly no one-track,straight way of thinking queerness.
sagnik.dutta@expressindia.com
