Vishwa Hindu Parishad calls Homosexuality ‘an imported disease.

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Subramaniam Swamy claims for fighting for LGBTQ+ rights is an
‘American Game.’ The strongest opposition to decriminalizing
homosexuality in India, was on these grounds of it being ‘against our
Indian culture.’ But… really? Let’s rewind a little. Kamasutra in the 4 th
century A.D., mentions physical pleasure in male-male unions in vivid
detail. 14th century Bengal folklore tells the story of a sexual relationship
between two widows. Bhakti saints in medieval India would effeminize
themselves to worship Krishna and Shiva. Nawabs in the court of Awadh
in the 18th century would dress up as women on certain holy days. There
are all kind of sexual practices that illegal in India today that coexisted
side by side for centuries without necessarily being named as such and
such. Scholars point out that while these queer practices might not have
been widely practiced norms, they were never derided or looked down
upon. In fact, till the early 1800s, Indian poets like Insha and Rangin were
openly writing about male-male and female-female relations, in the same
tones as the heterosexual relationships. So, when did things change?

Homosexuality began to be viewed as a crime against ‘the order of

nature’ only in 1860, when Thomas Macaulay introduced section 377 into
the Indian Penal code, modelled after the English Buggery Act of 1533,
which made anal and oral sex, a punishable offence. Victorian sensibilities
were aghast at texts like the Kamasutra. In fact, India’s openness towards
sex and sexuality ironically became one of the reasons the British
classified it as a ‘backward’ civilization. The assertion of a nationalist
Hindu identity became associated with the formation of shared notions
and morality and respectability. In process, tradition was redefined to
work out a new modernity. There was a deliberate distancing from the
‘uncomfortable’ traditions from the past and an attempt to establish the
monolithic, high textual cultural norm. In response, Indian nationalists
asserted the ‘respectability’ of India culture, in turn adopting
conservative Victorian attitudes towards our own non-heteronormative
traditions. Justifiably outraged, Indian nationalists and Western
Indophilies unfortunately reacted to such claims with counter claims that
homosexuality and masturbation were unknown in Hindu society and as
strongly disapproved of as in the the Christian West. A related reaction
was to acknowledge the existence of homosexuality in India but to claim
that it was imported from somewhere else. By the 1920s, when Hindi
writer ‘Ugr’ published the short story collection, ‘Chocolate,’ it caused an
uproar. Even though the book denounced homosexuality, journalists,
writers and reformers criticized the author for writing about homosexual
desire, a subject they felt was not to be mentioned. The guardians of
morality launched militant criticism against the book and through it,
against Ugra’s Dilli la Dalal (Delhi’s Broker) and also books like
Viyabhichari Mandir (An Adulterous Temple) and Ablaon ka Insaf. Such
works were referred to as ghasleti sahitya (inferior literature) and a
movement against it, known as Ghasleti Andolan (Movement Against
Inferior [Literature]) was sustained for 12 years. Banarsidas Chaturvedi,
the editor of Vishal Bharat, took the lead, and was largely backed by the
Hindi departments of universities, literary associations and important
journals. In UP, magazines Chand and Sudha published material against
such literature, and the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and Kashi Nagari
Pracharini Sabha adopted resolutions against these books. Gandhi initially
wrote against Chaklet without even reading it, but later after going
through it, did not find it obscene. He wrote a letter to this effect, which,
however, was brought to light only in 1951. The point is, why did such a
book like Chaklet, which actually attacked sodomy and homosexuality, led
to such a hysterical reaction? The campaign against it was at once
paternalist and moralist, deployed to ‘protect’ the public from ‘unhealthy’
influences. However, its reach hints that here there was something more
volatile at stake than the mere offending ideas of purity and
respectability. Ugra wrote on a taboo subject, and unmentionable act,
and spoke the unspeakable.

By 1967, Britain passed a law legalizing same-sex relations, but the

Victorian idea that homosexuality was ‘unnatural’ had become
entrenched as an integral part of Indian Values. In 1998, for instance,
when Indi-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta’s lesbian love story ‘Fire’
was released in Indian theaters, it led to to large-scale protests by indian
political parties, from Bajrang Dal to BJP, who attacked theaters and burnt
effigies of the actors, accusing the film of ‘being alien’ to Indian tradition
and culture. Fire was withdrawn by authorities after right-wing Hindu
protesters stormed theaters in New Delhi and Bombay. PTI said two
cinemas suspended the screening of fire after the attacks in Bombay, the
Hub of India’s flourishing film industry. The women said they were
shocked and confused by the film, which revolves around the life of a
lesbian. PTI said Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi congratulated
the women attackers and added: The (Lesbian) theme of the film appears
to be alien to our culture and a highly exaggerated one. The LGBTQ+
activists have fought back against these perceptions. They held counter-
protests during the release of ‘Fire.’ And it is their legal and social work
over the years that highlighted our rich history of queer traditions, and
uniquely Indian experiences of queerness. This activism, combined the
courage of prominent LGBTQ+ individuals, paved the way for the long
legal battle that led led to the Supreme Court finally decriminalizing
homosexuality in 2018. We, nonetheless, have a long, long way to go. A
2014, survey found out that only 30% of people in India are broadly
supportive oh homosexuality. The country’s ruling party maintained a
pin-drop silence on the landmark 2018 judgment. And forced
conversation therapies by families is still a common practice in many
parts of India. But queer activism is taking a range of different forms,
speaking through cinema, politics, music, sports and many different
mediums to challenge the heteronormative idea of what constitutes
Indian ‘culture.’ Queerness is not against Indian culture… its at the very
core of it