Riding the rainbow

Last Sunday members of the LGBTQIA+ community sat across Congress leader Priya Dutt, (contesting elections from the Mumbai North Central constituency) at a Khar suburb of Mumbai to discuss India’s oldest political party's mention of equal rights for the community in its election manifesto.  With this a two-and-a-half decade long journey - which began with the All India Hijra Kalyan Sabha decade-long fight for voting rights which they finally secured in 1994 - was coming full circle. 

Dutt told the gathering she was always supportive of the equal rights demand long before her party came around. She also pointed out: “Credit for that doesn’t go to me or my party, but to the LGBTQIA+ community who mobilised to fight for social acceptance and ending all kinds of discrimination,” she said and added, “Their voices could only be ignored only for so long. Activists and sleaders who stood in solidarity with the movement individually (like Shashi Tharoor, who had moved a private member's bill to repeal the entire Section 377. But it was defeated on the floor of the House) also helped.”

A long battle

In 1996, community duo Kali (from Patna under the newly formed Judicial Reform Party) and Munni (from South Mumbai as Independent) contested elections. And though they lost, this opened doors for others. In three years Kamla Jaan got elected as mayor of Katni, Madhya Pradesh followed by Asha Devi who became the mayor of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.  

Trans-rights activist Shree Gauri Sawant insists these victories have to be seen from the context of the view of the traditional sociocultural acceptance for the hijra/kinnar community. “Whether it is Shabnam Mausi who went on to become an Independent MLA in the Madhya Pradesh assembly in 2002,  Heera, who won a seat in the Jabalpur City Council, or Gulshan, who was elected to the City Council in Bina, Etawa, and Kallu Kinnar, who was elected to the City Council in Varanasi, they have always had to deal with questions and probity that has always hovered on the stereotypical way society looks at trans community,” pointed out this trans rights activist who was the first trans person petition the Supreme Court for adoption rights for transgender people. This petitioner in the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) case in which the Supreme Court recognised transgender persons as the third gender asks why none of the parties have followed-up for the long-standing demand for a transgender community welfare board. "From the Mahabharata where a trans character Shikhandi  was used to win the war and then treated as expendable, the trans community has been continuously used and abused."

Her sentiment finds an echo in Apsara Reddy who earlier this month became the first transgender general secretary of the Mahila Congress, a first for the 134-year-old party's women's wing. The journalist and trans rights activist said: “Ignorance and bigotry still make people say nasty things about trans women have. I’m still asked if I do make-up, design clothes for a living or dance at weddings,” and adds, “I want to tell them, I can be an astronaut, pilot, an MP or even the national general secretary of a political party.”

Discordant note

But haven't there been some like senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who as Union Health Minister in 2011 had infamously said: “Unfortunately this disease has come to the world and in our country in which a man has sex with a man. It is very unnatural and this should not happen, but in our country, the numbers are increasing. It's difficult to find them because you don't know who is doing it and where they are.”

Dutt brushed off views like Azad's as one-off. “As younger, woke, aware and better-informed leaders come forward in the party such mindsets will be replaced by more inclusive ones,” she hoped and added, “The arrival of young workers will help the party spread awareness on these issues,” pointing to the equal rights activist Harish Iyer who has recently joined the party.

Iyer explained: “Equality is the only way ahead. Look at the US' first openly gay presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg or Leo Varadkar, the first Irish government leader of Indian origin who is gay. We want those political opportunities in India too. It has taken 72 years to even decriminalise homosexuality among consenting adults. You can't fault us for wanting to get acceptance, equality and integration faster.”  

He blamed a lack of awareness and exposure for the homophobia. “We need a massive sensitisation programme across the political divide to get everyone to understand how equal rights is in congruence with upholding the Constitution, improve India's international standing and also help add to the GDP kitty.”

Non-saffron rainbow 

Across the political divide in the BJP MLA, Ashish Shelar said MP Poonam Mahajan would talk on the issue. As requested, DNA sent across a questionnaire, however till this story went to print, no answers came forth.  

The Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is on record opposing reading down of Sec 377 of the IPC by the Supreme Court in the past. “We believe homosexuality is an unnatural act. We can't support it,” he had averred. His homophobia had found endorsement by many in the party rank and file with the Union Minister of Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi underlining: “What Rajnath Singh has said is the official stand. We have a culture and tradition against it. One can’t allow a new culture of this kind.”

Interestingly soon after these statements emerged in March 2014 in the run up the last Lok Sabha elections,  the BJP had placed an ad asking for votes on the popular gay dating website.. The ad which led to several red faces in the party appeared at the bottom of the page with both the party' lotus symbol and then prime-ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's photograph prominently displayed. It exhorted voters to vote BJP to stop price rise.

Interestingly, the Shiv Sena also did not respond to our questions on the subject.

Several pioneers of the gay rights movement who have been open about their right-wing proclivities now find it difficult to reconcile to this dichotomy. “This has also led to fault lines coming to the fore showing that the community may be homosexual but are not homogenous," observed a filmmaker from the community.

Other parties

Incidentally, parties like the Aam Aadmi Party have always supported equal rights. Both Iyer and celebrated filmmaker Onir had first joined AAP in the run-up to 2014 because they were the only party supporting sexual and gender minorities. When asked why LGBTQIA+ rights were conspicuously absent in his party's manifesto, national joint secretary Ruben Mascarenhas pointed out his party had fielded trans woman Bhawani Ma of the Kinnar Akhara from the Allahabad constituency. “We don't want to indulge in tokenism in the manifesto but actually take concrete steps that demonstrably make a difference.”

Down south, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s leader and candidate Kanimozhi said such acceptance was never an issue in Tamil Nadu. “Our party has always stood for the decriminlisaiton and also supports same sex marriages and other civil rights long before the Supreme Court verdict.” 

Interesting though they are fighting elections together the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have divergent views on equal rights for the rainbow community. While the SP toes the same patriarchal line,the  BSP has supported equal rights. The latter's spokesperson Sudhindra Bhadoria said while their leader Mayawati’s  support comes with a qualifier. “This should not then become an exclusive platform for upper caste, upper class, majoritarian English speaking elites but include members of the community from the lower strata of society as well.”

Back in Mumbai, these concentrics of exclusion were raised with Priya Dutt too when she was asked if there were plans to create an All India Queer Congress .She replied in the negative citing intersectionalities. “The LGBTQIA+ community has religious, class, caste, region and even language identities. So it is best they join existing wings.” 

Referring to the intense churn provoked by the negotiation of the poltical space by the LGBTQIA+ community Dr Shaileshkumar Darokar Associate Professor Centre for Study of Social Exclusion & Inclusive Policies, at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences advises, “The rainbow community will have to develop a sociological framework to locate gendered power relations and oppression within structures of caste and class domination, inequality and social stratification,” and adds, “Critical sociological understanding of social relations and structural differences need to be built. Such a framework grounded in theories of socio-cultural subordination could explore complex and dynamic interconnections between caste, class and patriarchy.”

According to him, the root of the problem is the deeply embedded sense of domination–subordination that Indians as a society are socialised into from early childhood. “While we believe and talk of equality as a norm, we create convenient inconsistencies to continue our own behaviour. The extent to which discrimination is graded and broken down in India is unique to this land. The LGBTQIA+ community is no stranger to such thought,” he laughed and added, “Both political parties and the community will have to work out a way of maximising benefits for each other. They can either take on and resolve contentious issues or choose to sidestep them for a more opportune time.

This dynamic will help the movement moult into its new avatar ready for tomorrow's challenges.”