QUEER STUDIES
Homosexuality as a cultural phenomenon is not new. Sappho, a Greek poet and teacher of arts, who lived between 630 and 612 BC in the Greek city state of Lesbos, was known for her preference for women and had affairs with several of her female protégés at her Centre for Arts. Yet she was highly respected, both for her artistic sensibility and her poetry, which contained references to lesbian love. Plato extolled her as the tenth Muse and the coins of her times were embossed with her image.
It was with the advent of Christianity that homosexuality came to be stigmatized and segregated to the borders of the mainstream sexuality. The metanarrative of Christianity demonized homosexuality and circumvented it within the inviolable boundaries of the devil’s domain. Later, in the early twentieth century, the sexological discourses pathologised it in the West. The Biblical account of destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is well known across the Christian world. Sexologists, such as, Karl Westphall, Karl Ulrichs, Richard von Krafft-Ebbing and Havelock Ellis considered homosexuality as inversion. Gays and lesbians were, therefore, scorned, discriminated against and victimized. No surprise, therefore, lesbians and gays remained ‘closeted’, and there was hardly a gay/lesbian literature until the first lesbian novel,The Well of Loneliness was published in England in 1928 by Radclyffe Hall, and that, too, conformed to the sexological discourse and represented the lesbian protagonist, as an invert.
Since the middle of twentieth century, the attitudes towards homosexuality have undergone a change. Gayism/lesbianism has not only been de-bounded and decriminalized but also a large number of countries, such as, Netherlands, South Africa, Canada, Hungary, Iceland, Belgium, Spain, Germany, France, Mexico, some of the States of the United States and several others have legalized gay marriage.
In India the situation has been paradoxical. The stigmatization and circumvention of homosexuality are considered of the colonial import. So is homosexuality or this is what the Right wing forces erroneously believe. According to them, homosexuality is alien to Indian culture and is a source of moral corruption. The British colonial government introduced Article 377 in the Penal Code in 1868 criminalizing homosexuality and laying down stringent punishment of fine and/or life imprisonment for sexual acts against ‘the order of nature’. Earlier than that in Indian culture, lesbianism and gayism were acceptable forms of sexuality – the most ancient sculptural art of Khajuraho caves and the architecture of some of the Hindu temples in Orissa bear a burning testimony. Influenced by colonial thinking, the non-heteronormative sexual identities came to be abjected and outlawed in India.
The cultural environment has, therefore, been hostile to gays and lesbians in India. They are afraid to cross the boundaries and ‘come out’ for fear of physical violence, and social opprobrium and there is not much literature dealing with same-sex love. Any cultural expression of lesbianism/gayism engenders anger and retaliation, especially among the Right wing forces, who display abhorrence and complete intolerance of homosexuality, in art and literature. The fiery protests against Deepa Mehta’s lesbian film Fire, and strong denunciation of Karan Razdan’s film Girlfiend were symptomatic of this hostility. Literature in this genre, which as mentioned earlier is rather scant, is sought to be suppressed, as was Ismat Chughtai’s first lesbian story “The Quilt”: (Lihaaf in Urdu) published in 1941, which was considered obscene and a case was filed against it, or it has been calculatedly ignored as pulp and inferior literature, as has been done in recent years to Shobha De’s novels, viz., Strange Obsession, (1992) Starry Nights, (1991) and Snapshots (1995). A mainstream novel by Manju Kapur, A Married Woman (2003) is one of the recent lesbian novels, which inscribes and at the same time outlaws lesbian experience in order to validate patriarchal social structure of family and prioritise heterosexuality. It must also be mentioned here whether in films or literary works, the representation of gays/lesbians projects them as borderline bugs, criminals, mentally sick, or deprived of heterosexual coition.
In the nineties, the issue of identity assumed great importance both in the realm of lesbian and gay theory and the Movement. The idea of biological essentialism was found to be limiting and exclusionary as other nonheteronormative sexualities like transgenders, transsexuals, hijras, kothis, and panthis, who are women trapped in men’s bodies were ignored. Therefore, the overarching umbrella term ‘Queer’ came to be used for all these categories. Judith Butler’s theory of ‘performativity’, using post-structuralist tools of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucualt and Jacques Lacan, conceptualized gender/sexuality as ‘performative, that is, a role performed by the subject, according to her/his choice which resulted in (i) pluralism of gender identities and (ii) considering gender/sex as fluid and a matter of choice.
Its effect can be seen in India, where the Gay Pride Marches in Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai include lesbians, gays, hijras, transgenders, and others who come together as ‘Queer’ to forge coalitional politics against the homophobic Indian society. After a protracted legal battle by Naaz Foundation, Delhi – an NGO of gay activists – the Delhi High Court on July 2, 2009 gave a judgment ‘reading down’ Article 377, and decriminalizing consensual homosexual acts between adults in private. The gay activists and liberal sections of society have praised this judgment as landmark in ensuring equality and freedom to homosexuals in the choice of their partner.
However, various organizations came together and filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the High Court judgment. When asked by the Supreme Court to give its opinion on the issue, the Central Government, for political reasons, decided to leave it to the wisdom of the Supreme Court.
There is therefore a genuine need of an exploratory nature, which will seek to start a ‘conversation’ both within and outside the academia, on this important cultural and human rights issue, which has generally been elided. It is expected that an open and frank intellectual discussion would mark the proceedings of the Conference, examining all the aspects of ‘Queer’ sexuality. Following is the list, by no means exclusive, of suggested topics on which papers would be invited from experts, academics, scholars, and activists across India to generate an Indian discourse non-heteronormative sexualities and to raise certain questions which would hopefully point beyond the boundaries and form the basis of future conferences.
It was with the advent of Christianity that homosexuality came to be stigmatized and segregated to the borders of the mainstream sexuality. The metanarrative of Christianity demonized homosexuality and circumvented it within the inviolable boundaries of the devil’s domain. Later, in the early twentieth century, the sexological discourses pathologised it in the West. The Biblical account of destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is well known across the Christian world. Sexologists, such as, Karl Westphall, Karl Ulrichs, Richard von Krafft-Ebbing and Havelock Ellis considered homosexuality as inversion. Gays and lesbians were, therefore, scorned, discriminated against and victimized. No surprise, therefore, lesbians and gays remained ‘closeted’, and there was hardly a gay/lesbian literature until the first lesbian novel,The Well of Loneliness was published in England in 1928 by Radclyffe Hall, and that, too, conformed to the sexological discourse and represented the lesbian protagonist, as an invert.
Since the middle of twentieth century, the attitudes towards homosexuality have undergone a change. Gayism/lesbianism has not only been de-bounded and decriminalized but also a large number of countries, such as, Netherlands, South Africa, Canada, Hungary, Iceland, Belgium, Spain, Germany, France, Mexico, some of the States of the United States and several others have legalized gay marriage.
In India the situation has been paradoxical. The stigmatization and circumvention of homosexuality are considered of the colonial import. So is homosexuality or this is what the Right wing forces erroneously believe. According to them, homosexuality is alien to Indian culture and is a source of moral corruption. The British colonial government introduced Article 377 in the Penal Code in 1868 criminalizing homosexuality and laying down stringent punishment of fine and/or life imprisonment for sexual acts against ‘the order of nature’. Earlier than that in Indian culture, lesbianism and gayism were acceptable forms of sexuality – the most ancient sculptural art of Khajuraho caves and the architecture of some of the Hindu temples in Orissa bear a burning testimony. Influenced by colonial thinking, the non-heteronormative sexual identities came to be abjected and outlawed in India.
The cultural environment has, therefore, been hostile to gays and lesbians in India. They are afraid to cross the boundaries and ‘come out’ for fear of physical violence, and social opprobrium and there is not much literature dealing with same-sex love. Any cultural expression of lesbianism/gayism engenders anger and retaliation, especially among the Right wing forces, who display abhorrence and complete intolerance of homosexuality, in art and literature. The fiery protests against Deepa Mehta’s lesbian film Fire, and strong denunciation of Karan Razdan’s film Girlfiend were symptomatic of this hostility. Literature in this genre, which as mentioned earlier is rather scant, is sought to be suppressed, as was Ismat Chughtai’s first lesbian story “The Quilt”: (Lihaaf in Urdu) published in 1941, which was considered obscene and a case was filed against it, or it has been calculatedly ignored as pulp and inferior literature, as has been done in recent years to Shobha De’s novels, viz., Strange Obsession, (1992) Starry Nights, (1991) and Snapshots (1995). A mainstream novel by Manju Kapur, A Married Woman (2003) is one of the recent lesbian novels, which inscribes and at the same time outlaws lesbian experience in order to validate patriarchal social structure of family and prioritise heterosexuality. It must also be mentioned here whether in films or literary works, the representation of gays/lesbians projects them as borderline bugs, criminals, mentally sick, or deprived of heterosexual coition.
In the nineties, the issue of identity assumed great importance both in the realm of lesbian and gay theory and the Movement. The idea of biological essentialism was found to be limiting and exclusionary as other nonheteronormative sexualities like transgenders, transsexuals, hijras, kothis, and panthis, who are women trapped in men’s bodies were ignored. Therefore, the overarching umbrella term ‘Queer’ came to be used for all these categories. Judith Butler’s theory of ‘performativity’, using post-structuralist tools of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucualt and Jacques Lacan, conceptualized gender/sexuality as ‘performative, that is, a role performed by the subject, according to her/his choice which resulted in (i) pluralism of gender identities and (ii) considering gender/sex as fluid and a matter of choice.
Its effect can be seen in India, where the Gay Pride Marches in Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai include lesbians, gays, hijras, transgenders, and others who come together as ‘Queer’ to forge coalitional politics against the homophobic Indian society. After a protracted legal battle by Naaz Foundation, Delhi – an NGO of gay activists – the Delhi High Court on July 2, 2009 gave a judgment ‘reading down’ Article 377, and decriminalizing consensual homosexual acts between adults in private. The gay activists and liberal sections of society have praised this judgment as landmark in ensuring equality and freedom to homosexuals in the choice of their partner.
However, various organizations came together and filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the High Court judgment. When asked by the Supreme Court to give its opinion on the issue, the Central Government, for political reasons, decided to leave it to the wisdom of the Supreme Court.
There is therefore a genuine need of an exploratory nature, which will seek to start a ‘conversation’ both within and outside the academia, on this important cultural and human rights issue, which has generally been elided. It is expected that an open and frank intellectual discussion would mark the proceedings of the Conference, examining all the aspects of ‘Queer’ sexuality. Following is the list, by no means exclusive, of suggested topics on which papers would be invited from experts, academics, scholars, and activists across India to generate an Indian discourse non-heteronormative sexualities and to raise certain questions which would hopefully point beyond the boundaries and form the basis of future conferences.
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