Did you focus on fashion to give due dignity to the queer community and the ways in which they use fashion as resistance?
Yeah, absolutely. I love fashion myself, and the way I came upon this historical context had to do with the entire queer community, but especially with trans women, because they were the ones persecuted the most by the colonial establishment for flouting what they considered appropriate clothing for men. Surprisingly, women or female-bodied persons were also persecuted for dressing in what they considered trans-sexual or gender fluid manners, because according to the British, they were cross-dressing. In the ‘lock hospital’ (hospitals where the criminally prosecuted were housed) records, the officers complain about how Indian women are dressed. It made me realise that back in the day, people dressed to express their gender and sexuality. They were not policed in their attire and that reflected across socio-economic strata. And I was constantly surprised to find this, especially as what we consider edgy fashion now is gender-fluid fashion, and it had been there in the subcontinent in the first place.
Do you worry that you’ve portrayed pre-modern times as being too idealistic?
I have been very careful to give a disclaimer right in the beginning that India was always casteist and classist, and I give examples of that as well. I’ve said also that India was not some Rousseauian paradise of sexual freedom ever. But despite there being religious and political radicalism, all of these proto-feminist and queer sub-cultures have existed because people have resisted consistently, and they’ve built spaces for themselves. So, my examination of the past is to do with these transgressive folks, who have consistently existed since the beginning but were erased in coloniality because Brahman pundits and Islamic maulvis wanted to present their religions as pure, pristine, and equal to puritanical Christianity.
Is it fair to say that the pockets of resistance that existed in India prior to the British, were the ones that were clamped down on legally, socially, medically, during colonial rule?
Yes, because these proto feminist queer subcultures were also places where people could transcend their caste, class and other positionalities. For example, courtesan communities and performing arts communities would consistently adopt children who were excluded or marginalized by the rest of society. If you mix blood, if you don’t belong to the varna system, you could fit into these spaces. But these spaces were erased by the British because they said, if you don’t have a proper puritanical bloodline to claim, then, as a woman, you’re a prostitute, and as a man, you’re a eunuch. So queer people, where do they exist in that?
There are detailed examinations of how Hindu communities functioned, and how Brahminical patriarchs affected them. But not much about Islamic maulvis. Why is that?
That’s a fair comment. This whole book happened as a result of my very subjective examination of the past, based on my identity and me trying to understand my own heritage. So, I’ve been looking at Brahminical patriarchy for that reason, and how it has affected Hindu society. The bulk of my research, even in my PhD, was to do with that. Then I would go and find sources to also see what was going on in these Islamic communities at the same time, and wherever I could find the sources, I would add them. So, it’s mainly to do with the sources, because I’m trying not to interpret without sources. The availability probably exists, it’s just that I was focused on a (different) area.
My favourite chapter is the one about undoing queer kinship patterns, which mentions that there were these alternative forms of kinship that existed in India that were forcibly undone.
I’m so glad you think so. A lot of my thinking with respect to that, was influenced by my PhD supervisor, Professor Mahn, who wrote a book called Desi Queers (Desi Queers: LGBTQ+ South Asians and Cultural Belonging in Britain by Churnjeet Mahn, DJ Ritu, and Rohit K Dasgupta). That was very primary to me regarding understanding queer kinship patterns, because we’re always trying to mimic or transpose the heterosexual family pattern onto it and missing the point.
Keeping this chapter in mind, how do you think learning about this past and getting rid of this kind of postcolonial amnesia can help us establish our futures?
That’s a tough question. Every individual should have the freedom to construct the reality that they want and to have the family that they want, to have the life that they want, and I think that’s what I want to establish through this. When I was growing up in India, one of the things I was constantly told was that, oh, you’re being gay to be cool, trying to ape Western ideas. You’re not; you’re just finding terminologies to understand yourself for whatever is currently available, and I’m hoping that learning about queerness in India helps with that. I’m also hoping that, after reading this book, you don’t have to box yourself. The idea of queerness is always in. Your desire is multiple.
What can we do to bring in the social changes we require? Does the legal structure need to change first? Or do researchers, journalists and queer people need to bring back these memories into the sociocultural consciousness?
I think it is a simultaneous thing, and it feeds into each other. Senior lawyer Saurabh Kirpal said that the law is not static. Till the British brought these laws in, nobody even thought to legislate this. I remember when Section 377 was read down, it felt like such a weight lifting. The law is so important. But again, what did the government say? They said that queer marriage does not match India’s idea of a nuclear family of husband, wife, child. But that was never an Indian idea. I call it the Victorian sanskar. I live in Canada, which luckily is a safe space at the moment, but you see the United States, and then you see the UK, where queer people’s rights are being depleted, and you see how society is informing that. I think it has to be a collective, simultaneous action.
Rush Mukherjee is an independent journalist based in Kolkata.
