Tracking'Same–Sex Love'From Antiquity to the Present In South Asia (original) (raw)

MAHESH DATTANI’S ON A MUGGY NIGHT IN MUMBAI: AN ODYSSEY OF INDIAN HOMOSEXUALS

Gay and Lesbian relationships are branched off as two separate identity of homosexual behaviour and the issues relating to it has been a matter of intense debate in India and abroad in late 20th century especially, when in a post-war era the issues of identity crisis were being voiced by people through the corridors of academic study on postcolonial perspectives that employs certain critical strategies to examine literature, culture, history etc. of the former colonial countries of the empire. When the empire writes back; it results in the attempt to resurrect culture through critical inquiry and it branches off to different critical strategies like hybridity, diaspora, feminism etc .The present paper focuses on Dattani’s handling on the homophobic condition of Indian homosexuals, their dehumanizing and split personality due to social norms and law of the land, their aspirations, the existential dilemma and the author’s plea for a tolerant view on them rather than banishment from the society. At the outset the gay and lesbian movement is discussed vis-à-vis the western paradigm. Key Words: Absurdity, Existential dilemma, Gay, Lesbian, Homophobia

Conference BCUR: A lesbian world reconsidered: female homosexualities in contemporary India (Funded by the Footstep Funds of University of Leeds)

Undergraduate Conference : University of Winchester, 2015

As part of the British Conference of Undergraduate Research, I’ve presented a conference at the University of Winchester about the lesbian homosexualities in the Indian communities, in the aim of presenting the main issues the LGBTQ+ communities in India and its diaspora are generally dealing with in a postcolonial context. First, I’ve demonstrated how the “lesbian” identity is epistemologically problematic by the way the term linguistically refers to an Englishness that makes female homosexualities wrongly appears as Westerner. Second, I’ve shown how the colonial law legislation have regulated Indian female homosexualities in the aim of incriminating them as a distinct sexual conduct. This is why I defend the idea that the decriminalization of the anti-sodomite law 133 of the Indian Penal Code could embrace the project of an Indian decolonization, from which the diversity of sexualities in the Indian society (and its diaspora) could be recognized, through the development of (1) an Indian postcolonial epistemology, and (2) an Indian system of social and legal regulations.

Attitude towards the lgbtq community through the ages indian society and literature

PARIPEX-INDIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH , 2021

It has been widely observed that LGBT Literature in India is scarce compared to its foreign counterpart. One of the major reasons for this is the archaic and deep rooted institutional 'othering' that is meted out to the individuals belonging to this community. This research paper deals with the literature of the few authors who have so eloquently written about LGBTQ stories and the ordeals they have to face to publish their works in a (still very) homophobic and transphobic India. This paper has been written with the sole intention of providing a one-stop information hub about the evolution of LGBTQ Literature in India.

The Variation in the Depiction of Queer Sexuality in India and the Question of Social Change

International journal of innovative research and development, 2016

The sexual minorities dwelling in India are fettered by the discrimination, stigmatization and continuous subjugation of the hetronormative social structure. The role of section 377 of the IPC also acted a very important role in shaping the homophobic environment in the present Indian society. The politics of creative resistance that is developed by the Indian cinema not only brings to light the plight of queer lives and experiences, but it also constructs an alternative culture against the dominant hetronormative culture that redefines the present Indian society. Indian Queer movement, like many other new social movements, is based upon the idea of bringing a social change; a change in our understanding of sexuality not from the conventional stage but from a peripheral one. It strives to demolish the manicured walls of predominant paradigms that define the sexual universe of any common man. The main argument is that with the increasing popularity of queer themes in Indian cinema a ...

Homosexuality In India – The Invisible Conflict

2008

This research paper analysis the homosexual marriages in the Indian context as an invisible conflict which is successfully kept under cover. It also attempts to describe and explain various aspects of Homosexuality including the evolution, the reasons, the societal attitude and reactions towards such relations. The author also draws insight from the countries where homosexual marriages are legalized and also highlights their outcome out of legalising Homosexual relations. At the end taking fair and strong arguments both in favour and in against the author concludes about the possibility of legalizing homosexual marriages in India based on empirical and theoretical facts and evidences. Homosexuality In India – The Invisible Conflict The institution of marriage in society is generally regarded as extending only to male-female relationships, although most marriage statutes use gender-neutral language. Where as, many examples of acceptance of homosexual marriages has only been recently ...

The Indian Queer: For Lack of a Better Term

Mapping World Anglophone Studies, 2024

Literature has often served as a weapon of social and political activism. The absence of a vernacular literary tradition of the sexual minority in a multi-lingual country like India has compelled the Indian queer to predominantly use English as the language of literary creation as well as theorising. The process of canon formation has taken the shape of (1) the publication of English anthologies of literary pieces such as Same-Sex Love in India: Readings in Indian Literature and (2) literary writing in English following the Anglophone models, as in the case of R Raj Rao’s Lady Lolita’s Lover (inspired by Lolita and Lady Chatterley’s Lover). This move aims at the consolidation of a pan-Indian queer community united not only by a common cause but also a common tongue and the creation of global solidarity of people defying the rigid taxonomy of identification through sex, gender, and sexual orientation. However, the queer terminology borrowed from the West lacks contextual specificity in the Indian subcontinent and has not been translated due to the lack of equivalent vernacular terms. The Indian queer, for lack of a better term, is faced not only with the challenge of overthrowing a compulsory norm-assigning web cast upon its shoulder, which too was a colonial imposition but is compelled to use tools alien to them.

A Discordant Harmony – A Critical Evaluation of the Queer Theory from an Indian Perspective

Queerness or rather queer sexuality in India has always been the favourite child of debate and discussions. Queer identity in India has always suffered through the dilemma of to be or not to be. As Dasgupta puts it, " Identities are complicated to begin with and become more complicated when relating them to nation and sexuality ". Given the diversity of India in terms of not only culture but ethnicity as well, Indian sexual identities are the product of " Mulipicitous effects and perceptions of tradition, modernity, colonization and globalization " (Dasgupta, 2011) that are more often in conflict with each other than in a harmonious synthesis. The main argument of this paper is to trace a lineage of queerness in India both in terms of its representation in literature by analyzing The Editor (1893) and The Housewife (1891) by Rabindranath Tagore; Lihaaf (1941) by Ismat Chugtai; and R. Raja Rao's The Boyfriend (2003), and how it prevailed in reality or the societal perception of the same. Providing a literature review by building a bridge in between the ancient and the contemporary India, the paper attempts to trace the missing links of when and how queerness went behind the curtains only to reappear in front of a more complicated, confused and probably a more rigid audience.

THE ATTITUDE OF INDIAN SOCIETY TOWARDS HOMOSEXUALITY: AN ANALYSIS

Human rights are equally applicable to all human beings on this planet irrespective of religion, sex, caste, race, place of birth etc. It is the duty of all human beings to protect the rights of each other. What nature gives us is natural which means natural within. Thus, part of the personality of a person has to be respected by society and not reviled. Non acceptance of homosexual partner by any societal norm or notion and punishment of it by law is destruction of individual identity. Right to choice of a sexual partner is covered under Article 21 of the Constitution of India which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. This is an inappropriate construction of the privacy based claims of the LGBT population. Their rights are not "so-called" but are real rights founded on sound constitutional doctrines. Sexual *LLM, Modern Law College, Pune 1 How the love that exists between same-sex couples was described by Lord Alfred Douglas, the lover of Oscar Wilde, in his poem Two Loves published in 1894 in Victorian England.

“Chatnī, Chocolate and Pān: Food and Homoerotic Fiction,” in Gay and Lesbian Subcultures and Literatures: The Indian Projections ed. Sukhbir Singh (New Delhi: Indian Institute of American Studies, 2014).

In many literatures, eating and food are primary figures for love and sex, and Indian literature is no exception. The specifics, however, differ. Questions that one might explore in this regard include: what cultural significance does the food item have? Is it a high-status or low-status food? Are different foods used to figure different types of desire or love? In this essay, I discuss food in three early twentieth-century north Indian fictions about same-sex desire -Ismat Chughtai's Lihaf, Pandey Bechan Sharma Ugra's Chaklet, and Suryakant Tripathi Nirala's Kulli Bhat. Public discussion of homosexuality in early twentieth-century India was almost entirely couched in the language of Victorian sexphobia and homophobia, and overshadowed by the sign of sodomy, imported into India by the British, most notably in the form of the anti-sodomy law introduced into the Indian Penal Code. Pre-colonial Indic traditions of depicting same-sex desire in pleasurable, nonjudgmental ways were under erasure. I suggest that one of the ways pleasure resurfaces in Indian fiction about desire is through the figure of food.

THE UNFINISHED LEGAL BUSINESS ON (HOMO)SEXUALITY: A MEDIA MAPPING OF LGBT ACTIVISM IN INDIA

With the legal logjam on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, as it perceives sexual activities "against the order of nature" punishable by law and carries a sentence. There has been a queer buzz going on in India. Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen, acclaimed writer Vikram Seth and other prominent Indians publicly demanded the repeal of the said Section. Surfacing of Gay pride marches on the streets of a couple of metropolitan cities in India has become a trend of the day. Participants of such marches are seen sporting pink triangles and walking under the long LGBT flags. The word 'queer', once hurled or whispered as an insult is now proudly claimed as a marker of transgression by people who once called themselves lesbians or gays. In this context, this paper attempts to explore whether repeated media reportage and coverage of such pride marches is an indication of a growing climate of 'tolerance' in the country. It seems we are an altogether more open, more tolerant, sexier society which is getting better all the time. Or maybe it is not. Or is it? In order to discuss these issues, some events of LGBT pride parades through their media coverage have been qualitatively studied, followed by an analysis of conceptual/theoretical frames on homosexuality (and sexuality in general) postulated by French philosopher Michel Foucault and Austria's psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. This study finds its relevance in understanding how media conceives a broader definition of acceptable sexual behaviour through their coverage of discourse on the politics of sex in globalised India.