An Independence Day Autocritique

INDIANS ACROSS THE WORLD celebrated their independence day with dampened fervour over the past week, to salvage nationalist pride out of the economics of infection and pathology of recession. While all this was happening, two incidents caught my attention.

First, was a talk show on CNN-IBN discussing whether independent India is open to homosexuality, aired during the Independence Day week. The ‘experts’ invited to speak were responding to a CNN-IBN and Hindustan Times survey in which almost 70 per cent of the respondents felt that homosexuality should be illegal. The ‘liberals’ were represented by the likes of Shyam Benegal, Mukul Keshavan and Gautam Bhan. The ‘conservative’ was a young religious leader (whose name I cannot remember) and sitting on the fence was Jaya Jaitley.

The discussion sparked many a fire, but was hackneyed – the same arguments and the same defences that are not worth repeating here. Yet, the unprecedented ‘openness’ with which the audience was engaging with the issue of sexuality, and alternative sexuality, on prime time television was an encouraging sign. Such has been the case for some time now, and especially since the historic Delhi High Court judgment of July 2, 2009 decriminalizing, all forms of adult, private and consensual sex. The findings of the survey (even if statistics are graver than damned lies) does throw light on the societal prejudice that ‘queers’ face in India, despite progressive judgements.

The sharp divide in beliefs and perspectives among the panelists on issues of sexual morality finally reached a climax through a moment of nationalism-induced catharsis. Sagarika Ghose, the anchor, abruptly ended the show by asking everyone to stand up to the national anthem. And as per her instructions everyone did – the conservatives, the liberals, the fence sitters, the homosexuals, the heterosexuals, the non-heterosexuals – everyone stood upright soaking in the buoyant verses of Jana, Gana, Mana and it seemed a perfect end to the crisis of India’s morals, culture, sexuality and religion where national pride erased all differences and made us realise that, after all, we are all ‘Indians’ first – like SRK’s Chak De hockey team.

The second event takes us to New York, USA. On August 16, when the India Day Parade was to march down Madison Avenue and when SRK’s detention at the Newark airport occupied most of the airwaves and columns, ‘queer’ Indian groups were denied permission to join the march. This was nothing new but a rude shock nevertheless. In the 1990s the South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association (SALGA) fought hard to get themselves included in the parade holding a parallel march every year till 2000, when finally they too were granted permission to participate. This year was special for the ‘queer’ diaspora because they were equally excited about the Naz judgement, but the Federation for Indian Associations – that organises the parade failed to respond to SALGA’s application to march, effectively barring them from Sunday’s parade.

These two incidents raise an important question: What is it about the idea of nationalist belonging that is so seductive even for groups that have been marginalized in the name of nationalism? There are two possible responses to this question: first, responding to nationalism’s call can be understood as an assertion of the belief that our ‘cultural heritage’ which  nationalism claims to celebrate is composed of indigenous forms of non-heterosexuality and that sexuality is not a western import that threatens to contaminate this heritage. This is a counter-cultural position that argues against the point that gays and lesbians are a blot on the face of India’s rich culture. Second, the falling back on nationalism is in the hope of gaining full and equal citizenship status.

Both these responses are useful positions to begin with, but subsequently lose rigour and finally get enveloped in the all-encompassing blanket of nationalism that ostensibly erases difference in the name of maintaining diversity. The first position demands that we excavate the history of non-heterosexuality in India – but such a move can unknowingly begin to use the same registers for understanding history as the Hindu Right does. For instance, Gay rights activist Ashok Row Kavi has argued (I run the risk of oversimplifying his position) that Hindu culture has been open to homosexuality, but it was only when the Muslim ‘invaders’ plundered India, that India’s tolerance with sexual diversity took a plunge. Irrespective of whether such an argument is historically accurate or not, it uses the same logic as that of the Hindu Right.

The second position is a purely liberal one that equates nationalism with citizenship. While these two terms are used interchangeably on many occasions, they are not synonymous. While citizenship guarantees unconditional access to human rights to all citizens, nationalism mediates who qualifies as a citizen in the first place. Whether you are ‘Indian’ enough to be considered an Indian citizen is an evaluation that takes place within the paradigms of nationalism. The previous position attempts just this: to argue that homosexuality is ‘Indian’ (or Hindu) enough. The trouble is that you require evidence that still has to prove the homosexual’s ‘Indian-ness’, and belonging continues to be predicated on notions of national homogeneity – you might be considered citizen enough if you sing the national anthem, or perform being the good citizen. But nationalism’s exclusionary logic will continue to place you on the shadow lines of citizenship. However, if queers continue to tow the line of nationalist acceptance as a form of gaining rights, there is a danger of what Jasbir Puar calls ‘Homonationalism’, by which she means that homosexual solidarity starts getting predicated on nationalism’s terms. For instance, Hindu homosexuals might say that they are more ‘Indian’ than Muslim homosexuals and claim recognition on that ground. Puar’s reference is to homosexual solidarity that emerged post-9/11 directing wrath at Islamic countries not only for what they did to America, but also for how homosexuals are persecuted there in the name of religion.

The reason for my fragmented narration of the above events is an exercise in autocritique that all of us must subject ourselves to, especially if we are committed to the idea of emancipation and are aware of the cruel tropes of the register called ‘nation’. For instance, Ultra Violet describes itself as a ‘site for “Indian” feminists’. What does this identification mean? Does ‘Indian’ refer to national affiliation, or does it refer to location? Who is an ‘Indian’ feminist? And what might be ‘Indian’ feminism? How ‘Indian’ will feminism have to be to qualify as ‘Indian’? If some believe that feminism is a western idea that contaminates women in India and make them man-haters and family-breakers – how should a woman evince her feminist belief by not disrupting her ‘Indian-ness’? An excavation of this nature – like excavating ‘Indian’ homosexuality – runs the risk of essentializing history, culture as well as sexuality and gender. It also makes feminists and queers who get engulfed within the nationalist narrative strange bedfellows with the religious Right. We see the religious right giving sexuality as much attention – bar dancers, sex trafficking, ‘obscenity’, sex education and indeed homosexuality – in effect, sometimes unknowingly, with dangerously similar and shared agendas with feminists and queers, that restrict affirmative, safe and responsible sexual practices.

I am troubled by the foregrounding of the idea of the ‘Nation’ as the benchmark for understanding ‘belonging’, especially for those who have been excluded through nationalism’s dominant narrative – that is both compulsorily heteronormative and patriarchal, and virulently communal. And even if we are attentive to its over shadowing weight that erases subaltern histories, experiences and diversities, we are unable to successfully confront its poetic seduction.

I raise these concerns as an Indian queer feminist who hates to stand up to perform ‘nationalism’ when the national anthem plays in movie halls, but always inevitably, reluctantly does.