PRIDE NOISE
Last Sunday was the Kolkata Rainbow Pride Walk. There were the usual sights that are now par for course in Pride Parades in India.
Bearded men in saris. A young woman with angel wings. Someone had painstakingly transformed themselves into Ardhanarishwara, half male god Shiva, the other half the goddess Parvati, the two of them representing a cosmic balance in the universe.
And as the float trundled down Central Avenue in North Kolkata the slogans for Azaadi or Freedom rang out over and over again.
AZAADI
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
Freedom and LGBTQ Pride are intrinsically connected. If there is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow it’s definitely freedom.
Once upon a time many queer Indians would go to the USA to seek out that freedom. In India, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalized homosexual sex. There was even a term called Passport princesses.
That was used to refer to gay Indians who were closeted at home but happy to march in a Pride Parade in San Francisco and New York.
Freedom for queer Indians often tasted American.
Some of that western flavor remains in our very homegrown Pride as well. In the soundtrack for example. There’s always a bit of ABBA.
ABBA
When I lived in San Francisco I had always felt Pride in America was about celebration. With mayors and politicians and huge contingents from Google and Oracle and Wells Fargo Bank.
In South Asia Pride was more about protest against unjust laws and lack of rights.
But now the world is turning upside down. Though there is still no recognition for same sex marriage in India, homosexual sex was decriminalized in 2018. Pride in Kolkata feels more like a celebration full of fabulous outfits, lots of glitter and song and dance.
PRIDE SONG
Meanwhile the administration in America is turning in its back on DEI. Trans rights have been rolled back. As the scrutiny increases, some Indians visiting FROM America feel wary about marching in a Pride Parade in India with slogans about Donald Trump and Gaza.
FREE PALESTINE (Is this okay to play?)
What if Big Brother is watching?
The idea of safe space is turning upside down.
Perhaps its about time. Queer rights in India have often been dismissed as a westernized import. But a new book Forbidden Desires - How the British Stole India’s Queer Past and Queer Futures suggests there was a queer history that was deliberately erased by colonialism and its Victorian morals. Its author Sindhu Rajasekharan says the language for queerness has been lost.
SR1:Because in the colonial era, things have been erased and criminalized to such an extent that we've lost these languages. Academics call it postcolonial amnesia. You've sort of forgotten deliberately.
She says records show not necessarily homosexual identities as we know them today. But a tolerance for difference. For princesses writing love poetry to a woman. Gods and goddesses changing gender. Male bodied persons leading feminine lives. Families with trans women as heads.
SR2: In Tamil. I say, you know the word. There's no word. The word deviance would translate to, which is difference. So the difference was accommodated, you know, in various communities
That tolerance of difference seems harder and harder to find in a world which keeps trying to put people in boxes. And punish those who don’t fit often in the name of religion.
THis Sunday as the pride float moved down central avenue past old apartment buildings and shops, another long procession came up in the other direction. Sikh men and women taking out a religious procession, sweeping the streets, singing their hymns, observing their Martyrdom Day. And for a moment the two floats paused regarding each other over the divider. The moment felt charged. The encounters between faith and sexuality are often prickly.
SIKH PROCESSION NOISE
Then someone on the queer float raised the old Sikh slogan Jo Bole So Nihal. And someone on that side echoed it back. Both sides waved at each other and the floats kept moving.
JO BOLE SO NIHAL
One could say nothing happened. But something precious did says Navonil Das, one of the organizers of Kolkata Pride.
ND1: Kolkata Pride once again reinforced the idea that this city has always known how to hold many truths at once — that resistance does not have to erase faith, that identities need not clash to coexist, and that solidarity can be wordless, gentle, and profoundly political.
Two minorities. Separated by a divider. Moving in opposite directions. But ultimately going to the same place - towards a city that had room for everyone.
EKLA CHALO RE SONG
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW