Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)longing in Contemporary India (31 page)

Finally, the International Conference on Sexualities, Masculinities and Cultures in South Asia was attended by over 200 delegates from all over the world in 2004 in Bangalore.63 The World Social Forum, organized in January 2004 in Bombay, was another venue for the different Indian LBGT

groups to espouse their cause in the full glare of the international media present. From the drag show by a Malaysian transgender performance
182
Gay

Bombay

troupe that had some nuns storm out of the event in disgust,64 to the perceived neglect by some city based gay and lesbian groups to their cause by the Forum organizers,65 the global media representatives that converged in Bombay for the event covered it all.

India’s first public gay demonstration was organized by the collective AIDS
Bhedbav Virodhi Andolan
(ABVA, ‘Campaign Against AIDS Discrimination’) in front of the police headquarters in New Delhi as a protest against raids by the Delhi police on gay patrons of the city’s Central Park. Photographs of the event were circulated via the Press Trust of India (one of the country’s major news agencies) to most leading Indian newspapers. They show a group of activists holding up handmade banners and posters with slogans such as ‘Human Rights is the Issue, Not Sexuality’, ‘Gay Manifesto: Gays of the World, unite. You have nothing to Lose but your Chains’ and ‘Down with Section 377’.66 We have already examined the media coverage about Section 377 in Chapter Two.

The first Indian gay
pride march
was held in Calcutta on 29 June 1999, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City. Although only 15 activists took part in the initial ‘friendship walk’,67 it became a recurring annual feature68—the ‘Walk on the Rainbow’ marches held between 2004–2007—have all had about 300

activists marching proudly through the city, escorted by the police69

and followed by print and television news reporters. There have been media reports of marches and demonstrations in smaller cities like Patna as well.70 Bombay’s first public demonstration was a public protest on 27 September 2001 against the arrest of the Naz Foundation or Bharosa HIV/AIDS outreach workers some months earlier and it comprised

protesters belonging to several city-based gay, lesbian and human rights organizations (including Aanchal, Humsafar, Stree Sangam, Lawyers’

Collective HIV/AIDS unit, Forum Against Oppression of Women and the Arawanis Social Welfare Society) gathering together at the city’s historic Flora Fountain.71 There have been sporadic marches and public protests in the city since, duly covered by the media, such as the candlelight walk to commemorate World AIDS Day 2003,72 or the 2004 march to protest the crusade of the political party Shiv Sena against the controversial film
Girlfriend
,73 or the Rainbow March at the World Social Forum 2004

held in Bombay, which comprised gays, lesbians,
hijra
s and sex-workers marching side by side.74

Media Matters
183

One can estimate the extent of progress of gay activism in the country through the 1990s by comparing two press clipping—just six years apart from each other. 1994’s
Bringing down stonewalls
notes that ‘if one would look more closely, there is a quickening pulse towards a formation of a gay and lesbian community in the country, which could, given a mass structure with aims and activities, turn into a movement’.75 The article makes several sharp observations about the potential roadblocks on the way to the formation of such a movement (an insular Indian gay community, class barriers, differences with the lesbian movement). Fast-forward to
Action Stations
(2000)—‘The disorganized gay community joins forces, starting a series of support groups, helplines, websites and networking opportunities’.76

An
Indian Express
article dated 17 July 199177 quotes an official from the Indian Council of Medical Research responding to a question of how he planned to work with the gay community regarding AIDS awareness.

‘There may only be about 60,000 of them in India…[and] if they die, not many tears will be shed’. The article quotes Ashok Row Kavi’s counter-assertion that using the Kinsey average of 5 per cent homosexuals in any society, India would have ‘11 million permanent practicing homosexuals’

and goes on to list the magnitude of the problem that confronts the country. The journalist telephones 11 city-based doctors to see if they know what AIDS stands for and it is shocking to note that not even one of these can provide a completely correct answer—many of them simply hang up on him or refuse to answer!

CHOLAN: I REMEMBER CLEARLY WHEN I WAS 14, ROCK HUDSON DIED

OF AIDS. IT WAS THE FIRST TIME THAT THE MAINSTREAM

MEDIA WAS TALKING ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY ALTHOUGH

IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DISEASE. THERE WERE ACTIVISTS

IN INDIA THEN—BUT THEY WEREN’T THAT PUBLIC AND YOU

HAD TO LOOK AT THE WEST, I SUPPOSE. HUDSON WAS THE

ONLY ONE.

The apathy towards any gay involvement in the governmental efforts to battle HIV/AIDS continued in 1992—an international conference on AIDS

in Asia and the Pacific held in the country’s capital, New Delhi, ignored homosexual concerns completely. The parallel AIDS meet organized
184
Gay

Bombay

by the international gay activists at a public park in the city was widely reported by the press.78 Earlier that year, the World Health Organization at its annual AIDS congress in Amsterdam had cautioned the Indian government of ‘a possible outbreak of AIDS among the homosexual population of Bombay’ with the congress director warning that ‘the fact that only very few HIV infected cases have been found so far in the gay population should not dull government’s surveillance efforts’.79 Humsafar’s 2004

study of 240 homosexual men in Bombay city, conducted with the help of the Indian Market Research Bureau reported that 20 per cent of those surveyed were HIV positive, something that the press picked up on.80 But my overall observation remains that the press coverage of HIV, whether gay-related or not, has been extremely disappointing in India. Given that the country now has the second highest number of AIDS sufferers in the world—official figures put the 2003 number at 5.1 million; only marginally behind South Africa’s 5.3 million81 (but most aid agencies say it is much higher and will reach 25 million by 2010)82—one sincerely hopes that they will pull up their socks soon!

Out Public Figures

While the Indian media has often speculated about the sexuality of celebrities from the world of entertainment, business and even politics, very few of these have actually unambiguously declared their homosexual orientation. Several of these celebrities live in pretty visible relationships with their same-sex partners and are often seen burning up the dance floors of their city discotheques at gay parties and events. While they might not publicly deny their homosexuality, they do not acknowledge it either.83 For instance, the homosexuality of Rohit Khosla, India’s first
haute couturier
was only written about at his untimely death.84

One of the first out Indian celebrities was the artist Bhupen Khakhar whose paintings (starting with 1981’s provocative
You Can’t Please All
and including among several others, 1987’s
Yayati
and 1995’s
Old Man from
Vasad Who Had Five Penises Suffered from Runny No
se) have become ‘as Hockney’s did in the West, emblematic for a whole generation of homosexuals in India’.85 Khakhar’s musings about his homosexuality in the press (‘I told lies. I did not have courage to say I was going to meet my Media Matters
185

boyfriend. Gandhi spoke truth but I was coward’;86 ‘There is no escaping the fact that homosexuality is an integral part of human existence’).87

forced ‘the vast terrain of half-urbanized modern India’88 that his work drew from, to deal with the subject, albeit flinchingly. Fashion designer James Ferreira has been direct about his homosexuality. (‘I am what I am and I have never been ashamed of myself. I have had very intense meaningful relationships with men…’).89 In 2006, Mumbai’s high-society designer Krsna Mehta came out in a newspaper interview.90

Another fashion designer, Goa based Wendell Rodricks, caused a stir when he exchanged vows with his French partner Jerome Marrel at a celebrity-studded event on 26 December 2002.91 A senior consular official from the French government conducted the ceremony, at which the couple signed an official French Civil Solidarity Pact (PACS). Wendell and Jerome navigate the social high life very openly as a gay couple. Indian fashion’s enfant terrible, designer Rohit Bal, has also been very open about his homosexuality—‘I think I am too damn sexy. I am attractive because I am so cool about my sexuality. It is a part of me’.92

OM:

YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE IT OBVIOUS. MY BASIC POINT IS

WHY DON’T YOU EXIST IN SOCIETY AND JUST BE A NORMAL

PART OF IT? YOU YOURSELF BRING UP THE ISSUE OF BEING

ABNORMAL AND THINGS LIKE THAT AND WHEN PEOPLE FROM

OUTSIDE CALL YOU ABNORMAL YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

RUSTOM: CELEBRITIES [NEED] TO BE OUTSPOKEN… PEOPLE LIKE KARAN

JOHAR [A BOLLYWOOD FILM DIRECTOR, WIDELY RUMOURED

TO BE GAY] HAVE NO FUCKING EXCUSE….

In June 2006, Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil of the royal family of Rajpipla—a small principality in the western state of Gujarat, come out as a homosexual in the media. The story was picked up by various national and international newspapers in India and abroad as
the gay Indian prince
story. Initially, the royal family reacted negatively to the publicity—

effigies of the prince were burnt in the
Holi
93 fire in Rajpipla and advertisements were published in local newspapers disowning him from his title. Within three months however, the prince and his family had reconciled and the prince was even contemplating adopting a child as his legal heir!94

186
Gay

Bombay

Writers like Firdaus Kanga, R. Raj Rao and Vikram Seth have all alluded to their own sexuality in their work. Rao has been publicly outspoken regarding his homosexuality and activist identity for many years. (‘The word “activism” is not a dirty word for me as it is for other writers… I cannot stay in my ivory tower and ignore calls of help from gay men who are on the verge of committing suicide or are being hounded by cops or harassed by blackmailers’).95 As a university professor, Rao has started the Queer Studies Circle at Pune University, where he teaches and conducted informal courses on Queer Literature.96 Other publicly out academicians include Somenath Banerjee, the Calcutta based transsexual senior professor of Bengali, who ‘walks into class dressed as a woman, complete with showy earrings, matching lipstick and eye make-up’97 and Hyderabad based professor/poet/activist Hoshang Merchant (‘As everyone knows by now, I am a homosexual. To write this sentence and to speak it publicly, which is a great liberation, is why I write’).98 Seth’s sexuality was often gossiped upon, but his
official
outing was in his mother’s Justice Leila Seth’s autobiography—
On Balance
(New Delhi: Viking, 2003),99

following which he has become increasingly visible and involved in the campaign against Article 377 in India. In 2006, he was the spearhead of a very public letter writing campaign to repeal the law and in the several print and television interviews that he gave in relation to this initiative, he was comfortable to mention his bisexuality.100 There have also been a few articles over the past few years where celebrities have been asked their views on homosexuality—and these have largely been positive, at least in the English press.101

Makeup guru Cory Walia,102 late filmmaker Riyad Wadia103 and the flamboyant actor Bobby Darling104 are some of the other celebrities that have created a stir with their confident public assertion of their homosexuality. This list would not be complete without Ashok Row Kavi—he has single-handedly carried the responsibility of being the ‘country’s most public gay man’105 for more than two decades.

Changing Public Perception

For this, let me point to three different sex surveys that span the 15 years of my research interests.106 The
Debonair
magazine sex survey in 1991

Media Matters
187

claimed to present ‘the country’s first study of the sexual habits of Indian males’.107 Despite its relatively modest base size of 1,424 respondents, the survey throws up some startling results with respect to homosexuality. For example, out of the respondents who have had sexual intercourse (81 per cent), 36.8 per cent report to have done so with another male. (This includes 32 per cent of married men and 41.7 per cent of unmarried men). Other interesting statistics are that the wives of 31 per cent of married men are aware of their homosexual behaviour and 17 per cent of the respondents claim to engage in homosexual group sex! The widely publicized108 Kama Sutra Sex Survey 2004109 conducted in the top 10 cities in India (sponsored by Kama Sutra condoms), is more comprehensive—it includes both men and women and has a much larger sample (13,437 married and unmarried individuals aged 18 and above).

17 per cent of the respondents acknowledge being attracted to a person of the same sex and within this category, 51 per cent acknowledge having had sex with a person belonging to the same sex. While 43 per cent believe that homosexuality is taboo, only 8 per cent feel that it is normal to be attracted to a person of the same sex. Sandwiched between these two reports is the
Outlook
magazine survey, conducted among 1,665 married men and women in eight cities in India in 1996, where 15 per cent of the respondents admitted to having engaged in homosexual activities and 30 per cent believed that homosexuality was ‘a normal practice’.110

All these surveys were conducted in English, with highly educated urban respondents. (For instance, 67 per cent of the
Debonair
respondents and 88 per cent of the Kama Sutra respondents were university graduates).

Yet, as the editors of
Debonair
point out in the piece accompanying their survey, the results are extremely pertinent—they ‘reflect the behavior of an extremely important segment of the Indian population—the