Queer readings to remember Rituparno Ghosh

Happenings (Preview), May '16

Varta previews an upcoming event in homage to the late Rituparno Ghosh

Kolkata, May 28, 2016: Three days from today – on May 31, 2016 – art personality Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee will pay homage to Rituparno Ghosh, a queer icon in the world of cinema, through dramatized readings of queer writings from across the globe. The event will take place at the Ahuja Museum for Arts, Lee Road, Bhawanipur, from 7.30-8.30 pm.

Pehchān conundrum

Insight, May '16

Pehchān, an ambitious civil society-government partnership to provide sexual and reproductive health, HIV, legal aid and social security services to nearly 4,50,000 sexual and gender minority people in India, has drawn to a close. Its scale and implementation attracted both praise and criticism, but the completion of its term will leave behind a vacuum feel Anupam Hazra and Souvik Ghosh of SAATHII, a national NGO that implemented the programme in eastern India

Solidarity event organized by Dinajpur Notun Aalo Society at
Jibonmore, Islampur in Uttar Dinajpur district

Kolkata, May 2016: Even as we write this, West Bengal is counting votes cast for a Legislative Assembly election, and by the end of this month a ‘new’ state government may well be in place. But what will be new about it from the public health perspective? Will the five-year cycle of polls yield fresh hope for some of the most marginalized communities like transgender women, Hijras and men who have sex with men (MSM)? Barring one or two political parties, none seem to have included their socio-economic and associated concerns in the election manifestos. One party fielded two transgender women as candidates from prominent seats in Kolkata, but how respectful was such inclusion is open to debate (the candidates withdrew from the contest in protest against what they felt was tokenism and a publicity stunt).

Star quest: Fighter with a heart

Clickhappy! Star Quest, Apr '16
By Kaustav Manna

Star of the month: Anurag Maitrayee at the 'Kolkata Rainbow
Pride Walk 2011'. All photo credits: Nilanjan Majumdar

Star Quest is a series of photo-stories of individuals who may not be public figures like politicians, artistes, social activists or media persons, but have in their own way contributed to social equity and empowerment around gender, sexuality and related issues.

The contribution of the ‘stars’ we zoom in on may be in an intimate arena – among friends and neighbours, their local community, a village or slum school, their own work place and so on. It may not have attracted any media attention, yet the importance of their efforts cannot be underscored enough. Varta is happy to bring to light such hidden ‘stars’ and focus on endeavours that generate hope for a better present and future.

Ponnayā – an identity makeover movement in Sri Lanka

Insight, Mar '16

Damith Chandimal believes in reclaiming ‘Ponnayā’, a derogatory term for feminine men and homosexuals in Sinhalese, as a self-reaffirming identity, not just in relation to one’s sexuality but also in questioning ethnic, religious and caste rigidities. Excerpts follow from an article he wrote recently (with editorial support from Kenneth Gunasekera): Giving up Sinhala Identity and Proudly Embracing Ponnayā as a Self-identity.

What does it mean exactly to give up an ethnic identity? Is it possible to erase one’s ethnic identity? Though it may not be possible to erase one’s ethnic roots, giving up identity could be a political decision and a political statement. Furthermore one does not have a singular identity, but multiple identities, all of which are socially constructed. It is easier to define ourselves within frameworks of these existing identities, especially within identities that are assigned at birth such as gender, ethnicity, caste, and so on. But deviating from, refusing to accept assigned identities, or even criticizing these identities is usually punished, stigmatized and discriminated against in our societies.

Buddhist monks clash with military and police officers at a protest held in
front of Homagama Court against the arrest of Gnanasero Thero, General
Secretary of Bodu Balu Sena, an extremist Buddhist organization.
Photo credit: Eshan Fernando 

Twist in Section 377 saga!

My Story, Feb '16

Vivek Divan on his mood swings as the Honourable Supreme Court of India decided not to reject the curative petitions against its December 2013 verdict on Section 377, Indian Penal Code and referred them to a Constitution Bench for possible reconsideration

At a gathering of queer people and allies at the Academy of Fine Arts,
Kolkata on February 1, 2016 evening. Photo credit: Pawan Dhall

I’ve become a poor predictor of these things. As one of the core team at Lawyers Collective who strategized and filed the Naz Foundation (India) Trust’s petition against Section 377 in 2001, I was full of optimism about its outcome then though I knew it would take a while. I got more pessimistic as time passed and the case went through the quirks of the justice system. But lo and behold! We got a great bench of judges in the Delhi High Court in 2008, and won. When the judgment was appealed to the Supreme Court of India, I was convinced we couldn’t lose given the great praise that was heaped on the Delhi High Court judgment by law schools and legal experts in India and around the world. And, even after witnessing the way in which the Supreme Court heard the case in 2012 (gingerly, with evident discomfort) I couldn’t imagine we would lose; the Delhi High Court judgment might be watered down, but we would remain decriminalised, I thought. After all, apart from the celebrated High Court ruling we also had a very strong legal case, a government that had no objection to the decision, and a bunch of opponents who had religious bigotry, and arguments based on hypocritical morality and bogus ‘data’ on their side, but little in terms of legal arguments. And, of course, we lost.

A letter from queer India, supporters and allies

Happenings, Jan '16 (Update 1)

'377 No Going Back' campaign is organizing vigils across the country ahead of February 2, 2016, the day the Honourable Supreme Court of India is likely to hear the curative petition in the matter of Section 377, Indian Penal Code

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuWzkzmLyro

Dear Reader

A court does not confer Fundamental Rights; it confirms their existence. The right to dignity, liberty and equality is ours, as per the Constitution of India. But a law that is currently in our statute books prevents its citizens, in particular lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Indians, from realising these rights.

Queer, Dalit and questioning

Insight, Jan '16
By Dhrubo Jyoti

The author at the '14th Kolkata Rainbow
Pride Walk', December 13, 2015
Photo credit: Pawan Dhall

When Bahujan intellectual Kancha Ilaiah inaugurated the ‘1st Telengana Queer Swabhimana Walk’ last February, little did anyone know that it would spark a deluge of assertion of Dalit identities in queer spaces across the country. The well-known writer’s presence was part of the organiser’s conscious push to reach out to as many struggles and movements across the region – as a result, Dalit and Bahujan contingents marched in the pride walk. Later in July, Dalit feminist author Gogu Shyamala inaugurated Hyderabad’s queer carnival and expressed solidarity with the struggles of LGBTQIA people (an umbrella term for queer communities or people with non-normative genders and sexualities).

Common cause, kiss of freedom in Kolkata pride!

Insight, Clickhappy! Dec '15
By Prosenjit Pal and Pawan Dhall

Photo credits: Prosenjit Pal, unless mentioned otherwise

The ‘14th Kolkata Rainbow Pride Walk’ on December 13, 2015 was many things for many people – an expression of not just queer pride but also solidarity with diverse social causes. Demanding intolerance for social exclusion of any kind, it broke new ground with participation by many youth and student groups and a ‘Hok Chumban’ / ‘Kiss of Love’ campaign at the end to protest moral policing anywhere and everywhere. While the walk route took Pawan Dhall down memory lane to 1999 (the year of the ‘1st Kolkata Rainbow Pride Walk’), Prosenjit Pal celebrated his very first queer pride walk in his home town with camera in hand.

Walking with pride! Walking for equality, love, solidarity!

Happenings, Nov '15 (update 1)

The 14th edition of the 'Kolkata Rainbow Pride Walk', the oldest of its kind in South Asia, is planned for December 13, 2015. Excerpts from a leaflet developed by the organizers of the walk shared here

Backdrop

The movement for equal rights for people of diverse genders, gender expressions and sexual identities has seen some very contrasting developments in the past couple of years in India. The historic judgment by the Delhi High Court on 2 July 2009 held that treating consensual sex of any kind, including homosexual sex, between adults as a crime is a violation of the Fundamental Rights protected by India's Constitution. The verdict resulted in the decriminalisation of homosexual acts involving consenting adults in the jurisdiction of the Delhi High court. This verdict was later overturned by the Supreme Court of India on 11 December 2013, with the Court holding that amending or repealing Section 377 should be a matter left to Parliament, not the judiciary. The legal battle for equal rights of all citizens immaterial to their sexual orientation or gender identity suffered a definite setback with the judgment. Nevertheless the voices against such discrimination became stronger than ever. The same apex court, in the National Legal Services Authority Vs. Union of India and Others case, delivered a landmark judgment affirming that the Fundamental Rights granted under the Constitution of India would be equally applicable to transgender people, and gave every citizen the right to self-identification of their gender as male, female or third gender.

Star quest: Bisexual, bipolar and happy

Clickhappy! Star Quest, Nov '15

By Kaustav Manna

Star of the month: Sudeshna Basak aka Rupsha
(all photographs provided by Rupsha) 

The third (October 2013) and fourth (November 2013) issues of Varta carried a column called Star Quest, a series of photo-stories of individuals who may not be public figures like politicians, artistes, social activists or media persons, but have in their own way contributed to social equity and empowerment around gender, sexuality and related issues. For a variety of reasons, including priority given to other interview and photography based columns, Star Quest was discontinued. With the previous (October 2015) issue of Varta, we revived the column to continue sharing innumerable untold stories twinkling with inspiration!

The contribution of the ‘stars’ we zoom in on may be in an intimate arena – among friends and neighbours, their local community, a village or slum school, their own work place and so on. It may not have attracted any media attention, yet the importance of their efforts cannot be underscored enough. Varta is happy to bring to light such hidden ‘stars’ and focus on endeavours that generate hope for a better present and future.

‘O ma, how queer!’

Vartanama, Oct '15
By Pawan Dhall

Goddess Durga as Ardhanarishvara in a puja
organized by trans women in Kolkata
Photo credit: Pawan Dhall

It is queer when more than a dozen social researchers from different South Asian countries have to travel to Bangkok in Thailand to train for a study to be carried out in South Asia. More so when the focus of the study is on sections of society that often identify as ‘queer’ (a term that signifies a non-normative gender or sexuality). Well, yours truly was one among the researchers and so this editorial was inevitable!

Ifs and dos and don’ts for the queer in 76 countries

Poetry, Oct '13
By Rajib Chakrabarti

Learn the art of concealing

the thrill that you feel deep within.

If you fall in love

don’t let it so soften you

that the inevitable hurt becomes unbearable.

Star quest: Straight from a queer positive heart!

Clickhappy! Star Quest, Oct '15

By Kaustav Manna

Star of the month: Arunabha Hazra (all
photographs provided by Arunabha
unless otherwise mentioned)

The third (October 2013) and fourth (November 2013) issues of Varta carried a column called Star Quest, a series of photo-stories of individuals who may not be public figures like politicians, artistes, social activists or media persons, but have in their own way contributed to social equity and empowerment around gender, sexuality and related issues. For a variety of reasons, including priority given to other interview and photography based columns, Star Quest was discontinued. With this issue of Varta, we seek to revive the column and continue sharing innumerable untold stories twinkling with inspiration!

The contribution of the ‘stars’ we zoom in on may be in an intimate arena – among friends and neighbours, their local community, a village or slum school, their own work place and so on. It may not have attracted any media attention, yet the importance of their efforts cannot be underscored enough. Varta is happy to bring to light such hidden ‘stars’ and focus on endeavours that generate hope for a better present and future.

Living on the edge

Vartanama, Sep '15
By Pawan Dhall

Who would have thought that an airport security check would have been the most adrenaline- generating moment on a recent trip to wondrous Manipur? The purpose of the trip was to interact with mental health professionals on issues concerning lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities in a seminar. While there was a good exchange of ideas and experience during the post-event networking and it was heartening to see queer concerns gaining currency among mental health professionals and researchers in the state, there were no pointed questions or clarifications sought in the seminar itself. It could have been the auditorium acoustics, political correctness or my presentation was just not invigorating enough. But one was left wanting for greater engagement on the matter, especially when queer individuals across India continue to report negative encounters with mental health professionals.

Qatha: Brother queer brother (part 2)

People, Sep '15
By Pawan Dhall and Soma Roy Karmakar

All photographs from the family albums of Sanjib Chakraborty
(in the picture) and Rajib Chakrabarti

Varta brings you the ‘Queer Kolkata Oral History Project’, an initiative to document five decades of queer lives in Kolkata (1960-2000). Our aim in this project is to go back in time and bring forward diverse queer voices through a series of interviews, which will provide a landmark to Kolkata city's queer history. Typically, the focus will be on the queer scenario in Kolkata during the growing up years of each interviewee – how it was to be queer in Kolkata in different decades since the 1960s till more recent times. The effort will be to bring forward a mix of the well known and the lesser known voices. Apart from the excerpts published here, the project also aims to publish a collection of the interviews in different formats. All interviews are based on informed consent and where requested, all markers of identity have been removed for reasons of confidentiality.

This issue brings you the second and final part of an interview with Rajib Chakrabarti, a teacher, 46 years old and a resident of Kolkata, and his brother Sanjib Chakraborty, 42, a health worker and queer activist based in Guwahati. In the first part of the interview (published in the August 2015 issue of Varta), they talked about the difficult times and small pleasures of life that saw them through to self-discovery, self-acceptance and discovering each other as gay persons. In this part, they talk about coming out to their mother and sister, connecting with queer support forums in Kolkata, and their vision for the future.

To CC with love!

From the Archives, Aug '15
If Counsel Club were functioning today, it might have celebrated its 22nd birthday party this August 15. Pawan Dhall, one of the founder members, rummages through Counsel Club’s archival material and jogs his memory to look back at some of the ‘CC birthday parties’ through the 1990s and early 2000s. These series of articles intend to create an archive of the queer movement in Bengal and India – not a chronological narrative of the movement, rather anecdotal histories capturing the little voices that are often lost in general historical accounts – voices from thousands of letters received by Counsel Club, one of India’s earliest queer support groups (1993-2002), and from the group’s house journal Naya Pravartak.

Counsel Club logo

Ice cream, junk food and antakshari were the highlights and delights for around five Counsel Club members, who braved the rains and slush at Vivekananda Park in South Kolkata, to celebrate the group’s first birthday on August 15, 1994. This is from what I remember, as I did not find any reports or photographs of the occasion in the Counsel Club archives with me. But by the time the group turned two, its documentation had improved. The May to December 1995 issue of Naya Pravartak reported: “When only 11 of the invited 20 turned up for CC’s birthday party on September 3, it appeared that the event would be a damp squib . . . The party should have been on August 15, but had to be postponed for a number of reasons. Anyway, the merry-making by the 11 present surpassed all expectations. Games, discussions (even on that day!), singing, dancing and even a ‘gay quiz’ sent the hours flying.”

Pride in Chandannagar

Clickhappy! Jul '15

Prosenjit Pal photo-recorded his pride walk debut at Chandannagar’s third rainbow pride parade on June 26, 2015

At the starting point on Strand Road, Chandannagar

Calm goes queer in Shillong

Happenings, Jun '15
Rebina Subba reports on the queer happenings at the ‘4th Shillong Creative Arts Literature & Music Festival’ held from May 13-16, 2015

Shillong, May 17, 2015: The ‘4th Shillong Creative Arts Literature & Music Festival’ that concluded at the State Central Library here yesterday broke new ground by including issues of HIV, substance abuse and diversity in gender and sexuality. An entire day on May 15 was devoted to the literary, legal and activist dimensions of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer people in India.

Pride and angst in Chennai

My Story, Jun '15

The Chennai pride march, now in its 7th year, is headed towards a wider social horizon, writes moulee

Photo credit: moulee

It all started with a single tweet. In early 2013, I tweeted criticising the politics between the queer groups in Chennai. The following week I was in the pride planning meet, discussing how to organise that year's pride parade. The Chennai pride parade (which started in 2009) was then organised by the Chennai Rainbow Coalition (CRC) – an informal collective under which all the organisations, groups and collectives that worked for queer rights in the city gathered.

‘North East Pride 2015’

Clickhappy! Mar '15
A photo-report by Pawan Dhall

Guwahati witnessed a colourful and energetic ‘North East Pride 2015’ on February 15, 2015, which attracted around 200 participants from all north-eastern states and other parts of India. Commencing at Dighalipukuri, the second queer pride walk hosted by the city in two years merrily made its way to the end point at Guwahati Club Rotary Point. Apart from the usual revelry of music, dance, slogans, rainbow flags and banners that mark most pride walks, poetry reading sessions, display of posters with sketches, and rousing speeches by human rights activists calling for an end to gender injustice of all kinds made the event – to quote from the event’s invitational material – very much a “people’s pride”.