'Gays were the lower class' in India

It was around 1983-84, when I was the Bombay bureau chief of a

Ashok Row Kavi

national newsmagazine.

I gave an interview in which I came out. There was a hushed silence in the newsroom. Soon there was talk about me getting sacked. This is when Mr Shenoy and editor-in-chief KM Matthew stepped in, saying, “One can’t fire the man; he’s made it amply clear that he likes men.”

After a few years, I launched Bombay Dost in the late ’80s. Ironically, the main opposition to this incipient activism came not from straight quarters; it came from the gay community itself. For instance, the gay segment from the city’s corporate elite, featuring brown sahibs who frequent Bombay Gymkhana and such types, the upper middle classes with their ever-growing detachment from the nation’s core concerns, were opposed to queer activism. One of the arguments was, “Which policeman would dare catch people like us; it’ll take one phone call to the police headquarters to set matters straight.” This attitude exemplifies the queer paradox, where despite being so sequestered from the mainstream, it remains a microcosm of India and its worst qualities: a horribly divided society based on caste and class.

This historic judgement is thus a victory of the lower classes, of the poor, and oddly enough, of heterosexual liberalism. The poor and the petty bourgeoisie have had significant reason to fight against Section 377. It is they who need protection from police harassment most; it is they who need the canopy of a law that will protect them from the injustices that they are so prone to. It’s been a long battle, but there are larger battles to fight in the coming years.

(As told to Vishwas Kulkarni) See 'Gays were the lower class' Times of India