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Special Feature: Latin America: The Last Avant-Garde |
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Number 12: (In)efficacy |
| Performing
Resistance: Queer Art, Artists and Activism in Kolkata |
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| The body of research surrounding sexuality and gender studies in South Asia has continued to focus on interpreting the cultural productions of cinema and fiction and non-fiction narratives, often leading to the marginalization of other artistic endeavors including theater and performance art. With the thriving movie industry of Mumbai and the growing international attention to literary works emerging from India, researchers often overlook other significant artistic production that, while less popular or economically viable, frequently serves as a vehicle for social change. Previous work on the queer community in India falls into a number of different categories—narratives, historical and mythological positioning, political struggles and movements, and cinematic and artistic representations. The emerging queer narratives in the form of anthologies (Ratti 1993, Sukthankar 1999) recount “coming out,” portray familial pressures and societal constraints and ultimately give a broader understanding of the personal and internal struggle that members of the community endure. Research in the fields of historical and mythological references (Vanita and Kidwai 2001, Thandini 1997) explores incidences of same-sex love throughout India. These authors trace mortal and divine same-sex relationships through Indian literature and scriptures to enlighten mainstream Indian society about its own erotic past in hopes of diminishing contemporary stereotypes associated with same-sex love. These books, however, have been largely confined to the academic domain and have failed to reach the broader audiences. Political and social movements and histories have been recorded in works including Queer: Despised Sexuality, Law and Social Change (Narrain 2004), Humjinsi: A Recourse Book for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Rights in India (Fernandez 2002) and Because I have a Voice (Narrain and Bham 2005). These books collectively recall the social restraints facing the queer communities, with a particular focus on how law and the legal system inherently oppose sexual diversity and hinder open discussions of sexuality. Notable endeavors in cinematic and art historical research also discuss India’s queer community. Deepa Mehta’s 1997 film “Fire” depicts the intimate relationship between two married women, while Onir’s 2005 film “My Brother Nikhil” portrays the difficult situation of a gay man “coming out” to his parents about his sexuality and his HIV positive status. Other research on the emergence of queer art has been focused on the openly gay artist Bhuphen Khakar (Devy 2001, Panikkar 2004) and his attempt to “normalize” homosexuality through art. While such works uncover the hidden angst of this ignored community and increase the awareness of its existence, the research encompassing queer performance art and theatrical productions remains derisory. This paper will link the separate strands of contemporary Indian performance art and queer politics by first analyzing previous political activism in both art and alternative sexualities, with specific focus on the historical heart of colonial Indian art, Kolkata. Understanding past political positioning of art in India, as well as the legal issues of the queer community and the laws that directly affect them, gives insight into the contemporary identity and politics surrounding the community and its relation to art. Grasping these political ideologies of the queer community in Kolkata is integral in comprehending the community’s structure and its artistic goals. The paper will then analyze two major plays by Kolkata-based performance group Sapphire Creations Dance company, The Alien Flower (1996), India’s first full-length ballet on homosexual love and Positive Lives (2004), a performance utilizing wide varieties of dances styles against the backdrop of photographs and narratives of HIV positive patients. The analysis of these performances suggests how the queer movement has developed more nuanced techniques for activism; in particular, how it uses performative resistance to educate the audience about the community’s views on sexuality and stereotypes and how they battle against keeping sexual identities hidden under the blanket of staunch heteronormativity and strict sexual policing in Indian society. Kolkata has a long history of intersections between culture and political activism, and provides an interesting starting point for examining artistic activism in a queer context. An integral player in the anti-colonial movements against the British, Kolkata’s national movement in British India began in the 1890’s and employed art as a means to recreate its vision of a purely Indian identity in a colonial environment. As the first capital of British India and the birthplace of the Indian national flag,[1] Kolkata was the prime place to “recover and rebuild a taste for ‘art.’”[2] This recreation of an artistic identity was essential to Kolkata’s aspirations for self-improvement, modernization and leadership.[3] In 1889, the establishment of the Calcutta School of Art, whose art is known as the Bengali School, became the center for this emerging Indian identity. Established by EB Havell, the British principal of the school, and AK Coomaraswamy, the school encouraged young artists to create a more nuanced Indian aesthetic and refrain from mimicking modernist works of Western artists such as Picasso and Gauguin. The Bengali School of Art taught what scholar Tapati Guha-Tarkurta calls a “new Orientalism”[4] in painting. Striving to reject the idea of Western art practices in Indian institutions, this artistic revival carved a space for “high art” in India and reclaimed the lost “Indian style,” which was regarded as a highly aesthetic portrayal of spirituality. Havell pioneered this “Indian defense” aimed at restoring the spirituality and idealism lost from Indian art during the colonial period.[5] Yet the Bengali School’s construction of a new artistic Indian identity raises many questions about the ultimate influence of the West in postcolonial India. As a British art critic and teacher, Havell held a powerful and privileged position, helping to construct the Indian art school and guiding Bengali artists in their creation of an Indian identity. Furthermore, the very idea of “high art” and “new Orientalism” are distinct results of Western influence on Indian art theory. Therefore, even though Havell tried to reject Western artistic traits, his notions of Indian art, in the end, were heavily influenced and defined by his Western training. Because of this, Havell influenced how Indian identity would be characterized and portrayed, with lasting results in the Bengali School. Guha-Thakurta has suggested that by 1910 the “new Orientalist” discourse “was not only reasserting the glorious past of Indian art, but also attributing it with a present-day ‘national’ identity.”[6] The success of this movement remains contestable, however, as the new “modernist” artists, including Amrita Sher-Gil and the Bombay Progressives,[7] rejected this idealism in Indian art in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Yet despite evident debates around generalized characteristics of “Indian” and “Western” art, the fact that Kolkata used art to create a new Indian identity is important to its identity as a socially charged environment. This environment is still alive today through the lasting efforts of Kolkata-born political activist and poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), who established Shantiniketan in 1921, in an attempt to give Indian students a broader education with an increased social awareness. Just as the national movement in Kolkata during the early 1900’s battled to establish an “exclusive space for ‘high art’”[8] and a new identity for India, the queer movement also employs the idea of art as a form of protest to counteract the opposing mainstream views on sexuality. In Kolkata, specifically, this movement against conventional views on sexuality and HIV positive stereotypes engages with non-normative methods of resistance. While resistance suggests protests, violence, or underground movements of political and social opposition, alternate forms of resistance, such as those utilized by Kolkata performance artists, use the body and its expressions as a medium to contest social ideologies. This method of opposition, which will be referred to as performative resistance, provides for a springboard to discuss the body and stage as complementary spaces to convey dissension. Performative resistance refers to the idea that activists display their disagreement with mainstream ideologies to a specific audience through bodily actions and movements. These body movements are intended to open up a platform for discussion, convey an opinion or respond to the issues surrounding these ideologies. While they can be as small as hand and eye movements, they may also take the form of choreographed actions and full-length performances. The actual site of resistance is a complex convergence between the body of the performer and the space and locality of the stage: relative micro- and macro- spaces that feed into and contextualize one another. The movements and intentions of the body/bodies legitimate the stage as a performative space and can transform its “blank slate” into one with an inherent political charge. In tandem, the authority of the stage as a cultural center commands the audiences’ attention, thus activating the body. This union of the body as an object to express resistance and the stage as the site where resistance is expressed is important for understanding how these performances in Kolkata are organized and created. Given the circular nature of this relationship, the body and stage can move from serving purely as vessels for the expression of political ideas to being proactive sites with specific agendas for combating political and social ideologies. The Kolkata queer movement uses performative resistance to corporeally convey its opposition to mainstream ideologies through the performances of the Sapphire Creations dance company. Founded in 1992 by choreographer Sudarshan Chakraborty, the Kolkata-based group aims to “integrate an awareness of tradition in dance…[they] have an urge to entertain and a purpose to provoke consciousness.”[9] Compared to the more classical performances seen in Kolkata, the dance company creates unusual, theatrically unique pieces. Using fusions of music, poetry and prose as soundtracks for the performances, the group combines various dance forms such as ballet, hip-hop, Bhangra, classical Indian Bharatnatyam and jazz. Their radical nature appears most notably when they perform acts that are unspoken taboos of Indian society, such as having two men engage in an open-mouthed kiss on stage. Chakraborty further comments that “I feel that sexuality and sex is a basic aspect of our existence, and if we cannot question it, the right, the wrong, the truth…. lots of things will remain in the dark. I feel that in India, everything is hush hush. If the artist community does not bring out these issues which are wrapped under a blanket, who else will?”[10] Understanding the politics behind the queer movement helps to uncover the reasons artistic activism remains one of the main avenues the community employs. The state of homosexuality in India still remains under political attack and social scrutiny. The last decade of the 20th century saw the emergence of a political assertion against the private realm of sexuality that has targeted sexual “deviation” in India. This sexual deviation now targets the “queer” community in India and focuses on the policing of private sexualities of citizens, creating an air anxiety among queer communities.[11] The history and politics behind Indian law and the movement lend themselves to a more specific understanding of the community’s contemporary position. Just as British cultural perceptions had an extensive influence on the role of art in Indian society and the way art reflects Indian identity, the same influence is visible in jurisprudence. The long-lasting influence of British colonial views on sexuality, reverberating primarily through penal codes, has greatly impacted the political and social mobility of the Indian queer movement. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code laid the foundation for the community’s fight against heteronormativity. Formulated as part of the Indian Penal Code in 1861, Section 377 states “any carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal shall be punished with a fine, a 10 year sentence or imprisonment for life.”[12] The law reflected the patriarchal morality of Victorian England, which condemned oral and anal sex.[13] This section, however, is rarely used to prosecute cases of consensual heterosexual sex, but rather, is used to attack, harass and extort money from men who have sex with men (MSM’s) and hijras (transvestites). The Delhi Times writer Jyoti Sharma, uncovering the ramifications of this section, writes “[it] has been used to persecute [the gay] community…threats have been used by the police and the goons to extort money from the gay community.”[14] Section 377 has been a catalyst in the queer movement, propelling activist groups to organize around a common thread of injustice: to decriminalize consensual adult sexual activity of any nature. It additionally restricts discussions around sexual identity, sexuality and homosexuality and increases the anxiety around activist movements. Shaleen Rakesh of The Times of India writes that Section 377 “makes criminals out of innocent men and boys. It hits at their self-esteem, erodes their self-confidence and mocks their personal identity.”[15] While the law was repealed in Britain in 1967, it is still strongly enforced in parts of India. For five years NGO’s, non-profit and queer organizations prepared a lawsuit against this law for the Delhi High court. Yet in September 2001, the Delhi High Court dismissed their plea to revoke Section 377 and the offenses of “unnatural sex.”[16] This national engagement with Section 377 is contemporary India’s ongoing link with its heteronormative colonial past. While Section 377 affects all parts of India, the development of the queer movement in Kolkata is unique and reflects more progress than other parts of the country. 1999 ushered the official “coming out” of the public gay movement in Kolkata when the Integration Society held a “Friendship Walk,” quickly renamed to the “gay pride march” the following year.[17] Led by Rafiquel Haque Dowjah, secretary of the Integration Society, an organization created to educate Indian society about homosexuality, it began as a silent march in which fifty gay men walked through the market streets of Kolkata handing out flowers to onlookers.[18] Sparking media curiosity, it garnered international recognition, making Integration Society a leader in the Indian queer movement. In response to the increase in participants and international press, the Integration Society changed the name of the celebration from the “gay pride march” to Kolkata’s “Rainbow Festival.” One explanation for Kolkata's major successes may stem from colonial Indian ideas of masculinity and femininity and their links with contemporary sexuality. Bengali men were often seen as the "feminine men" of India.[19] Thomas Babington Macaulay, an Indian Law Member in the 1830’s, commented, “the physical organization of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy…his limbs [are] delicate…during many ages he has been trampled upon by men of bolder and more hardy breeds.”[20] While masculinity during colonial times was often linked with property and land ownership, the British used corporeal descriptions of the Bengali men as further evidence of their femininity. While there was an increase in the number of Bengali gymnasiums during the 1890's (an attempt to meet the standard of physical masculinity imposed by the British), the British were convinced of Bengali men's effeminacy and noted their "feebleness" as a justification for colonization. Bengali men were therefore exempted from joining stereotypical "masculine" institutions, such as the army.[21] Ironically, perhaps the reason for a higher level of acceptance of alternative sexualities today is the reverse effect of gender stereotyping. With a history of being judged as effeminate, Bengali men (more specifically the upper class Bengali men involved in the queer movement) have used the tolerance towards effeminacy to help the gay cause. While there is undoubtedly still a reaction to the stereotype of effeminacy in parts of Bengal, activist circles and parts of government hold a more relaxed attitude towards sexuality and do not link “typical” representations of manhood with specific ideas, allowing alternative sexualities the space to flourish and not be condemned. For example, in Kolkata, Section 377, while still protested, is not fully enforced. Pawan Dahl, director of the Integration Society, commented, “Section 377 does not block the gay movement from moving forward. We have not had as many arrests, police brutality or hate crimes that we know of, compared to Delhi.”[22] It is necessary to discuss the progress of queer movement in Kolkata, especially the march, as having a foundation in Western activism. The westernization of these queer activist movements in India raises an interesting discussion surrounding globalization of queer movements. Craig Johnston explores this idea in his paper “Social impact assessment of gay hallmark events: the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.” According to Johnston pride marches “were created by gay activists as part of the repertoire of the contemporary gay movements…they are moments for coming out…they provide opportunities for cultural expression, both in the parades and their associated arts festivals.”[23] Johnston asserts, however, that there remains a disjuncture for pride marches in developing nations because they not only negotiate queer identities but also cultural identities within the realm of their communities.[24] Therefore, while this increase in pride marches in developing countries, such as India, suggests an infusion of Western activist techniques, there still remains a disconnect in how pride marches are used and performed in specific countries. Kolkata’s gay pride march successfully combined Indian cultural history with the current Western ideas of queer activism. Confidently stepping through crowded streets and promptly stopping traffic, they combine Gandhian principles of peaceful resistance with the Western idea of a march. The march forces a public acknowledgement of these alternative sexualities, but doesn’t mimic the “march” and protest style of loud music, provocative slogans and political posters such as those seen in gay pride marches of the West. Disobeying traffic signals, silently demanding attention, forced recognition of the existence and humanity of queer communities in Kolkata. The openness of the public setting and the timing of the march were integral for its success. Because the laws against homosexual activities force many to conceal their sexual identities, the group utilized the most public part of the city, the downtown streets, to reveal their sexuality. In the crowded afternoon streets, they approached the opposition in a vulnerable state when they could have been quickly assaulted. Through the simple gesture of handing out flowers during the march, they conveyed nonviolent principles of loving their “opponents” and essentially created a hybrid form of queer activism drawing upon both western and Indian traditions. While the pride marches offer a public space of resistance, theater and performance both become another activist outlet to educate a broader population that is often times unaware of the movement. The development of the Sapphire Creations dance company reflects the increasing confidence of the queer movement in Kolkata. In Kolkata “[the] dance troupe helped set the stage for a very vocal and loud activist movement,” Chakravorty says. “We’re not shy at all. We want people to know about our community and we’re not afraid of the consequences.”[25] The company was founded to decrease social taboos surrounding the discussion of sexuality and homosexual stereotypes and often found themselves entangled in the tensions of homophobic Indian society and apprehensive crowds. Angry protesters ripped down the posters for the their first ballet piece with a homosexual theme, The Alien Flower, and insisted that Sapphire take down their “provocative” banner whose headline read “celebrate your sexuality.” The ballet recalled the story of a misunderstood gay man forced to seek psychiatric help because of his lifestyle. Based on English poems written by authors Sanjoy Vasa and Pakesh Ratti, the ballet reproduces these descriptions of same sex-love on stage amidst the reciting of poetry. India Today columnist Ruben Banerjee’s review of the play noted that, “it deals with the prejudice facing homosexuals, [and] it also holds out the hope of a more humane understanding of their sexual orientation.”[26] Divided into four main scenes, the ballet goes through the birth and isolation of the gay child, his marriage search and longing for a partner, his rejection by society and ultimate death. The continuous theme of the play remains the protagonist’s internal strife and battle against himself and society for acceptance of homosexuality. In one scene, for example, a group surrounds the gay protagonist and throws a rope around his neck. Dressed in black and red, the protagonist struggles to free himself. The leader of the group, wearing a black mask, stands above the protagonist on a pedestal to throw the rope around his neck; his knees buckle and he falls to the ground while the group jeers him. As his body convulses erratically and jerks sporadically in all directions, the scene implies the loss of corporeal control for the protagonist; the group members, however, have controlled and rhythmic choreographed moves that are performed with detailed hand gestures, fist punches and kicks. The protagonist is eventually forced into submission. The obvious message is that society controls the way the homosexual acts and survives in society—he is forced into obedience. This act of struggling against the noose and refusing to be tied down exemplifies the idea of performative resistance. In an excerpt of the ballet, the protagonist asks, “mummy keeps her jewels in a box full of dreams…father waits for the day I bring a crimson bride…every chapter of my life written by their hands…I reach for the pen, will they understand?”[27] While society has explicitly conveyed its stance on homosexuality in the play and forbidden the homosexual to exist peacefully, familial pressure and opposition compound the protagonist’s struggle. The impossibility of the protagonist bringing home a crimson bride and playing the part written by his parents is obvious in his gestures during this scene: holding his head in his hands, he fears his own reality and twists and shudders as if trying to escape his own existence. This poetic verse insinuates that larger and wider social acceptance of homosexuality will not exist without familial support. Suggesting that acceptance starts on the individual level, the play pleads for audience members and broader society to see homosexuals as normal. The finale focuses on the cycle of rebirth and impossibility of obliterating homosexuality from society. It is an imaginative sequence in which the group holds a long scarf and surrounds the protagonist with livid facial expressions and angry bodily gestures in which they throw their chests forward and kick in the direction of the protagonist. After he has been strangled, his body is still only for a moment, because the noose transforms itself into a cradle; he becomes a newborn child being supported, nurtured and loved. In this way, the performance ties ideas of reincarnation to homosexuality; no matter how much society will try to control and constrain sexual identities, they will still re-emerge. Attempting to educate mainstream Kolkata that homosexuals should be seen as humans and not as sexual deviants, the choreographer wanted to show the cycle of life and death and humanize the lives of the homosexual population, rather than keep them in the stereotype of “abnormal creatures.” Elucidating the experiences of the queer community through performance, the company conveyed the helplessness, constraint mockery and hatred endured by members of an ostracized community. The dance company tried to further break social labels attached to homosexuality and queer life in their 2004 dance performance Positive Lives, inspired by real-life experiences, anecdotes and case histories of people living with HIV. Set against the background of Ranjit Sinha’s photographs of HIV positive people, the performance employs numerous styles of dance from Bharatnatyam to Bhangra and hip-hop to modern dance while highlighting the courage and strength of people living with HIV. The group thus sought to counter stereotypes of HIV associated with the queer community. Organized into five main scenes, Positive Lives begins by posing the initial question of how to live with HIV. It explores the manifestation of HIV in the form of a mask—an uneven, scaly second skin on the face of the performers. The performers timidly engage and dance around each other in a slower, almost balletic performance. Gaining the courage to approach one another and slowly peel off the mask with wide-eyed curiosity, the scene ends with a more powerful and erratic dance sequence with confident gestures and jumps that mirror their newfound strength to live with HIV. In another scene, a vertical screen descends and divides the stage into two separate rooms, each with one dancer. Reflecting the lack of communication about HIV, the dancers try to break down this barrier. Even though this black screen separates the dancers, their movements compliment each other as they rhythmically turn, twist and jump in synchrony. The two meet in rhythmic glory as they leap towards each other when the barrier is destroyed via constant thrashings and violent gestures, and the screen is lifted. In addition, this act of performative resistance opposes the idea of living a silent and solitary life with HIV; the scene suggests the need for an open discourse for people to discuss and learn about HIV and support each other. The next scene, featuring a lone female dancer, explores the pain of the HIV positive mother who experiences both the joys of motherhood and the stigma and agony of bringing another infected body into the world. Using a red cloth, symbolic of blood, fertility and life, to join the mother and the fetus, the dancer enacts this scene with actions and movements above the stage. Entangled in this red cloth, tied from either end of the stage and the ceiling, she falls down in twirling movements and climbs back up the cloth. Dressed in black, she is entangled in the cloth that hinders her movements. This symbolically conveys how she is struggling to love her fetus, but at the same time is fearful of its mere existence. Its final scene reverberates with a sense of purpose as the dancers solemnly march forward from the back of the stage with intensity in their eyes, towards the audience. On stage, the performers circulate and share urns filled with water. In previous scenes, the urns were empty, yet in this final scene the urns overflow with water and the performers splash each other with the innocence of children. Implying a rebirth through this use of water as a symbol of life, the performers then descend into the audience and ritualistically offer water as a partaking of this new life. In Kolkata, HIV is most often associated with the gay community;[28] through a female portrayal of an HIV positive life, the performance forces audience members to recognize the wide range of people HIV affects. In addition, Positive Lives suggests the universal vulnerability to HIV; not necessarily a “gay” disease, it suggests that the heterosexual community is also at risk. While the bodily gestures and dance actions are integral to the thematic importance of the performances, the employment of constraining objects also becomes a curious investigation into its deeper meanings. The constant presence of restrictive objects, such as rope, cloth and separators reflects societal stereotypes homosexuals and HIV positive people are forced to endure. As the rope becomes the way to control and overpower homosexuality, red cloth is also used to compound the ideas of control and restraint in the performances. In Positive Lives the red cloth becomes a symbol of the connection between mother and child, of life and support, yet at the same time it pulls the expectant mother in different directions, forcing her to climb, straddle and dance around it. Instead of a constant support system, even the life force acts as a restrictive agent on oppressed communities. Gender theorist Judith Halberstam examines the idea of queer space in her most recent book In A Queer Time and Space. Analyzing spaces where the queer body regains identity and stages itself as an oppositional force to the mainstream, she writes “queer space refers to the place-making practices within postmodernism in which queer people engage…it describes the new understanding of space enabled by the production of queer counterpublics.”[29] This suggests not only a space for queers, but also a space where the queer body “performs.” Through the manipulation of a queer space, queer bodies can create oppositional spaces or what Halberstam labels “geographies of resistance.”[30] Halberstam’s ideas of queer communities using spaces and places as a means of resistance parallels the way in which queer communities in Kolkata use mainstream space, such as a theater, to rethink representation. The theatrical performances are not only activist in theme—they also convert spaces historically attached to acceptable aesthetics and employ them as spaces for education about pertinent social issues. Transforming the theater into a space for queer activism and taking advantage of a cultural platform highly respected in Kolkata, these performers push populations to acknowledge the queer movement not only in extreme and defiant situations such as pride marches, but also in more subtle and nuanced forms that can be called theatrical activism. Yet vital questions should be raised here when discussing the importance of theater spaces: what kind of audience do these plays reach and what kind of impact are they actually having on the queer situation in Kolkata? Unlike the 1999-style march that is conducive to raising awareness among the unaware and general population, theater and other “attended” events are conducive to maintaining and deepening awareness among those already sensitive to the issue though perhaps unaware of the specifics of the movement. While the company aimed to reach broader audiences, performing on stages in proper theaters already narrows the audience. Upper-middle class communities have the luxury and privilege to go to the theater, while communities in struggling lower socio-economic standing lack the resources to provide for their families as well as take them to theatrical events. Additionally, because the performances use English as their medium of communication, how much of the Indian population does this exclude? The illiterate and non-English-speaking communities are unfortunately also left out of being able to watch and understand the narratives of the performances. An area still under-researched is the impact of theater performances outside the spaces of conventional theater, such as vernacular street theater, and the efficacy of these performances in combating these same stigmas and stereotypes and reaching homeless and/or lower socio-economic communities. Sapphire productions, however, feels confident in its Bengali impact. India Today reported that the company felt emboldened by the new consciousness sweeping Bengal, where gays and lesbians have begun to find greater acceptance.[31] Kolkata is witnessing a sudden dynamic burst of activity among the gay population; in 2003, when Kolkata’s gay pride march reached 100 participants, “the state government, which would have normally frowned on such events, gave them unprecedented police protection.”[32] Yet the obstacles encountered by the dance company reinforce the fact that India still remains sexually conservative and homophobic in many ways. The increased reactions against these acts of “sexual defamation” from the Hindu right wing, such as the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) association, only fuel the activist fire. VHP party president Vishnu Hari Dalmiya commented “making homosexuality legal will be an attack on Indian society. For Hindus, this kind of behavior is not just against nature, it is against our culture.”[33] The VHP, an organization known for its infamous statement that “a cow’s life is more sacred than a human’s life,” has tried to ban homosexuality internationally. In 2000, the VHP protested against the British government’s repeal of Section 28 of their penal code, which stated homosexuality was an abnormality.[34] Gaining much notoriety for its destruction of M.F. Hussain’s nude drawings of Hindu goddesses, the VHP incited violent demonstrations of vandalization and destruction of his artwork. This anti-Hussain platform, according to Guha-Thakurta, further shows the kind of “terror, censorship and punitive action that sustains the cultural politics of the Hindu right that does not spare the average artist, citizen or celebrity.”[35] Yet in Kolkata, the queer movement has used the negative momentum from right-wing politics, such as the VHP, to increase their own political backing. Additionally, the absence of the VHP movement in Kolkata has helped the activist movement. The future of the movement will be difficult to predict because of the ever-shifting political and social atmosphere in India. It will be interesting to examine the fluid positive and negative relationships between Western and Indian attitudes towards sexuality, political expressions (such as marches) and art and its continual effect on queer activist techniques. Postcolonial India continuously struggles with new cultural paradigms resulting from globalization. The activist scene has also used these new paradigms, such as the importance of marches, to further its own cause. At this crucial moment when specific localities are tackling political and social issues in the public sphere, it is important to recognize how social change benefits from creative and imaginative pathways, and how aesthetic movements become more charged when they engage with social ideologies. Performance activism, therefore, will be integral for this change and development. Through theater, communities will have the opportunity to impact and to give a voice to often marginalized, stereotyped and minority communities.
Siddarth Puri is a graduate student in the department of Art History at UCLA. He has spent the last year working with hijra (eunuch) communities in India researching ritual performance, and performance art. His research focuses on the intersection of gender, sexuality and activism in contemporary Indian art.
Endnotes [1] Jyoti Puri, Encountering Nationalism
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 153. |