Arak Journal

Colonized Land, Colonized Culture: The Legacies of British Colonization in the Indian LGBTQ+ Community

By Disha Thakar

Growing up as an Indian American, I was exposed to the positive and negative sides of both my cultural identities. In the realm of Indian culture, specifically Hindu Indian culture, I saw how Hindu scriptures taught values of inclusivity and equality, but often these lessons did not appear to be implemented in daily life. While goddesses were worshipped, women were and are still treated unequally, and while Shiva was manifested in his female form of Shakti, the queer community was and is still stigmatized. As I grew older, I became more curious as to why such beliefs were held by my particular community because it was obvious that they were not teachings of Sanatan Dharma, or Hinduism. Watching American and other Western media, I saw that many Western individuals viewed India as a backwards, narrow-minded, and primitive nation that supposedly prays to cows, charms snakes, and has made little progress since its independence from the British in 1947. However, these same media outlets generally never shed light on Britain’s obvious influence on India’s positions on these different issues. It was this common oversight that prompted me to pursue the topic of British colonization’s influence on India’s modern-day perception of the LGBTQ+ community. Understanding exactly why such negative views are held currently is a large part in improving the existence of queer individuals in India.

In September 2018, the Indian Supreme Court overturned the colonial-era law, titled Section 377 of the Penal Code, and decriminalized same-sex relations, which, in turn, slightly improved the safety and wellbeing of India’s queer populations. This archaic act, established in 1861 during the colonial era, ruled that any individual voluntarily engaging in intercourse against the natural order” with a woman, man, or animal, is to be punished with imprisonment for life. However, discrimination and inequality persist against the LGBTQ+ community, both with same-sex couples unable to legally adopt and marry and with the continued prevalence of physical and sexual assault. The Hindi phrase Log kya kahenge,” which directly translates to What will people say,” perfectly reveals how and why the families of these queer individuals often do not accept their children and work to keep their child’s identity hidden. In modern times, it is this fear of the public’s perception that keeps families from embracing all aspects of their child. However, this rejection of fluidity does not stem from the hyper-social” and conservative” nature of Indian society, but the residual influence of Western colonialism. I argue that the ultimate origin for modern-day anti-LGBTQ+ mentalities is the arrival of British colonization in India, as queer identities flourished before the West’s forced entrance into the nation.

Precolonial India was largely Hindu, as it is now, and was free of heavily categorized and binary labels on gender and sexuality. In the article Wedding of Two Souls: Same-Sex Marriage and Hindu Traditions,” Vanita Ruth, an Indian academic, activist, and author, explains how homosexuality and romantic friendship flourished in ancient and medieval India in various forms” without history of persecution or intolerance (Ruth 2). She details how multiple historians have shown that India previously possessed positive perspectives towards sex and love, but these views were transformed rapidly in the colonial era (4). This fact is supported by the Hindu scriptures themselves, which include sexually and gender-fluid gods and zero mention of homosexuality being immoral or wrong. For example, the very existence and respect for the Goddess Mohini, a female incarnate of the God Vishnu, highlights how respected and legitimate fluid identities were in India. Precolonial India was very accepting and tolerant of LGBTQ+ identities, even while the Hindu and Islamic faiths, which are often labeled as conservative and narrow in modern day, dominated. Acknowledging and understanding this fact emphasizes how the lack of outward acceptance of queer identities in India is not at all rooted in religious doctrine, but something deeper: colonization.

In the general region of South Asia, containing India, Nepal, Pakistan, etc., people who exhibited both masculinity and femininity often held sacred and religious authority roles because of their ?[embodiment] of the universe’s purity before it was split into various different forms of life” (Ngu 4). Additionally, across many ancient temples in India, most notably the Khajuraho Temple in the state of Madhya Pradesh, carving depictions of homosexuality line the temple walls, demonstrating that precolonial India was more than tolerant of LGBTQ+ identities (Ramadurai para 6). Ultimately, India, especially through the lens of Hinduism, was an extremely accepting culture, being both the first nation to create a sex treatise, known as the Kama Sutra (Ramadurai para 2), and worshipping sexually and gender fluid gods. Intolerance towards the LGBTQ+ community emerged upon the entrance of white, Christian colonialism.

Upon the entrance of British colonization in India, the previous acceptance of queer identities began to diminish rapidly. According to the Asian American Policy Review article Is Queerness a White Invention?” by Sarah Ngu, co-founder of an LGBTQ+ inclusive church group, European Christian colonialism contributed to the decline of queer culture across many, if not all, Southeast and South Asian countries (Ngu 1). Ngu explains how respect for different sexual and gender behaviors was already existent in South and Southeast Asia, but upon the entrance of the West, these previously normal behaviors became taboo (1). As a whole, South Asia accepted fluid identities, but this acceptance was curbed and criminalized by the Victorian ideologies of the British colonizers and European missionaries.

This intolerance and criminalization of queer identity stems specifically from Britain’s implementation of the British Indian Penal Code. As previously discussed, India was quite liberal, even by today’s standards, and legitimized third genders, and homosexuality, among many other now taboo” identities. Sameena Azhar, a researcher at Fordham University who studies South Asian social structures, concludes that the Indian Penal Code was a clear product of colonization and its associated policing of sexuality and gender, especially brown women, and was a metaphor for the subjugation of the bodies” of brown people (Azhar 5). The code was shaped by Thomas Babington Macaulay, a British Whig politician who openly believed and preached that Indians were inferior and uncivilized, and it was written to eliminate the previously existing laws, which evidently went against the British Victorian mentality (?Thomas” para 6). Specifically, the colonial penal code criminalized many aspects of gender and sexuality, including adultery among women, sex work, gender nonconformity, and homosexuality. The British colonizers externally preached that this policing was an effort to civilize” the untamed, backwards Indian society, but the policing was truly an effort to preserve British bodies that were contracting venereal diseases and such (Azhar 4). For further context, Azhar elaborates on how it was within the Indian colonies that British soldiers contracted the most sexually transmitted diseases, and how the colonizers found it apt to title brown women as the source of contagion (4). As author Sarah Ngu highlights, the whole of South Asia was affected by the British overruling of native South Asian culture in favor of supposedly more civil” and liberating” Victorian mentalities. The British intensely influenced India by framing a new set of laws that stigmatized previously accepted individuals and generally slandering the reputations of these communities.

Because of  the imposition of these colonial norms about sexuality on Indian society, there is now an obviously tense relationship between South Asian countries, specifically India, and the LGBTQ+ community. And this tension results in extreme consequences for those of the queer community, as well as consequences for general image and reputation of India. According to Kai Schultz, a New York Times reporter in the South Asia bureau in New Delhi, it is an immense risk to publicly come out as gay in Indian society, as people become subject to harassment, social isolation, familial disownment, sexual assault, unjust workplace conditions, all with little to no legal recourse (Schultz para 8). Alongside the previously stated risks, queer Indian people are forced to stay hidden and are provided with little access to contraceptives and other safe sexual practices, which increases the danger of contracting sexually transmitted infections and diseases and worsens the mental health of these marginalized individuals. However, it is important to note that some progress, specific to a religious community of queer men known as the hijras, has been made in Indian governance (Slijper 2). In regard to the consequences for India’s image, India continues to develop a characterization of a narrow-minded and rigid culture, which paints a negative picture for the rest of the world and results in the maintenance of a harsh and harmful view of Indian society, especially in Hollywood and Western media. Ultimately, British colonization has negatively impacted India’s present-day views of the LGBTQ+ community, which have resulted in consequences for both the LGBTQ+ populations and the overall image of India.

Mental, physical, and sexual health consequences for members of the Indian LGBTQ+ community are many. As stated previously, despite the recent repeal of Section 377, queer individuals in India are still largely unprotected and at risk for many dangers. According to a BBC article by Charukesi Ramadurai, a journalist with a background in economics and social psychology, these heavy consequences stem mainly from the eras of British colonization as well as the eras of Islamic invasions (Ramadurai para 2). Psychology journalist Rebecca Clay also discusses in her fairly recent article how many Indian homosexual patients are immediately referred to conversion therapy to avoid the shame of loss of familial and general social status (para 2). Prior to the repeal of Section 377, homosexual men and women were susceptible to countless dangers, such as joint suicides of couples that were not accepted. Corrective rapes” would take place against lesbians by heterosexual males in an effort to convert them to heterosexuality (para 5). Richa Vashista, a research interventionist, explains how the next key to improving the lives and general existence of non-heterosexual, non-cisgender individuals is to focus on educating parents so they understand and accept their child (para 13). As a general fact, it is obvious that hiding or being forced to hide one’s identity damages an individual’s mental health and likely causes a chain reaction of other negative effects (Clay, para 9). It is imperative that the Indian collective, regardless of their relation to the LGBTQ+ community, need to work to learn that queer identities are not only natural, but also a root of ancient Indian culture.

Presently, queerness and gender fluid identities are associated with the West and its purported progressiveness. Many Indian parents, both those that have settled outside of India and those who remain in India, mistakenly believe that their children’s sexuality or gender has to do with their exposure to Western media and society. This fact is supported by the previously discussed article, Is Queerness a White Invention?” by Sarah Ngu, who explains how her Malaysian parents reacted to her coming out as lesbian. She presents the view that her parents held: ?’You know, if we didn’t move to America from Malaysia, maybe you wouldn’t have been gay’” (2). This comment shows how Southeast and South Asian parents have forgotten that the original believers in fluid genders and sexualities were their ancestors, not the Westerners, who created anti-LGBTQ+ laws in their various colonized nations. India has come to falsely understand that queerness is a white invention and those who are embracing their queerness have abandoned their cultural traditions and families. There is an incredible irony in the stigmatization of queerness in India; the West continues to frame India as backwards for its current intolerance towards queer identities, despite being the very source that forced India to eliminate its previous acceptance. It is essential that this association between queerness and whiteness is dispelled to make it easier and safer for queer Indian individuals to exist in society without sectioning off parts of their identity.

Alongside understanding that queerness is not a White invention, it is also imperative to understand that whiteness is a racialized category cemented in the exclusion of non-whites and imbalanced power dynamics, causing it to become the default across the world. An article from the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre on whiteness explains the difference between white,” a racial category with no scientific or biological foundation, and whiteness,” a concept that is rooted in racism (?Whiteness” para 3, 4). The general success of the British Empire was rooted in the overwhelming othering” power of whiteness; its many negative impacts continue to ripple into modern times, including anti-LGBTQ+ mindsets and colorism. Whiteness now dominates queer acceptance and representation in the media and across many other fields, while non-white communities who had previously accepted queer culture are now completely against it. Of the countries previously colonized by Britain, half of them now have few laws protecting their LGBTQ+ populations and granting them equal status, despite having accepted these identities in precolonial times; most of these countries still penalize gay sex, with the exception of India in recent years (Ngu 5). The complex combination of whiteness, colonization, and imperialism have truly left damaging effects on India and increased the consequences and dangers for publicly out queer Indian individuals.

These negative impacts of imperialism have affected a well-known queer community in India known as the Hijras; they are acknowledged and recognized, yet consequences and dangers continue to exist for them through humiliation and assault. Froukje Slijper, a psychotherapist studying the behaviors of children and adults, especially in regard to sexuality and gender, explains that the Hijras are defined as a religious community of men who dress and behave like women in worship of Bahuchara Mata, one of the manifestations of the Mother Goddess across India (Slijper 1). They often do not identify as men or as women and live on a spectrum of the gender binary. Their identities are one of the few publicly queer identities India acknowledges and somewhat accepts, although not as much as they would have been accepted during precolonial times. They represent a third gender, which is recognized across many South Asian cultures and is the central reason they are realized in Indian culture. Their partial acceptance and recognition still come at a cost as they are never granted respect and are rarely given the opportunity to work professionally, socialize, and exist outside of their Hijra communities (Slijper 2). As argued and explained in Sameena Azhar’s article Recent Changes in Gender and Sexuality Policies in India: A Postcolonial Analysis,” when the hijra community was discovered by the British in the 1850s, they were instantly criminalized both in Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Tribes Act (6). British colonists labored to ensure that the hijra, that the third gender, be erased from Indian society, but were unable to completely eliminate them. Instead, the British labeled the previously respected and accepted hijra community as obscene and immoral, forever tainting their reputation and resulting in a lack of sanctioned support from temples, courts, and principalities” and an excess of stigma and discrimination (Azhar 6). The current treatment of Hijras in India highlights the intersection between the precolonial, tolerant nature of Hinduism and Western imperialism which banned the acceptance of LGBTQ+ communities in India.

British colonization in India further highlights the exclusionary and wrongfully dominating nature of whiteness as India was not only a colonized land, but also a colonized culture. Previous queer acceptance was replaced by a Western ideal when it was the West that had originally criminalized such acceptance in India and ultimately fostered a negative image of postcolonial India and extreme consequences for those of the Indian LGBTQ+ community. It is important to assert that India does not have a single culture and faith to which all of the specific examples mentioned in this paper apply, as Hinduism is not the only religion in India nor the only religion with a prominent LGBTQ+ community. Moreover,  as sexuality and gender are not limited to a particular faith or lack thereof. The negative stigma and immense discrimination the queer community continues to face is not a result of supposedly conservative” or narrow-minded” religions that exist across the whole of India, but a consequence of the negative colonial influence that remains. The Indian education system must reintroduce the history of queer culture in India to improve the national view towards the marginalized community and as a result, decrease the danger of their mere existence.

Works Cited

Azhar, Sameena. Recent Changes in Gender and Sexuality Policy in India: A Postcolonial Analysis. Academic Conferences International Limited, Reading, 2019. ProQuest,

Clay, Rebecca A. Decriminalizing Homosexuality in India.” Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association, Feb. 2019

Ngu, Sarah. IS QUEERNESS A WHITE INVENTION?” Asian American Policy Review, vol. 29, 2019, pp. 79-85, 96. ProQuest

Ramadurai, Charukesi. Travel ? India’s Temples of Sex.” BBC, BBC, 7 Oct. 2015

Schultz, Kai. Gay in India, Where Progress Has Come Only With Risk.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 June 2018

Slijper, Froukje M. E. “Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India.” Archives of SexualBehavior, vol. 26, no. 4, 1997, pp. 450-454. ProQuest

Thomas Babington Macaulay.” Thomas Babington Macaulay – New World Encyclopedia 

Vanita, Ruth. “”WEDDING OF TWO SOULS”: Same-Sex Marriage and Hindu Traditions.”  Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, vol. 20, no. 2, 2004, pp. 119-135,195-196. ProQuest

Whiteness.” Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, https://www.aclrc.com/whiteness

Paper Prompt

Now that we have a solid foundation for using and analyzing sources after drafting the Close (Racial) Reading, this paper asks that you extensively research a topic that interests you and adheres to the course theme of racial identity. There is an endless array of topics that you can choose, but your selection must focus on an issue that affects a specific racial population in a unique way. After developing a topic and conducting meaningful research on it, you will need to form an argument about the nature of the issue under analysis and its consequences for the associated community. In other words, you should try to address several questions: Why does (or did) this issue exist? In what way does it either influence the way people of a certain racial status are seen in society or affect how these people see themselves? Put differently, how does your topic shape the American consciousness when it comes to a specific form of racial identity

To successfully complete this assignment, it is again essential that you narrow the scope of your project and adopt a particular focus rather than writing on broad topics. For instance, if you are interested in music as it relates to the Black community, you would not want to talk about every single musical genre and the connections between them and Black people. Rather, you might study the relationship between African Americans and one musical genre. Even more effectively, you could think about that genre’s connection to Black women or Black people from a specific region of the country. Above all, you are encouraged to bring your unique interests to this paper and put them in conversation with the course themes of race, identity, and rhetoric. Just as was the case with the first paper: If you can offer justification for studying any community that you want to know more about, use your proposal to defend your choice.

REQUIREMENTS

Since your topic will be largely unfamiliar to you, extensive research will be necessary. For this paper, you need at least four scholarly, peer-reviewed academic sources, although you will likely want to incorporate a few more texts as well. In that vein, after you’ve satisfied the scholarly research requirement, feel free to consult an array of nonscholarly sources, ranging from newspaper articles to credible blogposts or tweets. In order to meaningfully engage with your sources, though, you should avoid using more than ten sources in this paper since an extensive bibliography of outside voices can be difficult to incorporate without distracting from your original argument.

Other than the change in prompt and number of required sources, the other major requirement for this paper is that you use secondary sources more strategically and synthesize them throughout your writing, a practice we will explore at length in class. Therefore, academic synthesis?in addition to argumentation, organization, and source use?will be the fourth major component of your grade with this paper. As you will see, it is incredibly important to show your intervention in a larger conversation by using a range of sources that support, complicate, and even expand your main idea.

As always, while your sources should inform your argument, they should not dominate. It can be difficult to strike the balance between asserting your voice and allowing your sources to take over, and for that reason, your papers will undergo a broad-based writing process featuring three drafts, peer workshops, instructor conferences, and even a week of in-class revision stations. As always, you will need to complete all aspects of the writing process to receive a passing grade, but I hope you find a topic that motivates you and inspires a sense of passion. By the time you submit this paper, my hope is that you will discover an opportunity for building your scholarly identity while improving your approach to writing.

The following is a checklist of basic requirements that must be met to earn a passing grade on this assignment:

• A paper proposal and three drafts (including the final draft)
• Participation in peer workshops and submission of peer letters
• Attendance during student-instructor conference
• 8-10 full pages in length
• Paper topic relevant to the course theme of racial identity and rhetoric
• A narrowly framed argument pertaining to an issue or concern affecting a specific racial population
• At least four scholarly, peer-reviewed secondary sources
  • Additional scholarly or nonscholarly sources will likely be needed in addition to this basic requirement. (No more than ten sources.)
• Meaningful synthesis of sources throughout the paper