A history of queerness in India
The recent judicial activism on LGBT rights in India is being lauded as a return to Indian values and culture. But is that claim true?
Part I: Living in the Past
Once upon a time, in what is now India, an edition of the astronomical text called the Surya Siddhanta described an unbelievably small unit of time — a truti, which was the time taken by a sharp needle to pierce a lotus petal, alternatively defined as 1/(6 x 60⁷)th of a day . The smallest practical unit of time however, was a vipala, defined as 6 x 60⁴ trutis or 1/60³th of a day. Their units of keeping time progressed sexagesimally, in the Babylonian fashion.
Fast forward to 16th Century Europe where advanced mechanical clocks allowed the use of an all-new unit called the second, defined as 1/(24 x 60²)th of a day. Over the years their clocks got better and more accurate, allowing European engineers to rapidly advance technology and the study of physics, culminating in the development of the SI second in 1967 (amended 1997), expressed in terms of the physical properties of Caesium atoms and the speed of light in vacuum, both of which are universal constants.
Meanwhile in India, scientific progress in terms of definition and measurement of time stagnated. The existing units, though conceptually finer than the second, led to no technological or scientific advancement. In the colonial era the European units of measurement were introduced, and units of time in particular were imposed easily on the local population because of such things as the telegraph and railways. There was no new truti or new vipala, defined in terms of different universal constants.
So independent India adopted first the metric system and then the SI units at a national level, dropping the ancient and arcane units, and today we are technologically advanced as a result of it.
Yes, both the SI second and the civil second are of western origin. Yes the latter was imposed on us (and other people) through imperialism, at least in the beginning. And yes, the concept of the second has changed a lot before and may change further in the future. But for all that, it is also true that the SI second is objectively the best unit of measurement currently available to the entire human race.
To reject either the SI or the civil second now would set us back into the Iron Age. It is so essential to global life that not even the USA, which is notorious for rejecting the metric system, has any alternative but to accept them.
The same can be said not only for all scientific standards and terminology, but also for sociological standards and terminology including the concept of queerness and the recognition of queer people.
For it is absolute truth that queer people have existed since the dawn of humanity, and the question, when we read history or fiction, is not whether queer people actually existed in that time and place, but whether their presence was acknowledged in the record/narrative.
And the ancient and medieval people of what is now India did recognise the presence of queer people and identities, in their own way.
One of the foremost voices in raising awareness about ancient Indian attitudes towards queerness is mythologist Dr Devdutt Pattanaik, who publicly came out as queer himself in the wake of the historic judgement on 6th September this year.
However, in his analysis of historical and mythological records Dr Pattanaik shows a general disregard towards modern queer academic terminology. He argues that such terms…
- Are of western origin and do not apply to Indian thought
- Were imposed through cultural imperialism
- Have varied over time
… and therefore best avoided. Even more curiously, when he does use these terms, he often plays fast and loose with them, with no regard to their currently agreed upon meaning. He makes strawmen out of modern queer academia, so that the ancient Indic ideas of queerness look better in comparison.
The truth ladies and gentlemen, is that the ancient Indians did not distinguish between anatomical sex, gender identity, gender presentation, gender roles and sexual roles. They did not recognise sexual and romantic desire as orientations separate from gender, but as a choice. Their narrative erased transgender men, asexual, demisexual and a staggering number of other queer identities. They simply lumped in the more visible sexual deviants and gender non-conforming people into a third gender and called it a day. Their concepts of queerness were meagre, unscientific, and exclusionary and their representation in history and mythology was scant, and often downright toxic.
To say that ancient India appreciated the variety of human experience and accepted all forms of love is to tell a bare-faced lie.
Hindus, Jains and Buddhists may have been world leaders in what passed for queer academia in 1200 CE, but today, they belong firmly in a museum, far away from the realm of public policy and queer activism.
The whole point of queer academia is to scientifically study the universal experiences of humanity in regards of sex, gender and desire, and to provide a common language so that queer people everywhere can collaborate seamlessly, and work for their empowerment, together.
And for better or for worse, the same West that once instituted the dreaded Section 377 in our laws, is at the forefront of queer academia today. The UK first decriminalised homosexual acts in 1967, way before even the USA, and we did not. And whose fault was that?
By implying that modern terms are unnecessary to describe ancient Indic ideas of queerness and aid Indian queer people today, Dr Pattanaik would have us reject this most precious gift — of queer solidarity, scientific rigour and a chance at a better future.
Further, although Dr Pattanaik has admitted on record that ancient Indic society was patriarchal and heteronormative, he has resorted to misrepresentation, force-fitting, exaggeration and utter lies to present ancient Indic philosophies and religious principles as being progressive and enlightened.
And this is dangerous, because as tumblr user apocalyptopia says:
The more misrepresenting and hyperbole we create and participate in, the more those who seek to subjugate us will have ammunition against us.
To demonstrate, take the case of Ersnt Haeckel and his famous doctored diagrams of animal embryos. His diagrams and postulate “ontology recapitulates phylogeny” have been taught as one of the proofs of evolution for over a century. Hell, it was mentioned in my own school textbook back in the early 2000’s. But evolution is real, and Haeckel’s postulate is not. (It was debunked way back in the 1870’s.)
Just as religious fundamentalists have used this piece of doctored evidence as an excuse to attack the credibility of all the scientific evidence that currently exists, leading directly or indirectly to the current state of anti-intellectualism that pervades many many countries, the dishonest analysis of Dr Pattanaik will be used as fodder to oppose the social acceptance of queer people into religion and society. They will claim it as cultural appropriation, and sometimes they will be right.
So once again I urge all my QUILTBAG people in India, including Dr Pattanaik, to be honest, and to not fall into the trap of this pervasive propaganda, especially under the current government, about ancient India being some kind of utopia for women and queer people. They say such things only to prevent rebellion and meaningful reform, and to take credit for such reforms that do occur.
This is Part I of a series of articles on the history of queerness in India.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Appendix I
