Queer literature and queer history
Sahitya Akademi’s Festival of Letters 2020 marks an important milestone for the LGBTQIA+ writers in India as the festival included a specific LGBTQ Poets’ meet. The Akademi invited 19 poets from around the country. This is followed by the Transgender poets’ meet which was organized by Sahitya Akademi in Kolkata and Delhi in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
The keynote address was given by English writer and professor R Raj Rao, who is mostly known in the English speaking queer literary spaces. Professor Raj Rao started his speech by making an important point around LGBTQ inclusion “Ladies and gentlemen the huge gathering in the auditorium is extremely surprising to me…should not mislead you into believing that writing LGBTQIA poetry is cake walk. It never has been. I should like to remind you that up until exactly 17 months ago…September 2018 all of us, Hoshang, I and several others of our generation were technically criminals…”
This is an important point that has to be reminded to people as the surge of LGBTQIA+ specific events and inclusive steps should not be understood that there is no discrimination of LGBTQIA+ persons in our country. I found myself nodding in affirmation as Professor Raj Rao spoke. He made several important points, including “…its nice its happening, kudos to the Sahitya Akademi for organizing it…it must be sort of imagined like any other program you do, a lot of program, but this is different because, this is different because we are talking about being that supposed to be not spoken about….”
While the professor made various important points in his speech, he seems to suffer from what I call the “Mumbai Gay Constituent Syndrome (MGCS)” — to put it simple “frog in the well” when it comes to queer movement and politics. On one hand he rightfully calls out the exclusion queer persons face in our society, and on the other hand he seem to dismiss that the reality of our literary spaces which does not let every queer person who write to pursue their dream.
The myth of pre and post 377
By saying “his generation were technically criminals”, I was a bit lost on what professor Raj Rao seem to express. Anyone who was born before 6th September 2018 were “technically criminals” in the 377 universe. Maybe I’ll attribute it to something larger that the professor wanted to communicate but came short in expressing his views.
Professor Raj Rao closed his speech by saying, “…keep on writing, don’t censor your self and we might have done in our time prior to the decriminalization of 377. all of you here i see as post 377 generation, that is the kind of divide, pre 377 and post 377, you are post 377, keep up you pride and keep on writing”
There is something the professor seem to be holding to himself (and his generation) and does not want to let go off. To my knowledge, most of the poets invited have been active before September 6 2018in their respective spaces and have been writing for a long time. Telling them that they are “post 377” generation is nothing but an imagined class that the professor wants to create. Now I understand about the sentiment where folks who have “always been out” and folks who have come out after the amendment of Section 377 in 2018. Even if I take the generation mentioned by the professor is based on that aspect and not age, then by his own admission the professor’s idea of pre and post 377 in that context is misplaced.
Prof Raj Rao talks about mainstream publications not coming forward to publish LGBTQIA works and lists few independent publishers whom he is aware of as predominantly helping LGBTQIA+ authors so far. A valid point, but again he fails to understand that the lack of publishers and inclusiveness in the literary and publishing spaces might be the reason why most queer persons might not have had an opportunity to publish their works. He goes on to list few names — as a true MGCS person he lists mostly gay men from his circle and mentions Ruth Vanita’s name when Hoshang reminds him. He continued that there were no trans persons who wrote and no queer literary work in ‘regional’ languages. Both of which are untrue and probably the professor must learn what is happening in the rest of the country apart from Mumbai (I am aware he lives in Pune). To list from Tamil Nadu alone we have Living Smile Vidya, A Revathi, Kalki Subramaniam, Priya Babu to name a few; also all of these people wrote in Tamil, well aware not just in the queer literary spaces but the ‘mainstream’ literary space as well; and recently A Revathi’s name was listed in Columbia University’s Banner in 2019. Again, it was a bit of an oxymoron for him to say that there were no trans writers especially because Sahitya Akademi — the space where he said this — first started off with trans poets in the past years.
Additionally, by his own statement in the speech where he said a lot of us do not know that they were criminals and were not aware of Section 377. This itself makes the construction of pre and post Section 377 is obsolete.
Judging LGBTQ poetry
Professor Raj Rao made a clear point and also prepared the non queer audience on the queer poems they were about to listen. “…about poetry itself, LGBTQIA poetry…there are two things I want to say, here any marginal writing has toil evolve its own aesthetics because it does not evolve its own aesthetics and if you use mainstream aesthetics to read it…you know…you will do it a disservice…” You can listen to his speech and the poetry reading session by the other poets in the video below.
As a literary person, as a queer person in the literary space and academia, Professor Raj Rao made clear points about the marginalization of queer literature and persons. He made clear points about the everyday issues queer persons face. But somewhere the politics we all carry with us seem to crop up in either him not recognizing the diverse queer perspectives and works that existed along with him during “his period” or he genuinely is very much insulated.
