The Supreme Court of India on 11 December 2013 set aside the 2009 landmark judgement of the Delhi High Court in Naz Foundation v. NCT case, which had held that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) is unconstitutional because it criminalised consensual sexual acts between adults. The verdict resulted in the decriminalisation of homosexual acts involving consenting adults, throughout India. The State chose not to appeal this judgment. But vested interest groups such as astrologers and religious leaders approached the Supreme Court in appeal against the Delhi High Court decision. Going by the recent verdict of the SC, they seem to have convinced the Supreme Court.
This feature aspires to show that homosexuality is not novel in Indian mythology, history, literature and culture. Perhaps the astrologers and religious leaders are not aware of this or prefer to play the ostrich game of hiding their heads in the sand and imagine homosexuality does not exist! “Contrary to common belief, homosexuality is by no means a mindless aping of the West,” says noted sexologist Dr. Prakash Kothari.
In Hindu mythology, Shiva is depicted as Ardhanarishwara – a man and a woman at the same time, split into two vertical halves merged within the same body. The hermaphrodite, the homosexual and the transvestite are considered to be images of Ardhanarishwara. In Bhakti literature called Madhuri Bhakti, male poets like Kabir and Jiyasi often envisaged themselves as women in love with a male God. “The cultural scene during the time allowed Kabir and other poets to openly integrate their femaleness into their poetry,” observes noted journalist Mrinal Pande.
Ismat Chugtai, the noted Urdu writer, wrote the first short story dealing with a lesbian relationship in the 1940s. Lihaf (Quilt), unfolded the story of a mid-20th century Muslim Nawab family. While the Nawab sought his pleasures from young boys, his bored begum found sexual and emotional solace in the companionship of an ugly maid. The maid would massage her soft body with almond oil under a quilt, which the little girl, the narrator of the story, was intrigued by. Incensed mullahs dragged Chugtai to the Lahore High Court. But the court dismissed the case because “no four-letter word” could be found in it. Deepa Mehta says it was Lihaf that inspired Fire. Gay rights activists quote a well-researched work, Same Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History, edited by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai, which states that before the 19th century, love between men and between women was never actively persecuted or prosecuted, despite disapproval.
Firaq Gorakhpuri, an eminent Urdu writer was known to be fond of men. Among Hindi poets, references to homosexuality figure in the works of Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh and Suryakant Tripathi “Nirala.” In one of his poems, Nirala specifically mentions, “Maine uski ore stree bhav se dekha” meaning, “I looked at him as a woman would.” An early Mughal painting called ‘The Perfumed Garden’ clearly depicts two women in deep embrace, their lips locked in a kiss. Delhi-based activist and writer Gita Thadani has a collection of some 2000 photographs of images of lesbianism. Some of the oldest images go back by 5000 years to the Panchmarhi caves of Madhya Pradesh. Thadani maintains that the earliest reference to lesbianism is found in the Rig Veda, where there are allusions to the concept of dual femininity.
More than 1600 years ago, Varahamir, the Ayurvedic physician, wrote approvingly about lesbian love in Brihat Jataka. He described a definite link between astrology and lesbianism. He went on to say that a particular placement and juxtaposition of Mars and Venus in a woman’s horoscope would induce her with a desire towards members of the same sex while another female acting as the male would fire her passions.
The Kamasutra is the traditional source of Indian sexuality. The lesbian is called a saivrni. It contains four or
five ways in which one woman can seduce another. It is also mentioned that women in the kings’ harems had sex with one another. This comes from Sudhir Kakar, noted psychiatrist and author who claims that lesbianism was always present but was disapproved of. “The Kamasutra says that women cannot have sex with each other except if one woman acts like a male,” he says. He defines lesbianism as “a woman’s choice to have exclusive sex with a partner of the same sex.”
Bhupen Khakar, an internationally acclaimed painter, a prime crusader of gay rights defined his art as the ideal medium to state the truth — about himself, his sexual identity, and life per se. He is considered to be one of the best erotic painters in the world. His paintings often depict diverse traditions in homosexuality. Khakar once painted a man standing stark naked and looking daringly at the world below. Eroticism is prominent in his paintings, along with anguish, resentment and rejection by the mainstream society? Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Shobhaa De’s Starry Nights have touched upon the homosexual mindset. In his autobiographical work Trying to Grow, Firdaus Kanga has written about growing up gay in India.
In Jabbar Patel’s Subah (1981), two young women in a rehabilitation home for women where Savitri Mahajan is employed, set themselves on fire because they knew that their love for each other was destined to end in tragedy. Bolder statements came across in Rahul Rawail’s Mast Kalandar and K. R. Reddy’s Veeru Dada. Mahesh Dattani’s play, On A Muggy Night in Mumbai (1998) describes the anguish of men who love men, especially if they are married and also lead heterosexual lives. Deepa Mehta’s Fire (1996) is not the first Indian film to portray homosexuality openly on screen.
Onir’s My Brother Nikhil (2005) based on a true story explores the collapsing world of a talented swimmer Nikhil, when he is diagnosed as HIV Positive and is thrown out of his swimming group. His once loving parents throw him out and the only solace he finds is in his elder sister and his male partner Nigel, who stand by him through his struggle to survive in an unfriendly and unsympathetic world.
Onir explored homosexuality without treating it as an ugly joke, a dirty alliance or an aberration. The gay relationship between the swimmer and his partner was treated as normally as one treats a normal couple on celluloid. They were shown to be as intimate, as insecure and as jealous in their interaction as any other couple would be. Onir feels the acceptance of homosexuality in Indian films will happen only when the characters are portrayed without fussing over them. “For example, why not let one of the band members in Rock On!! be gay and leave it at that without elaborating on it?” he asks.
The shifting mindset of mainstream Indian cinema towards homosexuality can be seen from two different films directed by Karan Johar. One of them is Kal Ho Na Ho in which the script takes some rude pot shots at homosexuality through the two male heterosexuals. The same Karan Johar in his recent Ajeeb Dastaan Hai Yeh in the larger film Bombay Talkies (2013) takes a very empathetic view on alternative sexual preferences through a marriage that lacks sex without taking away the humane tragedy of a ‘normal’ woman who finds her husband is gay.
Zoya Akhtar’s Sheela Ki Jawani is a moving comment on gender stereotyping within families where sons, even when they are young are forced by fathers to act against their natural tendencies. The film is not about homosexuality but it is about a boy who is naturally inclined to dance like “Katrina Kaif” and is neither physically strong nor interested in football which his father wants him to play. Films that have got the thumbs up from gays and lesbians are Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd and Rules (Pyar Ka Superhit Formula). The more recent I Am by Onir which won the National Award offers a more moving and realistic take on same-sex relationships.
Celebrated author Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) who was convicted for homosexuality was publicly rehabilitated some years ago. His statue has been installed in Trafalgar Square in London bearing the inscription: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
[/column][column size=”4/5″]
Shoma A Chatterji
The writer is a freelance journalist, film scholar and author. She has authored 17 published titles and won the National Award for Best Writing on Cinema twice. She won the UNFPA-Laadli Media Award, 2010 for ‘commitment to addressing and analysing gender issues’ among many awards. She is currently Senior Research Fellow, ICSSR, Delhi researching the politics of presentation of working women in post-colonial Bengali cinema 1950 to 2003.[/column]