Living in public

When Sachin Jain started an email list called GHAR in 1998, he was acting on the inspiration of anecdotes and stories from gay friends across India who struggled to find safe housing. The acronym stands for Gay Housing Assistance Resource, and functions today as a Facebook group, where more than a thousand members post housing vacancies and requests for the same. Jain updates a central database of the listings almost daily, to keep the page tidy. When newcomers break the rules – by posting partial information or irrelevant items – he adds comments with gentle reminders, always punctuated with emoticons.

Jain started GHAR to serve a purely practical purpose: connect LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people in India with each other to find safe housing. In the process, he created a nexus between online queer spaces and daily life in India. The country is home to several vibrant movements pushing for the rights of LGBT people, but still struggles with both the residue of colonial-era sodomy laws, and the fear that they might come back into force at the end of this year, if the Supreme Court bends to the cacophony of appeals before it. For queer people around the world, the internet has offered a space to explore new ideas about themselves, their hopes and dreams, their safety and potential – all in private. The internet, as it has done with many aspects of social life, has both altered and enriched the way in which some queer people think about and negotiate their identities and safety.