Navigating new scales of queer Southasia

IT WASN’T THAT long ago that queer Southasian studies – perhaps especially work centred on India – seemed to be intensely preoccupied with the frame of the nation. “Indian and lesbian” proclaimed a placard carried by a lesbian rights activist in an iconic photograph of the mobilisations that accompanied the release of Deepa Mehta’s film Fire, which had aroused opposition from the Hindu Right on its release in 1996 on account of its portrayal of a relationship between two women. Anxiety over whether same-sex relationships could be considered “Indian” set the stage for the first Southasian queer studies anthologies, monographs and other works. In more recent scholarship – whether because of India’s decriminalisation of homosexuality in 2018, or simply because the question became tiresome – such preoccupation has receded, making space for a newer wave of queer scholarship in which other scales below and above that of the nation-state – the regional, sub-regional, transnational and global – have moved into the limelight. 

That said, the nation has not gone away. Yet it has become clearer that what happens at the national level tells a very partial and particular story, one marked by the privilege of those with the material wherewithal to organise at this scale. Different scales also lend themselves to distinct narrative resources and justifications, making available different histories but also skewing our vision in ways that draw us towards different horizons of aspiration. It is at the national level that we see most clearly a familiar global liberal narrative of queer progress, in which emancipation has entailed a move from “sex rights” to “love rights” – from arguments about the right to have sex with preferred partners and in ways that are freely chosen, to demands that sexual and romantic relationships be socially recognised and legally sanctified, with all the consequences that follow. And yet, as we shall see, the demand for queer marriage in India has also taken on a distinctly national(ist) quality, trading on time-worn images of India as a “marriage society”.