NEW | Book Review | Rainbow Warriors of India | Parasu Karimbattil

Cover of the book 

 

 

 

Rainbow Warriors of India by Hoshang Merchant and Akshay K. Rath is a first-of-its-kind book even 

in its very conception. It gives us brief sketches of the life and contributions of twenty-two gay and 

lesbian individuals in modern India, who have, with courage and creativity, contributed greatly to making 

life more livable and self-expression more feasible for Queer people in this country.

Starting with the introduction, we notice certain things that set the book apart from other works in the corpus of Queer and Queer-related writing in India today. One feature is the constant awareness of the linkage between the gay/ lesbian individual and their context; i.e. the Indian nation. Hoshang starts with the proclamation early on that, “I have matured as a gay person, but the nation has not matured in the way it treats its gays.”

This linkage between the individual and the national context is iterated throughout the book. The reading down of Section 377 by the Delhi High Court in 2009; the repeal of the reading down by the Supreme Court in 2013; the eventual irreversible repeal of the section by the same Apex Court in 2018; nationalist Indians fighting the British but constructing a predominantly patriarchal, heterosexual, monolithic nation based on the Orientalist rediscovery of the Hindu past; Independent India’s highly qualified acceptance of gay artists despite their tremendous contributions to the nation; the prevalence of masochistic protagonists in popular Hindi cinema; the four ashramas or stages in the Hindu trajectory of life that give a wide berth to father-son conflicts of any kind; the castigation of feminine wisdom in Indian traditions; the rediscovery of such wisdom by lesbian warriors and the big- city Indian nightmare lived by call centre workers in the post-globalization era, all these find mention in the book. Indeed, none of the points of intersection between gay life and the life of the nation seem to escape Hoshang’s roving, piercing eye!

The book is divided into three parts: Part I, titled ‘Forerunners’ gives us essential knowledge on early gay heroes like Ram Gopal (the dancer), Sultan Padamsee and Giti Thadani; Part II, titled ‘Contemporaries’ is about path makers like Ashok Row Kavi, Ruth Vanita, Saleem Kidwai, Rituparno Ghosh and Onir, who took forward the project of making the Queer visible in the national artistic and social sphere and Part III, titled ‘The Future – Past’ throws light on activists like Mahesh Dattani, Amruta Patil, Navtej Johar and Manvendra Singh Gohil, who established Queer as a byword for excellence in diverse spheres.

As in the case of Yaraana: Gay Writing from India (1999), Hoshang’s pioneering work, the introduction takes in a majestic sweep of history and is a veritable constellation of quotable insights, of which I will share just a few:

“When both gay and straight populations of the nation negotiate, collaborate and mend India, then it will be truly be called a liberated nation.”

“The learned judge said gay – rights legislation currently around the world does not apply to India. What does India’s Mars Mission, initiated by the West, matter to India or modern technology?”

“There are approximately fifty million gays in India. That’s not a minority.”

 

“As sex is both for procreation and recreation (and since we have had enough procreation with 1.3 billion Indians and counting) let’s have a little recreation since we are celebrating a new India with its rainbow warriors.”

“The dishonesty of the closet, which makes daily living easy, comes with a price. [It] imposes an unbearable psychological burden on the closet gay, which dissipates itself in homophobia.”

“We go mad when we deny our true nature. Of course, the victimizer is ultimately the most pathetic; at least, the victim has a chance of spiritual redemption through suffering.”

It is also important to note that Merchant and Rath refuse to be judgemental either about closet gays or straight people. This book is marked by the fresh breath of empathy and the gracious acknowledgement of the generous: from Indira Gandhi’s Padma Shri to Bhupen Khakhar to the Indian media’s liberal approach to LGBT+ issues, although wry references to the free market’s desire for the pink dollar driving global capitalism’s acceptance of Queer people indicate that this acknowledgement comes from grace but not naïveté. Indeed, if there was one word that could be used to characterize this book, it would be “generous.”

                                                                        

The editors 

The first statement I have quoted above shows the authors have a collaborative approach, not just in the production of this book, but also in the liberation of the nation and the human race; in making the human common integrate the world with love as the true end of the celebration of plurality and diversity. This is reminiscent of Hoshang’s statement in his introduction to Yaraana, where he expresses enthusiastic agreement with Octavio Paz, the Mexican poet and diplomat, who said that human liberation is the ultimate precinct of art.

Some have criticised this book for having too many warriors from Mumbai alone. Some readers may point to other limitations. The authors anticipate these objections and meet them with honesty:

That our icons are upper class, upper caste, Western or convent educated is not an accident. It is so out of necessity. The persons with a stigma grave enough to mark them out but not grave enough to cast them out of the pack to face scarcity will act on their innermost sexual desires and express them on their fields of activity [ . . . ] A woman or man who does not set store by the future can alone gamble with her/ his present.

Yet there are statements in the book that make it clear that this currently unavoidable bias in the selection of icons need not be forever. People without icons and without a history can always create and make these things. The authors have not failed to notice the importance of a person like Ashley Tellis, whom they have elevated to the status of icon only on the grounds of his nay-saying and courageous living-by-and-for-resistance.

All in all, Rainbow Warriors of India is one of the must-read books to come out into the world in 2024, for the wealth of information it gives us about gay icons in an orderly manner, for its highly readable writing, for its numerous penetrating insights not just about gay life, but also life in India as a whole and for the generosity of spirit that informs every page of it. Future editions of this book could be more expansive, accommodate a greater number of warriors and have a more pan-Indian representation.