Politicizing Alternative Sexualities in India: A Critical Evaluation

The paper delineates politicization of alternative sexualities in India. Intensification of sexual identity politics begins within the framework of human rights in early 1990s as a result of HIV/AIDS prevention work and the simultaneous initiatives taken to stop stigma and discrimination faced by persons, groups and communities affected by the above disease. Triggered by generous funding from international NGOs and donor agencies, the prevention of HIV/AIDS program simultaneously culminated in visiblising (male) homosexuality. The space created through HIV/AIDS activism, however, was also utilized by other sexually marginalized groups who formed the larger collective of LGBT channelizing their energy towards decriminalizing homosexuality through removal of section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. In 2014 the Supreme Court of India through its famous NALSA judgment reconised the transgender(s) as legitimate citizens extending them welfare and quota benefits while remaining silent on the issue of LGB imagined as ‘non-indigenous’ western sexual identities in official discourse. Some commentators have viewed this as fragmentation of the LGBT movement while others have interpreted it as ‘progressive’ and ‘revolutionary’ as it recognizes the most dis-privileged group within the community of LGBT. Against this backdrop, the paper aims to provide an overview of the LGBT movement in India in a historical perspective and maps the various trajectories which constitute and reflect the diverse trends, practices and ideologies informing the movement.