Pride was always meant to be a protest. Only some pride parades in India do justice to pride, though. Some parades in India are set in locations that have backdrops of immense political history that emerge from various sources that are not necessarily related to LGBTQ identities. However, all these sources culminate in a need for liberation and emancipation. Two such pride events out of many others in India are Chennai Pride and Delhi Pride. As a regular attendee of Chennai Pride, Delhi Pride is also on the bucket list now, and for valid reasons.
Two such pride events out of many others in India are Chennai Pride and Delhi Pride. As a regular attendee of Chennai Pride, Delhi Pride is also on the bucket list now, and for valid reasons.
It isn’t possible to speak up for all queers, but yours truly belongs to the school of thought that pride has to be radical and demolish all forms of oppression. A quote on a pamphlet distributed at the Occupy Oakland Queer March, shared by a comrade, reads:
‘…Queer means struggling against the racists, the patriarchs, the rich. Queer is questioning the role of white Queers in the displacement of poor people of color. It is stealing from the wealthy, redistributing the stolen booty, and laughing all the way. All of that said, it is undeniable that some Queers uphold the very system that keeps all of us down. Let it be known that we reject the notion that ruling class Queers are queer at all. In fact, we reject their humanity entirely. Queer is solidarity with marginalized people in the war for total liberation. To be Queer is to attack capitalism, utilizing any and all means necessary.” Extending this quote to everyday life praxis, it is understandable why some people call themselves gay or lesbian but not queer. it is because they wish to have an individualistic identity which does not extend to a sentiment of community.’
A Chennai Pride Goer’s Experience Of Pride
Chennai Pride has always been an amalgamation of various axes of oppression all called out and addressed in the forum. It extends beyond LGBTIA+ identities and truly makes for a queer space. Chennai Pride happens along the South Cooum river lane annually. This includes an area called Pudupettai where you have the largest supply of automobile second-hand spare parts and is Chennai’s largest automobile flee market. The people living in the stretch of this low-lying area are often affected by flood water which puts them at the risk of waterborne ailments like dengue and malaria.
Furthermore, the people who inhabit this area have been at the risk of police brutality when the Chennai police and Slum Clearance authorities evict settlements along the Cooum River now and then, in the name of never-ending river restoration. These rivers also call for serious environmental action because the biological oxygen demand (BOD) – the amount of dissolved oxygen needed to decompose organic matter, is very high in the Cooum River. The higher the BOD levels, the more polluted is the river.
While the acceptable water quality standard for rivers is 3 MG/L BOD for bathing, the Cooum has a BOD of 345 mg, 115 times the safe level of bathing. A lot of environmental activists have also joined pride events to raise this concern. Many a time, people living in the Pudupettai stretch have asked marchers about what causes have been raised that year and joined the cause. Children become a part of the merrymaking and dappankuththu beats.
Chennai Pride’s multifaceted approach to addressing oppression
Chennai Pride has always believed in looking at the term “Queer” beyond LGBTIA+ lenses and expanding it to a holistic notion of dismantling oppression. In the past, people protesting against Hindi Imposition had also joined the event, and when emergency Contraceptive Pills were banned by the Tamil Nadu Government, a lot of cishet women had also joined the pride march espousing Periyar’s antinatalist values in 2019. In fact, in October of 2023, a group called “The May 17th Movement Supporters” had conducted a protest to support Palestinians and call out atrocities by Israel.
Quite some attendees of this protest also graced the subsequent Chennai Pride of 2024 with their presence. Despite being a pioneer for LGBTQ laws, casteism has been a perennial issue in Tamil Nadu, just as it is globally. There have been cases of dominant caste people defecating into a drinking water tank in an area where Dalit people lived, and the government has been incapable of finding the culprits. Marchers in Chennai pride have never shied away from calling out the rampant casteism within and outside the community.
Marchers in Chennai pride have never shied away fromcalling out the rampant casteism within and outside the community.
In the last year, the inhuman genocide against Palestinians has also been duly raised at pride, making it a force for collective liberation. Not to forget, Chennai Pride parades have always done justice to the Social Justice Queer Flag and have always espoused the Self-Respect sentiment of Thanthai Periyar, the Anticaste ethos of Babasaheb Ambedkar, and the Proletarian values of Marx. The Chennai pride march is itself referred to as the Suya Mariyadhai Vanavil Perani (Self Respect Rainbow March).
A lot of times, gay folks have asked why the event can’t be organised in Adyar or Besant Nagar, Brahminical posh hubs in Chennai. However, the necessary erosion of social inequality and hierarchy that happens in Pudupettai can never occur in Adyar or Besant Nagar. The merry-making of children, seeing raw acceptance of queer folks without the need for vocab or jargon, all happens here.
As a trans masc person, it is in Pudupettai that a lot of proud Tamil trans masc and butch lesbian folks feel comfortable about their uninhibited Tamizh masculinity – wearing a lungi or a veshti with a plaid shirt and a vest inside, which is often given snide glances in “posher” locations. One can be as authentic to Tamizh sentiments as one wants without feeling scrutinised and judged by those carrying an elite air about themselves.
The queer history of Delhi that acts as a backdrop to Delhi Pride
Delhi is another pride event that has become very close to the heart given how seriously they have taken intersectionality, even at the risk of abuse and scrutiny. Delhi has a rich queer history that is often hidden under the blanket of homonationalism. It is also a crucial point of queer activism in India.
Delhi has a rich queer history that is often hidden under the blanket of homonationalism. It is also a crucial point of queer activism in India.
When queer rights in the saffron context are spoken about, two contradictory phenomena happen. While some immediately cite Shikhandi and Brihannala (Arjun’s genderfluid incognito version), another group immediately lambasts queerness as a woke Western agenda or uses it as a slur/abuse against Babur/Khilji, duly furthering islamophobia in the wake. In either case, the rich queer history contained in the Mughal era, particularly in New Delhi, goes unnoticed.
Be it the Kashmere gate – where many Hijra, Kothi, and working-class gay folks have interacted since the 80’s to the Dargah of Sarmad Kashani, a young queer Armenian mystic and poet who traveled to India and fell in love with a Hindu boy, Abhay Chand, Delhi is home to quaint queer spots that are waiting to be explored. Sarmad Kashani is interestingly known as a Sufi queer icon among Delhi queer people.
A large part of the credit goes to Iqbal Ali, a young non-binary Heritage enthusiast who delves into the queer history of the Sultanate and Mughal era Delhi and organises Queer Heritage and Food walks around the city to explore sapphic and trans* narratives. They share tales of Khwaja Siras – trans people who served in the Mughal Royal court, and narratives from Urdu Ghazals that are known for their homoeroticism.
Not many would be aware either that Razia Sultana is regarded as a Sapphic icon fighting the heteropatriarchy in those times, or that there exists a long-standing Hijra Gharana who are the caretakers of the Mehrauli’s Hijron ki Khanqah, a Sufi cemetery for transgender people. A lot of these landmark places get covered under the dust of the majoritarian narratives that surround queerness in India, and Iqbal does a wonderful job of placing these wonderful queer spaces under the spotlight. Delhi indeed has a unique backstory that does not rely on savarna-dominated tales of queerness.
Delhi: an important epicentre of queer politics
Furthermore, 377 was first banned by the Delhi High Court in 2009, followed by the criminalisation in 2013 by the Supreme Court and subsequent abrogation of IPC 377 by the Supreme Court of India in 2018. Delhi has always witnessed immediate queer reactions in the capital to every turn of law. One would recall a gay couple garlanding each other right in front of the Supreme Court after the uneventful verdict of the Marriage Equality case 2023.
Delhi has also witnessed some of its major protests against other forms of homonationalism and pinkwashing of Islamophobia such as the Citizenship Amendment Act and Article 370, in 2019-2020. Jyoti Puri writes in the document titled “Articulating Intersectionality in the Organizing of the Delhi Queer Pride Parade”, that ‘the treatment at the hands of state institutions; the police to be specific that colors the experiences of Muslim queer people and hijras very differently from their relatively privileged counterparts‘.
At around the same time in 2019, the draconian Trans Act of 2019 was also protested against, for preventing safe spaces for trans people and forcing them to stay with natal families till the age of 18, which disproportionately affects queer folks who lack passing privilege or access to safe spaces. Delhi has thus always been an important epicentre of queer activism. The same flavour of a complete rejection of saffronising queer rights has been seen this year in pride as well.
Delhi Pride: 2024 edition
There has been a plethora of wonderful posters seen in this pride parade urging for a liberated Palestine, justice for the complete mismanagement in Manipur and the gangrape of Kukizo women, the poor air quality in Delhi, fight against casteism, and such other important causes. There were as always facilities provided for queer people with disabilities such as interpreters, sign language experts, volunteers, and electric rickshaws. The leaflet with the Preamble set a highly inclusive agenda that seeks to cover every sub-section within the queer community, recognising all other forms of oppression that accompany queerphobia.
The leaflet with the Preamble set a highly inclusive agenda that seeks to cover every sub-section within the queer community, recognising all other forms of oppression that accompany queerphobia.
The organisers had clearly stated that there is no corporate, media, or political funding, preventing any form of queer capitalism. Going by all the posts and content shared by queer mutuals across intersections, the event has managed to be true to its ethos of pluralism, globalism, collectivism, and intersectionality, as opposed to majoritarianism, hypernationalism, individualism, and tone-insensitive. Like the previous year, Delhi pride has lived up to its intersectional ethos even this year.
Whenever right-leaning people, LGBT or cishet see slogans of “Aazadi” especially from Brahminical patriarchy or illegal occupation, their abusive hooters go up. Of course, the safety of queer people is paramount. It’s understandable if some queers – underaged and mobility deprived especially – are not able to be as “radical” as they wish to be. There should be absolutely no disregard for them so long as they aren’t fascist. However, the ones who do walk on thin ice and call a spade a spade are amazing comrades. It takes a heart of steel to voice the truth in the current political climate in India.
The bottom line
Pride parades that are not only surface-level inclusive but truly center other forms of social injustice on their radar are what yours truly calls Marsha P Johnson’s Lucky Mascot. Her most powerful quote was, ‘No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us‘. If she were alive, you can bet that she’d be one of the loudest voices in support of Palestine, Manipur, and all other forms of systemic human rights violations. The first pride was a protest not only against queerphobia, but also racism, police brutality, and lack of housing and healthcare for the marginalised, to name a few.
To take away Pride from its political context and make it a fun event where people only meet to frolic, flaunt designer clothes, and maintain an elitist aura is a disservice to the spirit of pride. There are certainly many other cities where pride rises to the radical standards it should meet, but as of now one should certainly add Delhi pride to your bucket list if you haven’t gone already; it is every bit worth it.
Pride poster image sources:
DELHI QUEER PRIDE
https://www.instagram.com/delhiqueerpride/profilecard/?igsh=YzlkM2trb3A4bHY2
YESWEEXISTINDIA
https://www.instagram.com/yesweexistindia/profilecard/?igsh=MTluZXh4M3pkcjMwMg==
OFFICIAL HUMANS OF QUEER
https://www.instagram.com/officialhumansofqueer/profilecard/?igsh=MTNtcHdzemM3dWY0ag==
