The book titled Sexuality, Abjection and Queer Existence in Contemporary India, edited by Pushpesh Kumar highlights the complex ways in which state, policy, activism, everyday life of sexually marginalized groups and disciplinary practices interrelate with each other. Radhika Chopra in the foreword of the book writes that the varied writings of Pushpesh Kumar in this book and his varied writing reflects on the politics of the personal. In this book, the author has not only problematized scholarship on sexuality but also engaged with the challenges of teaching sexuality in the classroom and addressed the issue of why it is important to teach the ‘unteachable and uncomfortable’ issues.
This book has twelve diverse set of papers, divided equally into two parts and with an introduction by Pushpesh Kumar. The editor in the introduction highlights three important aspects: One, Kumar focuses on the process of ‘othering’ of the academic scholars working on the ‘erotic’ and sexual aspects of everyday life. Kumar theorizes on how hetronormativity and homosocial practices are ingrained within academia and argue that pursuance of sexuality research by men who may not openly identify as queer are suspected, scrutinized and stigmatized in private gossip and casual conversations. Two, Kumar builds upon the theorization of ‘abjection’ as developed by Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler and J. Devika by highlighting the diverse, intersecting and complex materiality of sites where experiences and expressions on sex and sexuality are embedded and contested. Three, through its diverse set of essays the book focuses on the emerging and existing cultures of sexuality in contemporary India. By doing so, it engages with the diverse practices of sexuality, sexual politics and politicization of sexuality. Thus the book raises pertinent questions with regard to cultures of sexuality in the everyday, private and public traversing the hegemonic and marginalities and hetero and queer.
In the first part, which has six essays ( Chapters 1 to 6) the focus is on resistance and agency within the heteronormative. The essays in this part foreground how the normative is to be interrogated from a queer perspective in neo-liberal India by queer academics and activists. Asha Singh in her chapter argues for recognizing folklore as an important epistemic resource. Singh presents a socio-cultural account of the conjugality-sexuality of Bhojpuri women using folklores as they sing. The author argues that while folklores are not reflections of reality, they do provide an index of the everyday lives of Bhojpuri women and highlight how their politics of survival is enmeshed within the politics of intimacy and sexuality. Ketaki Chowkhani in her work focuses on adolescent love and romance. The paper highlights how neo-liberal discourses intimately shape certain middle-class boy’s experiences, articulations and expressions in romance and relationships. The author questions the ideas of male desire by examining adolescent male romance and consumerism, especially ideas of heterosexual romance and masculinity.
Asima Jena problematises how the political economy of development is disentangled from the spatial regulations and evictions based on morality and sexuality. The author argues that social science scholarship has invisibilized the experiences of sexual subalterns, such as former Devadasis and performing communities, particularly Kalavanthulu, while discussing the impact of involuntary displacement and destruction of livelihoods through mines, dams, etc. The chapter engages with the question of how land alienation affected sexual marginals differently and distinctly and how important it is to focus on materiality while examining the politics of sexuality.
Pranoo Deshraju and Pushpesh Kumar examine the debates on the Playboy Club in South Asia. The chapter highlights how the ‘erotica’ was perceived within the imagination of the nation. Drawing upon both the liberal and conservative opposition to the Playboy Club, the authors argue that both positions invariably collapse and contain women’s sexuality in the name of the nation. Through this, they argue for a need to complicate the sexuality debates in public culture. Tony Sebastian focuses on the politics of comedy in Kerala’s public sphere. The author highlights the subtext of misogyny and casteism that forms the base of humour in Malayalam popular cinema. Through critically examining the humorous discourse, the author highlights how the hegemonic identity of the ‘Malayali’ is established as – a cis-gendered, heterosexual, upper caste Malayalam speaker, thereby radically ‘othering’ marginalised identities. J. Devika focuses on police surveillance of young people in Kerala, to complicate the category of the marginal in contemporary Kerala. By examining the political movements, particularly sex worker mobilization and queer organising, the author highlights ways in which they are stigmatized and denied self-respect. The challenge according to the author is to move beyond visibility within the police, medical and governmental discourses, and highlight the possibility of nurturing counter-public politics around the abjection of marginal bodies.
In the second part, the six essays (Chapters 7 to 12) focus on contemporary queer India and the possibilities of destabilizing, altering, transforming and/or normalizing processes. Saptarshi Mandal engages with the question of marriage in India, by analysing the case of Sodomy as grounds for divorce. The author highlights how the term sodomy has been part of the legal regulation of heterosexual marriage since the 19th C. The chapter locates Sodomy in the familial arena of heterosexual marriage, especially how law constructed sex within heteropatriarchal marriage. Such analysis helps us to focus on the possibility of the abject as the source of both subordination and resistance. Brinda Bose focuses on erotica within the domain of urban, sophisticated, educated and genteel Indian English writing. By highlighting politics in writing and acknowledging it as an elite sub-genre of Indian writing in English, the author argues for its politics as a form of socio-cultural intellectual insurgency. The author emphatically argues that queer erotica is a crucial political intervention, thereby reclaiming a space for alternative sexualities in a world of ‘respectable’ writing.
Sayantan Datta’s chapter is a critique of genetic investigations on sexuality. The chapter focuses on genetic research on sexuality and sexual identities, raising questions of ethics, disciplinary orientations, epistemic value and methodological considerations. The author argues that critically analysing the history of genetic research within the frame of feminist socio-political context, would facilitate critique of science as a discipline and critique of biological essentialism and genetic determination. The chapter argues for a queer feminist critique of science, which would lead to increased inclusivity and nuanced research. Meghana Rao in her work on hijra lives focuses on love and betrayal narratives that emerged during her conversations with Hijras in Bangalore. In this chapter, the author contextualizes the experience of love and betrayal as experienced by Hijras, within sexuality rights activism debates, especially around queer suicides, particularly lesbian suicides. The author raises a pertinent question as to why Hijra suicides have not emerged as an arena for political action. The present work highlights the marginal and selective presence of Hijra suicide narratives within the larger sexuality and transgender rights in India.
Chayanika Shah critically engages with the queer challenge to the idea of family and the laws governing it. Based on narratives of queer persons, the chapter highlights how the private, intimate and crucial space of the natal family is also a site of violence, in relation to their chosen gender identity and sexuality. The author argues that queer lives have the potential to challenge – the monogamous, heterosexual coupling and connection of blood, considered core to the idea of a normative understanding of family. Through an argument for queering of the family and the laws, the author states that it could lead to a conceptual shift in our understanding of intimacies, family and property.
Oishik Sircar’s chapter focuses on queer politics in the new India, which according to him has been marked by a complex relationship between Hindutva and neoliberalism. Emphasizing the diverse and vibrant political roots of the contemporary queer movement in India, the author questions the imposition of a homogenous historical narrative, which he argues could be problematic. Drawing upon the complex history of queer politics, discussions with a diverse set of activists and academics and the author’s activism, especially about the decriminalization of Section 377, the author emphasizes the need for politics of self-reflexivity.
This work emerges as an important contribution to the field of sexuality studies, queer studies, gender studies, cultural studies, sociology, law and literature. By foregrounding the experiences of abjected and sexual marginalities in the core towards a better understanding of the existing and emerging sexual politics of contemporary India, the book is a treasure for students, researchers, academics and activists. The interdisciplinary focus of the book also adds to its relevance.
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Anurekha Chari Wagh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad.