This article tries to answer the question “Is the term Queer encapsulate casteless-ness ? ”. The article starts with defining ‘Queerness’ both literally and pragmatically and draws differences between both definitions in the context of representational politics. Then goes on to elaborate the concept of representational politics through real world illustrations in the field of law (in striking down S.377) and mainstream media representations to drive back to the stand – queer is not casteless.
DEFINING 'QUEERNESS'
Literature -
Narrain and Gautam Bhan defines queer in their anthology “Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India1”as
“Both a deeply personal identity and a defiant political perspective; it embodies within itself a rejection of the primacy of the heterosexual, patriarchal family as the cornerstone of our society... Queer politics speaks of larger understandings of gender and sexuality in our society that affect us all, regardless of our sexual orientation. (Narain and Bhan, 2005: 3, emphasis mine)”
It can be seen from the definition that Queerness here is identified as an separate identity. That is, Queerness herein has a predefined set of characteristics and anyone who possesses the required characteristics shall fall under the scope of Queer.
REAL WORLD INTERPRETATIONS
In real time, there are several other institutions at play wherein each system intersect to either provide further privilege or to further discriminate. Akshay Khanna in his book sexualness states
“sexuality is everything but sexuality”
The author herein brings in science behind scattering of light (CV Raman effect) to help us understand the practical interpretations of Queerness. The Raman effect states the colour we see through our eyes are not actually the colours of objects around us but rather the colours that the objects reflect after absorbing the other colours in the white light. Akshay says, similar to the Raman effect, in real world sexuality is not read as sexuality but rather read on the terms of several other identities. Though the author specifically handles sexuality herein, this general rule of intersectionality has been dealt with by other authors as well. One such example could be, author Karupalaniyappan in "Neeya Naana" -
“There are only two types of caste within humanity, the rich and the poor. With economical prosperity, the society would leave out to consider my actual caste. And shall pull me up with it[2]” (paraphrased from tamil)
This would be a classic example of caste being read through economic well-being.
REPRESENTATIONAL POLITICS
In terms of Queerness, this rule of intersectionality play as representational politics. To elaborate, Arundhati Katju while addressing Oxford Union3 proudly claims, that the case of Navtej Singh Johar the first time in the history of Indian homosexual jurisprudence did the members of homosexual community get involved directly as petitioners. This statement by blatantly ignoring several prior petitions filed by trans women, sex workers, Kothi’s etc play in to put a picture of wealthy, upper caste, upwardly mobile, literate petitioners as the face of queerness, the pioneers of queer rights in India. Thereby reading homosexuality on the terms of caste, economic prosperity, literacy and merit. Further, the judgement struck down the the draconian law on the lines of right to privacy which implies the victory for the people who can afford Spatial privacy.
Sathis Deshpande quotes -
“casteless is means through which dominant people have also a maintained the status quo4”
Sathish’s quotes in reference to the Navtej Singh judgement could be understood as the affordability of castelessness is restricted to the dominant upper class and caste people who fall into all the identities including Queer community.
Further examples could be cited from main stream media and movies such as -
- Paruthuveeran, a national award movie directed by Ameer in which an entire song has been shot around transgenders. The song both visually and lyrically portrays the transgenders as lower caste dancers who are accepting explicit sexual advances and violations by the hero. The caste location of the people therein are substantiated with various visual cues such as dance forms they put forth.
- Similarly Magizhini, advertised as the first tamil LGBTQ song portrays the heroines of the songs as a lesbian couple. But inherently chooses their background as daughters of wealthy, upper caste females falling in love in the course of learning Bharatanatyam.
CONCLUSION
From the above explained illustrations, the question of “whether queer is casteless?” is replaced by “who in queer gets to be casteless?”. The questions interchange in itself reveals the conclusion, that queer is not casteless, and as Deshpande observes only the dominant people therein gets the privilege to be casteless intersectionally.
1 Narrain, Arvind. Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India. Yoda Press, 2009.
2 “Youtu.be.” Youtube, Vijay Television , 7 June 2017, https://youtu.be/NKCoSTnVOYg
3 “Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju - YouTube.” Youtube, OxfordUnion, 26 Apr. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lp6H4YYN-k
4 DESHPANDE, SATISH. “Caste and Castelessness: Towards a Biography of the ‘General Category.’” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 48, no. 15, Economic and Political Weekly, 2013, pp. 32–39, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23527121