Oppression of Sexual Minorities : Presented by Sanjay Kabir Bavikatte, 27 April 2003

 

Edited transcript of presentation made at a forum organised in Georgetown, Guyana on 27 April, 2003 to discuss “Sexual Orientation as a Fundamental Right”

 

Moderator : Now, I’d like to introduce our next speaker, he’s Mr.

Sanjay Bavikatte. He’s from India, Bangalore, from the South of India and let me blow one immediate stereotype … when I met Sanjay today I said `Ah! You must be a Hindu then, right”. No, he’s a Muslim. So it’s very interesting that his background coming from India, that he’s coming from a Muslim background himself and he’s right now lecturing at the Law Faculty at UG and he will speak to us on the theme of Oppression of Sexual Minorities. So we’ll now have Sanjay.

Sanjay Bavikatte

Bangalore, India

Oppression of Sexual Minorities

Good afternoon. Before I begin, I must thank Vidya for

organising this open forum and giving me an

opportunity to speak. It’s an incredible act of

courage amidst this amount of enforced silence but

nevertheless I see the small moves, there will be

others to follow.

I will be addressing various aspects related to the

debate around same sex orientation and the rights

ensuing therefrom. let me start with the notion of

culture. And I think this is where I’ll link what I’m

saying to Ravi’s point. I mean he asked the question

in terms of culturally what is the kind of society we

are. I mean that was the kind of question he raised

and how do we as a culture perceive homosexuality. To

begin with culture as a concept is never homogeneous.

Culture is fraught with dissent. There are multiple

views within a certain culture about what is right,

what is wrong. And invariably, when someone speaks on

behalf of a particular culture, in most situations,

and asserts that this is the view of a particular

culture, invariably that ends up being a certain

dominant view. And when I use the word dominant I

don’t mean it is supported by a majority but I mean

that within social power, the person who’s speaking

obviously occupies a position of power when he or she

can make a statement saying that this is what our

culture is about. And this is where I’d like to enter

and I’d like to point out that through history, every

time people have spoken about culture, this is our

culture, there’s invariably been the silencing of a

number of other voices within that specific culture.

And throughout history these have been voices of

women, voices of people of color, voices of indigenous

communities who differ, who feel that their notion of

culture is entirely different from this, but these

voices are consistently silenced.

And what I’ll do to begin with today is to honour

these voices. Is to see what are the other voices that

have been silenced when we speak about culture? let me

start with, let me use gender as an example because

these were the beginnings of the Women’s movement.

Yes, there was this biological distinction between men

and women and that was sex but what about gender. Now

this is where the social constructionist model comes

and simply put it essentially means that while sex may

be biological, gender identity is socially

constructed. Now, what does this gender identity mean?

Gender identity essentially means the kinds of roles

people have to perform in society by virtue of

belonging to a particular sex. So what you have is

this entire narrative that comes from it. You know

when you define a man, masculinity is defined as

strong, rational, courageous, bread-winner, the one

who rules the household, so on and so forth. And

femininity essentially is weak, emotional, possibly

hysterical, irrational, someone who’s unable to

protect herself and so on and so forth but these are

gender roles. But how does this get perpetuated?

Because gender is nothing but performance, it is

performed. Gender is performitivity. People constantly

perform their gender. As a man I may perform my

gender, as a woman, she may perform her gender but

what ends up happening is that this ends up becoming a

dominant view say within our culture women have

essentially been weak. But when you make a statement

like this what gets hidden are stories of resistance

of women who think differently, who differ. And

likewise I’d like to take the position, I would kind

of move away from this typical question of is

sexuality nature or nurture. In the sense that is it

biological or is it by virtue of the kind of society

we live in because I feel it is a moot point really.

Because as far as rights go, it shouldn’t matter

whether it is by nature or nurture because on the one

hand people make the argument that if we are naturally

that way then we should be given rights. Then the

counter argument could be if you have a natural

proclivity towards violence does that mean you should

be given a right? So the idea isn’t so much about

nature or nurture, the idea is essentially about a

question of rights. I mean does the exercise of this

person’s rights affect the exercise of anyone else’s

rights. Now, I would try to point out that sexuality

like gender is predominantly socially constructed yet

I would say sexuality is more of a spectrum. Where you

may have extremes on either ends but what you have is

this vast gray area in the middle where people are

attracted to all kinds of different people who may not

necessarily stick to their strict gender roles.

You may have excessively feminized women who are

attracted to women who are masculinized in terms of

stereotypical gender roles or vice versa. Now, what

you have when you look at sexuality as something which

is wide, which is fluid, which is constantly changing

is the question that arise is where did this category

called homosexual emerge from? When did the homosexual

as a species emerge? And I think this is an extremely

important question because I lay the blame straight at

the doorstep of medical sciences. Think about this,

this is 18th Century, this is Victorian England what

you have is the religious prohibitions but largely

these are not enforced; what you have is a certain

fluid nature. No one defines homosexuality, you have a

variety of sexual practices in society. Now suddenly,

you have intersection between psychiatry and Victorian

morality where you have this emergence of a species

called the homosexual who becomes a legal and medical

subject. A legal subject who needs to be subjected to

surveillance who needs to be imprisoned, a medical

subject who needs to be put on a sterile table, who

needs to be examined, lobotomized and so on and so

forth. Science, you have to understand that science is

not this neutral field. Science in many occasions

works in service of power. And Science is informed by

social mores, by dominant groups, by people who fund

and so on and so forth. And this is pretty much what

Julie addressed. Now, where does this come down to

post-colonial societies like ours?

Speaking from within an Indian context, what did

happen was sexuality again was a spectrum in

pre-colonial India but what you do have is colonialism

as a stage which changes how sexuality is perceived in

India. You have writings by people like Catherine

Mayo- book Mother India where she describes the

Bengali anarchists as people who are prone to violence

because of their abnormal sexual practices. She says

these are clear criminal minds, that’s why they

constantly demonstrate and throw bombs and so on and

so forth. Now, what happens is how the Indian

intellengencia responds to this is and the Western

Indophiles, how they respond to this is not by

reclaiming their identity and interrogating the

Victorian morality itself. What they instead do is to

say `no we are as good as you’. So they Victorianize

Indian culture by saying `no, no, no.

Homosexuality does not exist within our culture; even

within in our culture it is an abhoration. We define

heterosexuality in a particular way’- of course that

definition is never declared; heterosexuality is never

problematized it’s always homosexuality that is

interrogated. But anyway, so they come up and make a

statement like this and suddenly what you have is the

Indian penal code being drafted in the 1860s

where a criminal provision is introduced, criminalizng

homosexuality where it was never crimilaized prior to

that. Now, if someone ask me a question `what is this

suppressed culture you’re talking about? What are

these various cultures which have been suppressed?’

India is a country (which is) predominantly Hindu and

a substantial population of Muslims, the second

largest Muslim population in the world after

Indonesia. But the point is, as far as Hindu culture

goes, there was always this fluidity of gender in

terms of mythology. I am not saying

there are necessarily translated into reality, never

does. But in terms of mythology, where Lord Shiva was

considered Hari Hara – he was

considered half man and half woman. The cosmic deity,

the one deity was considered transgendered at some

level, able to

imbibe both masculine and feminine characteristics.

The South Indian popular deity Lord Ayappa he was

considered as a result of the union of Shiva and

Vishnu. Two male deities again. And Lord Adhineswara again a

South Indian deity was considered a result of the

union of Lord Shiva and Vishnu and Harry being Vishnu

and Hara being Shiva. And likewise what you had was

again within the Mahabarata , you had people like

Sheikandi who were again transgendered

individuals. And they were valorized. I mean they

weren’t denigrated in this kind of a mythology.

7 century AD, you had the Bhakti movement. Now, the

Bhakti movement again was a result, where a substantial

section of people said `we have to look at God from a

perspective of devotion, where God is perceived as

either a friend, or God is perceived as your child or

God is perceived as your lover. So what you have is a

number of these monks taking on female roles of either

a mother or lover of God and it’s through that kind of

selfless love, they feel that they realize God. And

even today in places like Ayodhya, you have a sex

called Ramnandis where male monks dress up as women

and embody Sita’s personality to realize Lord Ram. So

there you have that. Here you come to the Islamic

traditions, again in India, where you have a number of

Sufi saints who have constantly expressed homoerotic sentiments.

And saying that the kind of selfless love they are

able to embody is a way how they realize God. I mean

it’s interesting in terms of the Sufi Saint ….. he was

Sheik Hussein who was in love with this Hindu man

called Madho Lall. And he was tried in the court of the

Emperor Akbar and it’s interesting in terms of the

poetry he recites, where again, he’s forgiven by the

King because of the purity of his love. When he’s

released by the king despite being tried for his

homoerotic sentiments, he responds saying “sway in

ecstasy in your dance in the courtyard. The Lord is

near those who chant his name. In the courtyard the

flow many streams, each with a thousand boats. I have

seen many sink in the water

and some cross over to the other shore. This courtyard

of mine has nine doors and the tenth is always locked.

No one knows the door of my beloved, he comes and goes

as he pleases. There’s a lovely alcove in the

courtyard with a beautiful window in it. I spread my

bed in this niche to enjoy the night with my

bridegroom. A wild young elephant roams in the

courtyard breaks his chains to pieces. It could never harm those who are

truly awake,” says Husain in the Fakir of God.

What Hussein is trying to point out is the kind of

pure love which he is able to embody, where he says

it’s not about heterosexuality or homosexuality but

it’s the purity of one’s love that is important. And

very similar sentiments are expressed by other Sufi’s

Sheiks like Sheik Afi Jamshed and Samad.

And what is interesting is, where do these people, now

with the strict prohibition or so-called strict

prohibition of homosexuality within Islam where do

these Sufi Sheiks draw justification of what they do?

A number of them in some of their writings, they say

“well there is no condemnation of homosexuality within

the Koran”. Now, how they come up to statements like

this? Simply because the word for gay is Luti in

Arabic and this word is a relatively recent word. And

19th Century Arabic sociologists have been trying to

figure out the word for homosexuality and they use the

word fahisha which essentially means odd, not found in

large numbers. Now the Koran has words for desire

which is Rajaba or Shaawara for lustful appetite. But

it does not have a word for homosexuality. You see the

word they picked this word out from is Fahisha. Now,

fahisha is translated as transgression. But it does not

define this transgression is supposed to be homosexual

transgression. What ends up happening is that the word

faisha is picked out from the verse which describes

the story of Prophet Lut, may Allah’s blessings be

upon him. But you see you cannot pick out a particular

verse and interpret it that way, what you need when

you try and understand religious texts, firstly a

semantic analysis. A semantic analysis essentially

means that you don’t pick out words from out of

context. Words have meanings only in relation to other

words. So you pick out all the verses using that

particular word and try to get the gist of the meaning

in the way in which it was used. And transgression has

always been used (to mean) moving away from the

boundaries set by God, that’s invariably related to

worshipping false gods and so on and so forth.

Thematic analysis is another way that is used and

thematic analysis essentially means you take the

different verses within the Koran which speak about

Prophet Lut and you construct a story out of it and

then you get the essence of what is the true essence

of that particular story because you see the Koran is

not written in a chronological order, it is like a

kaleidoscope. Things occur over and over again in

different contexts to put across different meanings.

When you construct the story in terms of Lut in terms

of putting together the various passages which speak

about Prophet Lut, is you have a story where the

people were smote down, not so much because of their

sexual practices but because of their greed, but

because they robbed

Strangers and because they raped strangers that was

homosexual rape. But there was nothing about this idea

of homoerotic love, that was ever mentioned in the

Koran. And this is the kind of view which feminist

Islamic theologians like Fatima Waheeda, Amina Wadood…. This

is the kind of view they put. Because when you read a

text, the whole question is you are an interpreter

with baggage, you come there and then you read a

particular text and you derive the interpretation you

want. And when I talk about liberating suppressed

parts of culture this is what I am saying. Liberating

the views of other people, minorities, people of

colour, indigenous people who read the text and read

differently.

Alright, let me move on to this whole idea of Global

Cultures; where most people tend to believe, and this

is the kind of experience I have had when I have

spoken about homosexuality to people, that it is

something that is Western, it is decadent, it is

something that is imported and not an intrinsic part

of one’s culture.

But again studies have shown that homosexuality or

same sex orientation is prevalent in a number of

cultures. They haven’t accepted existence of same-sex

or ransgendered unions in

19th Century Nigerian society, pre-Columbian native

American society, 19th Century Zulu society, ancient

Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Mesopotamian, the Azande,

Ceba, ……Bantu …in Africa,…. Chinese, Vietnamese,

Indian, Japanese, Burmese, Korean and Nepalese

societies. I mean it has existed in virtually every

society. Now, where does this suppression come from?

Where does this denial come from? Well you see, I

think this is where you have to pose the question

which is linked to what Ravi mentioned, that he hasn’t

come across anything. And this is where I want to

point out to you, that you see power does not just not

just suppress, power is active, power creates and when

it creates, it creates invisibility. Power operates in

a way where it organizes space. Where some people can

be seen and some people can not be seen. Now, how do

you have, when people who have a same-sex orientation,

who are scared of the kind of backlash and

discrimination they are likely to face, how is it

expected that they come out and claim their identity,

when they would receive an enormous amount of

discrimination just by virtue of stating who they are?

And this happens say in schools and colleges, where in

….. can he or she declare his or her orientation where

all the other adolescents are declaring their sexual

orientation as far as the opposite sex is concerned.

In work spaces, again they say bring your spouse along

for an office party. It does not mean bring your

spouse along for the same sex. I mean dare you bring

it along and prior to this I was speaking to one of

the members in the audience and he was saying he

experienced this same kind of discrimination when he

applied for a job. I mean they didn’t like his attire,

they said `if you don’t change your attire which

represented some kind of a transgendered sentiment,

then you don’t get the job. And likewise in various

other institutions whether you talk of Insurance,

whether you talk about inheritance, whether you talk

about adoption all these issues come in. Any other

unit besides the heterosexual family unit is not

recognized. As a lawyer, I will tell you, almost all

laws underpin the notion of a heterosexual family

unit. You do not fall within that then you are denied

various civil rights. And likewise as far as your

fundamental rights go too, if you are beaten up by

somebody you can’t go to the police, ‘cause to go to

the Police is in so many ways to declare who you are

especially if you are beaten up for your sexuality.

The repression is not just local, the repression is

global. It’s an interesting fact but the human rights

discourse, I mean most people trace the origins of the

current human rights discourse as the Universal

declaration of Human Rights to second World War,

because the Nazi holocaust

And millions of Jews being gassed to death. What is

ignored is that a number of gays and lesbians who were

also killed, thousands of them? I mean, men were made

to wear the pink triangle, the women were made to wear

the black triangle but they were killed. But you see

the invisiblization that has occurred, they never got

the chance to articulate their rights. When rights

were declared it was about the rights of groups,

primarily in terms of religious groups.

The same thing happens in Iran article 110, provides

the death sentence for gays and lesbianism gets a

hundred lashes; Saudi Arabia gets the death sentence.

In Egypt currently fifty-two men have been held and

are being tortured in prison and not because they were

caught in the act but because they are suspected to be

gays. In Colombia right wing death squads killed more

than 300 gay men from 1986 to 1990. Peru revolutionary

left wing squads killing homosexuals as a

social cleansing. Brazil 1300 gays have been killed

since 1980 and an average of one gay, lesbian or

transvestite is killed every three days. Even in the

US, there’s the story of Matthew Shepherd who was

taken, he was tied up and he was pistol-whipped and

killed just for expressing his sexual orientation.

In Zimbabwe Mugabe has made a statement saying

homosexuals are worse than dogs and pigs and the group

GALAZ (Gay and Lesbian Association of Zimbabwe) –

there offices have been ransacked and burnt. So you

see, there’s global oppression. This is reason enough

for rights and it is important to articulate this

oppression and to articulate it over and over again.

Not to deny pain, to take suffering seriously. Because

it is only when a victim realizes that he or she is a

victim, they no longer remain a victim but they are a

threat. Thank you.

Moderator: Ok, thank you very much Sanjay. Again I

think we have been treated, I wish we could have had

more forums like these at the university that could

attract people to come up from Georgetown where you

can be exposed to, you know, a genuine broadening of

our spectrum. I think the experience from out of

India, from the Hindu, the short references that

Sanjay made to the Hindu mythology, very, very

interesting. Interpretation of Islam, also very

interesting. And then you can begin to make some cross

references. When he mentioned, for example the case of

the woman in India, you know the problem with these

people behaving badly was because they were rising up

against colonial repression. But the problem really

wasn’t that they were rising up against colonial

repression, it was because of their bad sexual

practices that was causing them to rise up. I

immediately thought of the experience from the

Caribbean from Jamaica and I think some of you might

be familiar with the work of Edith Clark in Jamaica in

1938. When you had the uprisings right across the

Caribbean and you had the Mone Commission come down to

find out why people were rising up. In Jamaica, it was

interesting that the governor’s wife, I think she was

a lady called Lady Huggins, made the startling

discovery that the reason why these sugar workers were

rising up and causing problems ostensibly about poor

wages was because they were not married, was because

they were engaged in common-law unions. So what she

organised in Jamaica was a mass marriage process, she

brought up hundreds of people from Western Jamaica to

get them married because if we could reform people

morally then they would be much more pliant in terms

of their economic and political oppression. Well,

Edith Clark, Jamaican sociologist, did a very

interesting analysis of Jamaican family – My Mother

who fathered me; very interesting book and it might be

interesting for some of us to follow-up on that.

But interesting, you know, some of the comparisons

that we can make from one culture to another with

regard to - End of Tape