Diversity. India has the world beat when it comes to being diverse by encompassing every major world religion, having over 387 languages spoken by people, and each region having it’s distinct culture. Such a dynamic brings in innumerable combinations of different cultures, genders and religions together creating a very unique identity and quality of life for each individual living here. Yet, the common trend among the digital age is to often hide and somewhat override certain aspects of said identities while talking about the other, which ultimately deducts our perception of people’s actual experiences and struggles.
The divide between urban and rural spaces is a big one in India. urban/metropolitan spaces are starting to accept lgbtqia+ people or atleast acknowledge their identity because of exposure from pride parades in metro cities like Mumbai and New Delhi, queer based forums at institutes, social media etc. where the community could assert and elaborate on their presence. Queer communities are still far far away from being accepted completely even in our urban spaces, let alone rural spaces.
One huge problem with the metropolitan people who have access to more information and amenities is that we generalize queer experiences that we see from our queer friends, or queer influencers, who all live in cities. This diminishes our view to even think to include things like caste, income and the kind of community we are brought up in into their lives which play a huge part. Erasing such life changing complexities in no way helps people with their battles for equality. Far away from pride parades are people completely ostracized and oppressed because of their gender . Let’s open our minds to understand queer lives in rural india.
To start off, rural areas tend to be more aggressive to conform to a traditional heterosexual family unit, overlooked by the patriarch. ‘ work of the home’ is to be done by the women and ‘work of the field’ is to be done by the men. Anything that won’t fit these ideals are resisted. Villages where community works with traditional beliefs that people back up using religion, queer identities don’t have space to exist. According to an article by BBC, declaration of article 377 hasn’t proved much help to people in rural areas due to societal stigma that is greater than any law that provides them freedom. People in villages do not care for the laws being abolished or made. Queer people face exclusion from their own family and village community which makes them vulnerable to brutal realities such as homelessness, no financial stability, lack of lgbtqia+ friendly healthcare and no right to education. People are struggling for basic amenities they need to stay alive and make a livelihood.
(trigger warning) Not only that, such communities are also more vulnerable to sexual violence in different ways. Effeminate men are usually asked for sexual favours secretly, while also being physically and mentally tortured by their own families. It is also a common practice to do ‘conversion therapy’ on people which are allowed by relatives and family members. These could include drugging the person without their consent, using means of physical torture and also perpetrating sexual violence on people. This leaves people with unbearable mental and physical wounds. Most people live as straight and marry after being pressured by their own family members. In such situations, a lot of queer people dream to move to the city.
It’s not as if people in rural areas do not recognize the existence of queer communities, the awareness exists, but people constantly over generations have antagonized these identities, which makes it difficult to break out of the constraints of oppression in the name of tradition. We need to echo and advocate basic human rights for queers in rural parts of India as much as we do in urban. Upliftment of only some amount of people in some ways should never be enough. Effective systemic change can only come about if we can include everyone affected by it. The unawareness of the urban and elite towards rural living queers and oppression by rural communities onto queers work as two sides of the same coin.
But there are always stories of inspiration that give us hope and fuel to fight another day. For example, Two women in Bundelkhand got married after facing forced separation for six years. it was a long legal battle which ended with the court favoring the couple. Another example would be of Dr. Manabi Banopadhyay, from the small town of Naihati in West Bengal, who became the first transwoman in West Bengal to get a PhD and then India’s first transgender college principal. She also wrote her autobiography called “ a gift of goddess laxmi” and has inspired transwomen across India. Another inspiration from Dhubri, Assam, Rafiul Alom Rahman has created the “ queer muslim project” in 2017, a leading platform for queer and muslim voices that started with Rafiul sharing his first hand experience being a queer muslim. It has won the Cosmo ‘ LGBTQIA+ voice of the year’ 2022.
These instances make us realize that even if infrastructural advancement and worldly education have boundaries that can’t be crossed, empathy and sense of justice don’t . Among queer people who gather the courage to come out to the world as themselves, I hope People can come out of their social conditioning , come out of their privileged bubble, and come out of their comfort zone so that help can’t be limited by any boundaries.
My article is also available on Medium. click here to read.