Passing in India
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IT WAS IN EARLY MAY, 2001, that I got the news that I had been granted a Fulbright scholarship in India. The award for a lecturer in women’s studies seemed like a perfect fit. Yet my excitement was tempered with a little concern about what life in India would be like for a lesbian, a feminist, and a woman traveling alone. I wondered if I would feel out of place as one of a very few Westerners in Lucknow, a large but somewhat remote city in northern India. As it turned out, I was the only American at Isabella Thoburn College, where I was to live and lecture for six months.

When I arrived at the airport terminal, two of the college faculty members, Pooja and Nalini, Indian women dressed very elegantly in richly colored silk saris, greeted me. They seemed so formal and serene, and so cool in what to me was intense heat and humidity. In a way, they reminded me of the nuns I had as teachers when I was a child. Maybe it was their gracefulness and their economy of movement (necessitated by the sari) that reminded me of the nuns in their old, long habits. They supervised the transport of my luggage to the car but otherwise waited for things to be done for them by workers. We exchanged pleasantries and they offered condolences for 9/11, which had occurred just a few days earlier. I wondered what, if anything, I might have in common with these women, who seemed so feminine, so traditional. I need not have worried: within a few minutes Pooja, who would become my closest friend, embarked on a discussion of feminist issues, and I began to feel a little at home.

As I got to know my colleagues and students, I began to develop a sense of community at the college. And yet the longer I remained in India, the more I realized how superficial and fragile those bonds were—superficial in that our ability to truly understand each other was limited by our differences in culture and experience, which were vast; and fragile because I felt that a misstep on my part could threaten my ability to establish bonds of acceptance and belonging.

A woman traveling in India is expected to have a male companion to deal with porters, luggage, rickshaw wallahs (drivers), taxi drivers, and so on. When people realized that I was traveling alone, I became something of a phenomenon, an enigma. Because it was clear from my appearance that I was not Indian, it also made me a target for the porters and taxi drivers and rickshaw wallahs. Prices would suddenly double or triple, and I would have to fight for a reasonable rate. It was not considered safe for a woman to be out alone after dark, and the streets at night were almost exclusively populated with men. Even though I never had a bad experience, I felt quite vulnerable—not something I typically experience in the U.S. An independent woman was completely unexpected, except among the highly educated, and even then many traditional feminine norms had to be observed.

I chose not to come out to my Indian friends because I had no physical safety net, no person or community on whom I could rely if rejected or ostracized by my host community. Nor was I completely closeted, however: I had pictures of my girlfriend clearly visible in my apartment. I spoke about her, but only as my friend. Whatever my reservations about this decision, the experience of feeling closeted was probably the truest experience of India I could have. If women are marginalized in Indian society, lesbians are virtually invisible. There is a strong cultural taboo against the public discussion of sex, especially that of women, which circumscribes the whole Western concept of being “out” about one’s sexual orientation.

But there are a number of out gay men and lesbians in India, some of whom are quite outspoken. There are also lesbian organizations, but these exist primarily in the most cosmopolitan areas, like New Delhi and Bombay, and are open for only a few hours a week. Still, the myth persists that there are no gays or lesbians in India, and this undermines the development of a collective gay or lesbian identity.

Indian society is overwhelmingly conservative and heterosexist. Young people are under relentless pressure from their families to get married. Many gay people succumb to this pressure to avoid bringing shame to their families. One creative solution has been for gay men to marry lesbians. As I traveled around the country, people would typically ask me, “Where is your husband?” If I told the truth that I was not married, they seemed surprised and sometimes asked further questions about my life. Often they seemed to pity me because I lived alone, was not married, and had no children. I finally learned that I could avoid the conversation by saying, “My husband is coming tomorrow.” The possibility that I might pursue another lifestyle was not part of their consciousness.

The executive director of Fulbright in India described Luck-now to me as “the real India.” It certainly reflected the conservatism and heterosexism of the society in ways I did not experience in major cities or in the south. Several times I met people in Lucknow and other areas that I’m sure were gay or lesbian, but because sexuality was so hidden, it was not possible to ask. Pooja introduced me to her friend’s brother, a professor of philosophy at Lucknow University. The second time we met he was shopping with his mother and sister, helping them to choose fabric for clothing. He was thoroughly enjoying himself and had a flair for color and style. On both occasions he invited me to visit him at the university, a casual invitation to “drop by sometime.” In retrospect I wonder if he was offering a subtle clue that we would have something in common. But I’d been in India for long enough to know that my “gaydar” wasn’t working. For example, it was common to see male friends standing with their arms around each other or walking hand-in-hand. I never got used to the idea that this is accepted heterosexual behavior and was always a little startled by this sight. What it was unusual to see was any public display of affection between heterosexual couples. I realized how culture-bound and subtle the signals are that gays and lesbians use in public. Not only could I not read the signals, I didn’t even know what to look for.

I did come out to Pooja, my closest friend in India, before I left. A few weeks before I left India, Pooja and I were engaged in conversation and I had an opportunity to come out. Perhaps it was because I knew I would be leaving in a little while, or because I felt our friendship was strong enough that I decided to take the risk. Our friendship remains intact.

It seems odd that the myth that there are no gays, lesbians, or bisexuals in India would persist in a culture that has a long history of accepting a third gender, the hijra, which includes eunuchs and transsexuals. Some hijra appeared at a wedding I attended in Lucknow. I was stunned when three people that I thought were drag queens arrived and began to disrupt the wedding ritual by chanting something in Hindi. The other guests appeared disgruntled by the three. Afterward I asked my friends to explain. They told me they were eunuchs and were chanting, “Give us our due!” They were demanding to be paid before performing for the couple and their guests. People were disgruntled not because the hijra had appeared, but because they were not dressed well enough, were poorly made up, and had a generally lackluster appearance.

While I was in Lucknow a hijra was campaigning for a seat in the legislature for the first time in India’s history. Interestingly enough, the hijra was running as a woman rather than as a man. In India, a percentage of all legislative seats are reserved for certain groups that are typically underrepresented—thirty percent in the case of women. There was a lot of controversy and press coverage about the campaign, and challenges to the hijra’s right to run as a woman. A recent court decision had declared all hijra to be males for the purpose of political office. Still, it seems remarkable that in an otherwise conservative and even homophobic society, a person of ambiguous gender would be accepted and taken seriously as a candidate for high office.

One clue to this paradox is that the hijra is a traditional role that predates the arrival of the British and their moral codes. One student of India, Arthur J. Pais, points out that: “Gay activists say this bias is an import from the West, since the Hindu religion does not proscribe homosexuality and there is no evidence of homophobia in pre-colonial Indian history” (Columbia Journalism Review, Nov./Dec., 1992). These activists have targeted Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes male homosexuality. This legislation was introduced by the British and persists in India to this day, even though comparable laws in Britain have been struck down. One difficulty in repealing this law has been that Section 377 also covers forcible sex between adult men and male child molestation, which are not included in the legal definition of rape. Therefore, to strike down Section 377, the laws against rape would also have to be amended to include male victims.

The first step toward repealing 377 and extending GLB protection generally will be the development of a collective identity and a sense of community among GLB people in India. Ashok Row Kavi, publisher and editor of Bombay Dost, India’s first gay and lesbian publication, has said: “We are trying to tell gays and lesbians across India that it is not only okay to be a homosexual, but that they shouldn’t feel any guilt about it and learn to enjoy their sexuality” (quoted by Pais).

Geeta Kumana, India’s leading lesbian activist, started the organization Aanchal. The name refers to the protective fold of a sari, and Aanchal’s motto is “Women protecting women.” The organization has a phone help line that’s open three days a week and a part-time counselor. What makes Aanchal different from other lesbian organizations is that it is not invisible. Kumana continues to fight to make the organization visible by focusing on getting the word out through advertising. None of the country’s major women’s publications has agreed to run an ad yet, but her tenacity resulted in The Times of India, the country’s largest English-language newspaper, finally printing Aanchal’s ad, though the word lesbian was replaced with “women who are attracted to women.” Aanchal is based in Mumbai, but Kumana’s goal is to make it a national organization. Although changing the laws will be an important step for GLB people in India, it will not change the culture. Having legal support may help a collective gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity to develop. Creating a climate of acceptance or tolerance will be a more challenging long-term goal.

Patricia J. Ould, a sociologist, spent six months in India as a Fulbright Scholar at Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow.