Queer but why....

It is widely believed that a society is valued by the social norms it upholds and values as being core to its cultural identity. India, by this standard, stands out as an oxymoron in the ideological identity it recognizes. India, as the ancient scriptures suggest, is the birth land of eroticism. Kama Sutra, is widely considered to be the standard work on sexual behaviour was written by an Indian scholar, MallanagaVatsyayana. The sculptures at Khajurao also suggest a rather tolerant and progressive society we were. Today, sexuality in any form is rarely discussed openly.

Homosexuality is largely seen as taboo not only in India but in many countries across the world. The reason to this is attributed to religion. While homosexuality is has not been explicitly mentioned in the religious texts central to Hinduism, the largest religion in India, many believe that homosexuality was both prevalent and accepted in ancient Indian society.

Many scholars and philosophers like Renaud Camus have written extensively on this subject. Camus' strength comes from his militant refusal to cast moral aspersion on sexual behaviour, to define homosexuality as something secondary to the dominant praxes of heterosexuality. He made homosexuality banal so as to subscribe a new thought of social acceptance.

In the Indian context, homosexuality is seen as severe perversion of the Indian value system. Not only is it regarded as social, moral, ethical deviation from the normal, it was, by law seen as a criminal act. Article 377, a 148 year old colonial law described the same sex relationship as an “unnatural offense.” Homosexual acts were criminal acts punishable by a 10-year prison sentence.

It is rather interesting to note that the “criminalization of homosexual act” owes its origin to the colonial aspiration to clean the Indian society of its archaic ideologies and way of living. The Roman Catholic Church traditionally condemned same sex act. Propagating the same, the ruling was institutionalized in 1861 and was followed up until now.

Their sexual orientation is considered “deviant” and adjectives like “queer” are attached to it. All of this is done under the disguise of culture protection. But is the society the judge for what is normal and attach moral justifications to it. After all the largely believed absolute truths of a society are mere ideologies and beliefs of a majority of people. The failure of “majority wins” concept lies in the fact that mass culture breeds mass acceptance and mass acceptance forms the norms for all.

its a strange phenomenon that people are deprived of their Right to life primarily on the basis of societal conventions... now that is queer.. isn't it?!?