The queer movement is dead, long live the queer movement!

The ‘queer movement’ seems to have arrived. It seems to be everywhere.

The Supreme Court is holding forth on surrogacy and sex between the thighs, arguing that the times they are a-changing, so the reading down of 377 should stay. There’s going to be a fresh bout of queer hysteria over the next few days, if not weeks, and the slick lawyers behind the High Court judgement and the post-Judgement media blitz will pat themselves again on the back, sound alternately hysterical and nationalist on TV, or both at the same time. They’ll stand up on TV when the national anthem is turned on.

There’s a big queer conference coming up in Shimla. There are queer characters in saas-bahu serials and in every second Hindi film. Corporate law schools conduct studies of queer populations (yes, queers are now an acknowledged social group) and find that the morale of the queer community has been boosted by the High Court judgement.

There are now queer bookstores and franchises, publishing houses, queer book series in non-mainstream publishing houses and books flaunting their queerness in mainstream publishing houses.

There are Pride marches being organised in more and more cities every year, and smaller cities and towns are sure to join the bandwagon soon. 

There are queer film-festivals that are now being held every year. There is a documentary series on the history of the ‘queer movement’ and its main figures are interviewed. There are now glossy UN-funded and glossy corporate magazines for queers on the roadside.

Delhi Pride last year had rock bands playing and a jamboree in a multi-starred hotel. Their statement said they would not allow organisations to carry banners or groups to distribute material but they flaunted their queer-friendly corporate sponsors. Their statement said that even straights were queers! The list is endless but the writing on the wall is clear.

So what’s the big deal anymore? Has the need for this page been fulfilled and has it been rendered obsolete and unnecessary? Queers are surely on every page of the newspapers now, particularly the front page and the business pages and surely do not need special pleading?

However, this revolution, like all things queer, can only be televised. It is a media revolution and happens only in the ever-hungry 24 hour world of privatised TV or the increasingly brain-dead pages of our corporate newspapers and magazines. As millions of actually same-sex identified people struggle with their lives, many dying painful deaths, a few of which actually reach the corners of our newspapers sometimes, they will never be the face of the ‘queer movement.’ That’s just too unsexy for the media. Colourful, mindless photos of Pride marches are so much better.

While its advocates talk the big talk of intersectional oppression, of linking with caste, class, adivasi, gender and all forms of struggle, it certainly does not walk that talk. While it quoted Ambedkar on the Constitution in the hoopla after the High Court judgement, has it engaged with or commented on one Dalit violation in recent history? Has any queer organisation issued a statement on Soni Sori?

Does the ‘queer movement’ take up even one sodomy and murder case (of the many such cases) young boys on the outskirts of cities like Delhi, almost daily occurrences and sometimes reach the corners of the City pages? Why is it that the ‘queer movement’ will never dirty its manicured hands with such filth?

While the ‘queer movement’ manages to rake in funds for jamborees in multi-star hotels, how is it that it never manages to build money for same-sex identified women who leave their villages and suffer terribly in cities with no support systems? The examples can proliferate but the writing on the wall is clear.

The ‘queer movement’ is a virtual ‘movement’ and an elite ‘movement.’ It has nothing to do with the lives of the poor and the marginalised, just like the High Court judgement had nothing to do with the lives of same-sex populations who really face discrimination, like hijras who have to do sex work on the streets in public and do not have the luxury of private sex which is sanctioned.

These people continue to live lives of struggle while champagne corks pop somewhere celebrating their arrival on the national and global scene. We have finally entered the 21st century fulfilling the telos of the High Court judgement. 

The fact of the matter is that the ‘queer movement’ in India is a neo-liberal illusion, a shiny bubble that masquerades as ground-level politics and as a movement. It is not even a ground-level movement in the class in which this bubble circulates.

Even in that class, it is a virtual bubble. This bubble simulates a movement and everyone at the party thinks they are part of a revolution. However, it is only a party. One can only hope that like all parties, it will come to an end.