27 - Notes on Queer Politics in South Asia and Its Diaspora

Summary

India emerges as central to the mapping of gay and lesbian cultures in South Asia probably because it occupies a (geo) political centrality in the region. All histories of South Asian queer literatures find their watershed years toward the end of the twentieth century when the awareness of rights-based struggles around sexual identities began taking shape. The struggle for the repealing of Section 377 in India contrasts with the contemporary story of Nepal. Nepal legalized homosexuality in 2007 when its monarchy was overthrown, and is now looking toward making same-sex marriage legal. Apart from the sociopolitical-legal rights movement around Section 377, the most significant moment in the contemporary history of gay and lesbian cultures in India was sparked by nonresident Indian Deepa Mehta's first Indian-lesbian film, Fire. As the fact that Mehta's Fire was first released in North America suggests, the Indian diaspora has been a rich source for the subcontinent's gay and lesbian imagination.