In light of this, the British reproached the Muslims for their inclination toward unnatural vices, and accused them of having brought the “abominable
vice
” into India since the start of their invasions, as early as the tenth century. The Urdu and Persian literary elite responded by working actively to purge the canon of any texts that evoked the “love of boys,” which was now thought of as an “ignoble stain sullying their reputation.” Some attempted to justify the homoerotic desires described in the
ghazal
(traditional Persian and Urdu lyrical poems) by explaining that, no doubt, the poets had thought the evocation of a woman to be inappropriate for poetry about love. More often, though, the explanation simply said that the poem was really addressed to God.
In reality, Section 377 has, to date, rarely been used in India to punish homosexual relations between consenting adults. Among the thirty-six cases tried since the law’s inception, most have concerned matters of rape. However, the
police
use it in conjunction with other laws concerning vagrancy, begging, and indecency, and often to bully or blackmail homosexuals surprised in parks or other public places. The law is also invoked to further condemn defendants accused of rape or murder. As well, the absence of any mention of penetration or the penis has permitted the law to be used to intimidate lesbians, particularly in cases of women who have run away together, or whose relationship has become public.
Police harassment constitutes a large part of modern homophobia in India. It is difficult to estimate the number of cases of extortion that homosexuals are subjected to, given that there are obviously no police records on the topic. The fear of being
outed
, which could be disastrous for some, forces many homosexuals to simply give in to such demands without a fight. As well, the police regularly carry out raids on known gay pick-up spots and make arrests; verbal, physical, and sexual assault are common police practice. Although such treatment exceeds the boundaries of the law, the police can usually count on the support of the state. Further, they rarely target the affluent or the educated, people who would most likely be able to defend their rights; instead, they focus on people of modest means, unable to oppose authorities and even less able to make their situation public, all of which make them an easy target for police harassment.
Given their visibility,
hijras
and
kothis
are faced with a similar situation. The
hijras
form organized communities that include castrated men as well as transsexuals, transvestites, homosexuals, and hermaphrodites. They are often despised, badly treated, and exiled from the mainstream, even though they are supposed to have a recognized place in Indian society, especially at weddings, births, and festivals. Unfortunately, few employment opportunities are available to
hijras
, so many must turn to begging or prostitution. For many homosexuals of the working class, becoming a
hijra
is one of the few options socially open to them. However, the confusion that exists in popular culture between homosexuals and
hijras
is an unfortunate by-product of social homophobia, which refuses to recognize homosexuality as legitimate. Meanwhile, the
kothis
, who are biological men who adopt feminine identities but without castrating themselves or cross-dressing, suffer less than the
hijras
; however, their feminine mannerisms, highly visible, also make them easy targets for the police.
State-supported police intimidation encourages a culture of silence and intolerance, practiced by many levels and institutions of Indian society. Often, the sexual minorities themselves refuse to acknowledge their own marginalization and oppression, because doing so would increase their feelings of fear and
shame
. Most Indian families prepare their children for heterosexual marriage from the start, and the pressure to marry begins early. Sexuality is not a topic of discussion in public or at home, and the refusal to marry is a serious offense within families, particularly for women who have limited personal and financial autonomy. Often, duress and violence are used in order to force consent. A homosexual relationship can be tolerated, so long as it is disguised as nonsexual and does not get in the way of marriage and procreation. Under these conditions, many homosexuals enter into heterosexual marriages and subsequently go on to lead double lives.
In 1987, the marriage of two women police officers in the Madhya Pradesh Special Armed Force, Leela Namdeo and Urmila Srivastav, rocked public opinion and made newspaper headlines, resulting in both women being immediately fired from the service by reason of “unjustified absences” and “conduct unbecoming a servant of the State.” Recently, a new and extremely troubling phenomenon has appeared: joint
suicides
by lesbian couples. Most are women in small towns or villages who declare their mutual commitment, but despair of ever being allowed to openly love each other or live together. In 1996, the film
Fire
caused a huge controversy over its story of a homosexual relationship between two married women within a Hindu family, in an environment filled with traditional symbols. In protest, activists from the right-wing political party Shiv Sena invaded theaters showing the film in Mumbai, Delhi, and Calcutta. Moreover, Shiv Sena found many allies within Indian
feminist
groups who also opposed the film, which according to them was guilty of “doing a disservice to the cause of women.”
In Indian society, lesbians generally encounter more problems than gay men. With public space being largely masculine, homosexual men can at least find a place, however limited and perilous it may be. But lesbians are in general relegated to the private sphere, the only place where female sexuality (hetero and homo) is allowed to express itself. In addition, defenders of the heterosexual patriarchy are able to control and contain female sexuality through violence and intimidation. In such an environment, there is even less room for a bisexual identity to develop,
biphobia
being as common among homosexuals as it is among heterosexuals. Nonetheless, bisexuals are slowly becoming more visible, but often come out of one
closet
simply to enter another.
More and more homosexual men and women are being subjected to aversion
treatment
and therapy, a sign of the homophobia within India’s psychiatric community. Even though patients undergo treatment voluntarily, their “consent” is rarely well-informed. At best, these treatments violate the subject’s right to privacy, and at worst are a form of torture. There is also a growing trend in newspaper advice columns, in which unqualified “experts” and various celebrities dispense homophobic counsel to would-be homosexuals. Such advice includes consulting a doctor, resisting desires, or seeking out the company of the opposite sex.
Researchers and scholars have until recently remained noticeably silent on the issue, even in those fields related to Marxism, feminism, and post-colonial studies. However, in order to keep up with Western
media
and so as to not appear too backwards, the English-language press has progressively been covering the Indian gay rights movement more favorably. At the same time, the national-language press tends to be increasingly hostile to anything seemingly related to “Western influences,” clearly revealing its homophobic and indeed sex-phobic prejudices. Newspaper articles condemning lesbianism in India, which connect it to Western influence, seem to neglect the fact that lesbian marriages and suicides involve women from the lower classes who do not speak English, and thus have no connection with the said Western phenomenon.
Pakistan, which has had a long common history with India, also retained Section 377 in its penal code, declaring homosexual relations punishable by a sentence of ten years in prison and corporal punishment that can include as many as 100 lashes of the whip. In Pakistan, since the re-establishment of Islamic law (
sharia
) in 1990, homosexual acts have been punishable by stoning. As in India, the law is rarely invoked, but it makes the blackmail, ransoming, and harassment of homosexuals more likely. Homosexuals arrested are also sometimes raped.
Jamaat-e-Islami
, a right wing Islamic political party, has re-affirmed the illegality of homosexuality, stating that it “will not be accepted, not by the State, not by Islamic society.” Obviously, and despite this, homosexuality has not disappeared from Pakistan, but it has been banished to the shadows and silence. Nonetheless, in the northwest region of the country, the Pashto culture permits men to take younger men as lovers, yet without being perceived as homosexual.
Like Pakistan and India, Bangladesh condemns homosexual relations through Section 377, which are punishable from ten years in prison up to a life sentence. Here again, the police invoke the law solely for extorting blackmail and harassment, and homosexual men are sometimes subjected to sexual aggression by the police or by street ruffians, known as
mastaans
. Bangladeshi society as a whole lives in denial of homosexuality, most notably the media, which never mentions the subject. Thus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, as in India, the same law against homosexuality—a legacy of English colonialism—remains in place despite the fact that Britain itself long ago abolished it.
—Mario D’Penha
Bakshi, Sandeep. “Soupçon d’un espace alternatif: étude de deux films du cinéma parallèle en Inde,”
Inverses
(2002).
Dowsett, Gary. “Men Who Have Sex With Men In Bangladesh,”
Pukaar
27, Naz Foundation International (n.d.).
Fernandez, Bina, ed.
Humjinsi: A Resource Book On Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Rights in India
. Mumbai: India Centre for Human Rights and Law, 2002.
Humsafar Trust, The. “Looking Into the Next Millennium.” Conference report. Mumbai: Humsafar Trust, 2000.
International Lesbian & Gay Association. “World Legal Survey.” ILGA, 1999.
http://www.ilga.org
(accessed April 21, 2008).
Murray, Stefen O., and Will Roscoe, eds.
Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History and
Literature. New York/ London: New York Univ. Press, 1997.
Nanda, Serena. “Hijiras as neither Man nor Woman.” In
The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader
. Edited by Henry Abelove, Michèle Aina Barale, and David Halperin. New York/ London: Routledge, 1993.
Pattanaik, Devdutt. “Homosexuality in Ancient India,”
Debonair
(Anniversary issue, 2001).
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The Man Who Was a Woman and Other Queer Tales From Hindu Lore
. New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002.
People’s Union for Civil Liberties-Karnataka.
Human Rights Violations Against Sexuality Minorities In India
. Bangalore: PUCL-K, n.d.
Ratti, Rakesh, ed.
A Lotus of Another Color: An Unfolding of the South Asian Gay and Lesbian Experience
. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1993.
Renouard, Michel.
Les Castrats de Bombay
. Quimper, France: Ed. Alain Bargain, 1997.
Vanita, Ruth, and Saleem Kidwai.
Same Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History
. Delhi: Macmillan India, 2002.
—England; Heterosexism; Hinduism; Islam; Lesbophobia; Middle East, the; Police; Psychiatry; Shame; Violence.
INQUISITION
The original Inquisition refers specifically to the Catholic tribunal established by Pope Innocent III in the twelfth century, necessarily religious both in its origins and its structure, whose purpose was to protect the purity of the doctrine of the faith (in broad terms, it refers to the judgment of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church).This court carried out research (
inquisitio
) detailing various infringements of the faith, and crimes of
heresy
and apostasy through all of Christianity; such acts were punished through what became known as the
auto da fé,
the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates. Faced with a massive increase in all forms of heresy, Pope Lucius III called together a synod at Verona in 1184, during which he proclaimed a Constitution that assigned bishops to the duty of maintaining the faith. The resulting papal bull known as
Ad abolendam
became the founding text of the first Inquisition, known as the Episcopal Inquisition. As of the thirteenth century, the Medieval Inquisition (or Papal Inquisition) was established as a specific, unique, and universal court to deal with heretics. In the papal bull entitled
Ille humani generis
of February 8, 1232, Pope Gregory IX assigned the Dominican Order to the task of repressing heresy, who were later joined by the Franciscan Order.
On Friday October 13, 1307, Philip IV the Fair, the King of France, as part of a scheme to plunder his rivals, ordered the arrest of approximately 140 members of the Knights Templar, a 200-year-old military order that supposedly answered only to the Pope, thus beginning one of the largest trials of the Middle Ages. The king undertook this after confiding in his Dominican confessor, the Inquisitor General of the Kingdom, Guillaume de Paris, and without first consulting Pope Clement V. Among the main charges against members were the denial of Christ, idolatry, and profanation. The inquisitors interrogated them, often accompanied by torture, about one of the Knights’ rituals in particular: one that involved kissing a superior’s anus through his uniform, followed by kissing the bare navel, then the mouth. One of the accused revealed the obligation of a fourth kiss, on the penis. Between October 14 and mid-November of 1307, the accused were interrogated about their homosexual practices, given that relations with women were formally prohibited by the order. Of the 140 arrested, seventy-six confessed to having practiced sodomy, and some even added that it was part of the rules which new members had to follow: “… and if any brother should come to him to be bawdy with him, he should submit and endure without repugnance: as he is commanded to do so by the statutes and laws of his order” (excerpt of a letter from Commissioner Odard de Molinier to Philip IV, about the Templars at Beaucaire). One hundred and two members acknowledged that the kiss on the anus was a prelude to sodomy. Pope Clement V, under pressure from Philip IV, issued a papal bull on November 22, 1307, which ordered the arrest and subsequent interrogation and torture of members in England, Castile, Aragon, Sicily, and Italy, as well as the seizure of their property. The goods confiscated were sequestered by Philip IV’s men, despite the formal opposition of the Pope. On March 18, 1314, the four leaders of the Knights Templar, including the Grand Master of the Order, Jacques de Molay, were brought to the public square of Notre Dame in Paris. There, de Molay publicly retracted his confession, followed by Guillaume de Charrai. That very evening, both men were sent to be burned at the stake on a small island in the Seine River, between the King’s garden and the Augustinian monastery. In total, fifty-nine members were burned at the stake that year, nine in Senlis and a large number in Provence.