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The recent episode of Satyamev Jayate, ‘Accepting alternate sexualities’, which aired on the 19th of October, 2014 led to a myriad of debates. It was highly appreciated by many, however, it also led to a series of arguments, scathing critique and disagreements on its handling of the sensitive issue at hand.
While it was obvious to see many eulogising about a mainstream TV program of such stature speaking about the LGBT issue, and that too in such a positive, light-hearted way; it was interesting to observe the response of people to the show.
The article in Live Mint spoke about the underlying impulse to normalize the queer stories and hence, lives of the LGBT minority. As much as this article makes sense, I wonder what people really expect from a television show.
From where I see it, the aim of the episode was to bring forth a conversation about acceptance of alternate lifestyles and sexualities to the common masses. Thanks to the show, one got the glimpse of a just, equitable and socialist society where the sex one is born into may not be indicative of the gender choices that one makes and it does not confer status and privilege to one choice over the other; or the preference of a same-sex romantic partner does not mean they cannot want things that other “normal” folks do.
Let me digress a little. We should not overlook that we still live in a country, which is still upholding IPC 377 – a 160-year-old law… It is still a country, which indulges in debates on sexuality as a by-product of nature vs. nurture. It is still a country where people are subjected to shock therapy to cure away their gayness. It is a country where family and family values are above the moral values. In our country till date, it is heteronormativity which is accepted as the natural state of being.
Given this, I think it is a milestone for queer people to see some of their own on a National Television, talking about the common experiences of rejection, struggle and discrimination at the hands of mainstream.
When seen within the existing paradigm, where, the SC has recriminalized homosexuality, the representation of LGBT in such a positive light – acceptance by friends and family, competence to be independent, and self-validated individuals – to the world at large, could change the very future of this queer struggle in India, making it easier for people with alternate sexual choices to be integrated with the society in an equal equation. One thing that most of the queer folks seek, more than the change in law, is social acceptance. And social acceptance comes from the experience of relatedness. We need alliances to go forward… And sometimes normalizing creates a possibility of relatedness.
This episode, if anything, should begin a shift towards changing our own individual institutions – LGBT, LBT, and various other sectional/political groups. If anything, the invisibility of transman people around us suggests that we as a community have failed somewhere. Transman people are marginalized within the LBT political spaces, so why are we surprised that SMJ didn’t have a representative from this section? The dialogue shouldn’t stop at “Oh! They missed out on transman’s story”. It is a point of inward reflection.
Identity politics is a deep and a complex subject. One must dwell into the representations of gay, bisexual, lesbian, transman, transwoman, intersex, queer gender, and other identities; and talk about their specific struggles, needs and interests. However, one needs to remember that fragmentation and non-recognition of common interests holds the power to weaken the entire queer movement.
With transman people sharing their struggle instead of transwoman in the media, I don’t think society or its response would necessarily be very different from what we see now. Caring, sharing, and accepting are not gendered, they are not transgender’s values or bisexual values, they are human values; essential to the building of any family, any community, any society, any nation. Mind it, I am nowhere saying that the struggles or experiences of transman persons are the same as that of transwoman persons. There is a lot that we need to do in our own progressive political spaces but it also demands some reflection as to what we represent as a group in the outside world.
The article also mentions the lives of those who do not proscribe to hetero-normative imperative of getting married or living monogamously are choices made by queer people. Is it okay to make that blanket statement? Do the politics of such people not decide if they are queer? Are we allowing individuality to take over identity here? There are no easy answers to these. Does that imply that we shy away from making a start?
The author also talks about the very important and plaguing socially constructed fractures such as class, caste, religion, privileges, health issues, and disability, apart from gender and sexuality; and I agree that these should not be grounds for discrimination or second-class status. But I do not think these are LGBT issues alone. Our own community is infested with discrimination based on intellect, privilege, and politics. I also don’t think these issues can be tackled on a TV show alone. These conversations are valid and should become a part of a public discourse within the community and the various sectional groups.
The future of identity politics would indeed be to focus on the sectional interests of people within the community. But for now I think it is important to have each other’s back, fill up these identified gaps within our own spaces, and bridge the differences.
I wrote a small critique of the Live Mint article on my FB, reproducing that here:
A ‘however’ at the end of a string of accolades for a Satyamev Jayate episode has become so predictable now. From the first episode on female foeticide to the latest one…esteemed feminists and activists have dramatically revealed how SMJ is saying one truth while hiding others.
The pattern of criticism is the same from Farah Naqvi to Dhamini Ratnam, they all want to point out Satymev Jayate’s failure to address the nuances, they lament the absence of more multi-layered conversation, multiple aspects of already complex social problems. They want a 90 mins talk show to effectively communicate to the masses (1 billion potentially) every such possible dimensions of an issue, which are usually communicated over a period of 3 day workshop with a closed group of around 30 people. They want Satyamev Jayate episodes to communicate to the masses the same length breadth and depth of knowledge, which they have probably gathered over a life time of study and field experience.
Critiques obviously disregard the challenges of mass communication which team SMJ have to manoeuvre. The challenges of driving home a single point, in most cases an action point (don’t kill girls in womb, don’t discriminate against LGBT people) without letting complexity hijack the topic.
After the episode on Domestic Violence, there was a backlash from certain men rights groups (yes they do exist) that SMJ ‘deliberately suppressed’ the truth about women misusing Section 498A. That was also a nuance. But IMHO such nuances are not important in the larger picture.
I think it’s important for people to see that we aren’t all that different from them. We go through the same feelings of love, loss, crushes, stomach flutters. The show gave us an insight into the lives of queer people, and also how they felt growing up. It meant a lot to hear them talk about their feelings & experiences, and I feel like that is what most people could relate to.
We aren’t all that different.
Allow me to congratulate the author of this post for what is undoubtedly a well articulated, well-reasoned argument. I am glad that my piece, which has received censure from some quarters and support from others, has also led to this post that takes forward the conversation not just on the Satyamev Jayate episode, but also on the lives of queer Indians.
It is this conversation, this back and forth, which is vital for us to forge ahead into a post-377 world of many Indias and many Bharats. There are multiple truths, and several issues that affect queer communities. No single review or television episode will ever be able to encapsulate it all. Precisely for that reason, apart from the very essential work on the ground, we should be able to perceive blind spots that may not be apparent immediately. Indulging in conversations with interpretations and sensibilities that are different from ours is one way to do this.
There are points in this post that I disagree with, but there are also points that I found myself nodding to, having also alluded to them in my review. For example, the power of normalising, of reaching out and breaking things down with simplicity is incomparable. And I commend the participants for achieving just that. At the same time, thinking that ‘almost everyone wants XYZ’ becomes problematic when we don’t see where this tendency stems from. That was the contention of my review, and remains so. My contention doesn’t negate the work done by the many people who made the episode happen, the articulate participants, and the brave host and his hard-working research team; it engages with them. Much like this piece does with mine.
As the ABP news anchor said, this conversation should never end. Thank you for taking the conversation forward.
With all respect to colleagues differing views, I am deeply concerned about words like – “And social acceptance comes from the experience of relatedness. We need alliances to go forward… And sometimes normalizing creates a possibility of relatedness.”. This approach will backfire on those of us who can never appear ‘normal’, either in our gender expression or in our aspirations. In fact ‘normal’ appearing queer people getting acceptance because of ‘relatedness’ would make it harder – not easier – for people to relate to the rest of us. Our challenge is to get people to learn to respect difference, to understand that people have the right to live a life of their choice – whether as a non-white collar queer sex worker or a boy practising his masculinity with a vagina, or a woman who has a dozen lovers and will never marry, to name a few – and that won’t happen by underscoring sameness. I would say even to those having a conversation on LGBT for the first time – don’t support me because I am like you, support my right to not be like you at all.
I want to personally commend here all the queer people who appeared on the show and took the stories of our lives into millions of homes in India. Salute and solidarity.