“You look like a prostitute. Go change.”
This sentence is agonisingly familiar to Indian women, like the shared blanket of being acclimated to objectification. When I was younger, I couldn’t fathom why women were always dressed so modestly at temples, completely contrasting the gorgeously uninhibited goddesses that were carved on the holy pillars. I asked my mother why it was this way and she responded rather nonchalantly, claiming that those carvings had been made by men and it was unreligious to dress the same way. I pondered whether or not men would worship me if I dressed that way.
I’m now cognisant of why we cover ourselves up so thoroughly, not only in places of worship. We hold the honour of our families precariously upon the fabric that drapes our bodies, we bear shame beneath our clothes and tread vigilantly so that we don’t provoke the men who are inclined to believe that we are ‘asking for it’. How did the land of the alluringly sensual Kama Sutra become a place of caged desires, closeted sexuality, and coveted freedom?
It wasn’t always this way. The country that once sanctified sex, liberation, and trivialised the constructs of gender, now insists that same-sex marriage is not a part of its culture. Did the metamorphism from feudalism to colonial capitalism in India pave the way for a conservative heteronormative culture? Simply put, modern India is a brilliantly mangled mess of colonial, ancient and democratic values. It is fraught with antiquated imperial laws that erode individual liberty and cede unbridled power to the government.
When the effervescent show of sexuality came under the moral microscope of Christian British men, it was labelled obscene. This tag also served as the perfect pretext to assert Eurocentric supremacy and ‘civilise’ the masses of effeminate men, vivacious women, and every daringly lustful individual who didn’t quite fit into the box of what was considered virtuous. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalised non-procreative sexual activities “against the order of nature” came into being in 1861, during the British Raj in India. It was largely influenced by England’s first civil anti-sodomy law, created in 1533. It was only in 2018 that Section 377 was struck down.
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The hijras of India, who seamlessly blended into the non-binary pre-colonial society, were also targeted when the epoch of tyranny began. The British were appalled by their exuberant displays of non-conformity and categorised them as serial sodomites. Furthermore, they flagged ‘eunuchs’ as law and order conundrums in the Criminal Tribes Act 1871 and condemned them for expressing their ambiguous orientation. Although this law was repealed in 1911, the footprints of despotism plague postcolonial India, where discrimination against hijras is still a glaringly commonplace occurrence. Ironically, as Western countries become more prominently liberal, the acceptance of fluid sexuality is now being regarded as the dissemination of Western ideologies in present-day India.
Perhaps the epitome of social control was the interpretation of the seemingly innocuous Contagious Diseases Act, which designated most Indian women as prostitutes. According to this law, women who were deemed sex workers had to mandatorily submit to invasive medical examinations. The sexist undercurrents are undeniable since the law did not enforce the inspection of men. Any native woman who came in sexual contact with the British army or navy was called a prostitute. Female artists, performers, and dancers were also fetishised and thus painted in the same way.
The colonialists perceived brown women as coquettish temptresses, sharply juxtaposing the demure chastity of their white-skinned counterparts. Ethnic women were berated and controlled for a medley of things: hedonistic ‘unladylike’ behaviour, engaging in polygamy, wearing garments that were deciphered as titillating, among countless others. These women were not seen through the lens of their own culture but were observed through the lens of prudish imperialism, one that dehumanised them and reduced them to seductive objects. They were capitalistic commodities at best, tokens of dowry, and fortresses of fantasies that retained the same flavour as the policy of expansionism.
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Seven decades later, our bodies are still colonised. Contemporary Indian homophobia and misogyny are intertwined with the former scrutiny of bodies during the subjugation of India and the war on its sexually-liberated culture. Moral policing is still a customary phenomenon. On September 15, 2020, the Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta told the Delhi high court that the nation’s law, legal system, society, and values do not recognise the marriage between homosexual couples.
After all these years, I wonder how we have become so disillusioned with the roots of our culture. The traces of our tendencies to regard sex as sacred and embrace equivocal gender norms are almost ubiquitous. Right from the erotic temples of Khajuraho to the evocative and passionate folklore, the labyrinths of history don’t lie. Modern capitalism amalgamated with patriarchal politics is determined to disenchant us from our bodies, and consequently gnaw away at our access to power.
The marginalisation and alienation of certain sections of the society truly was and still is a weapon to amass illicit power. And the whimsical flow of power in a conservative patriarchy resides with the straight men, who conveniently manipulate narratives. They will showcase people in the light they prefer to, and nothing makes them more insecure than a woman attempting to realise her own incandescence or an individual openly embodying their identity.
As the ruling party attempts to undermine the rights of the transgender community through the strikingly familiar and paradoxical Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, it is up to us to reclaim our collective truth, de-politicise our bodies, and assert access to our ever-so-threatening sexuality.
Namrata Bhandari is a journalism graduate looking forward to pursuing her Masters. She has a knack for everything literary and is ardent about cross-cultural stories and tales of resistance.