New rainbows in small-town India

On August 25, 2018, 19-year-old Sia was sleeping when masked men barged into her room at around 3am, tied her up, and took her away. She woke up in a “conversion centre” the next day. “They cut my hair, tied me up. They would put pictures of god before me, and scream at me to fear god,” she said.

A resident of Chhattisgarh’s capital city, Sia was detained at the facility for five months. In the last few weeks, she gave up food and water. “I think they began to fear that I would die soon,” she said. On January 26, she was made to sign some papers and then let go. She got herself a job at the state secretariat, and hasn’t returned home since. Even before she was detained, she said, her parents would beat her; dragging her to quacks when she told them that she would not grow up to be the man they expected her to be.

Exactly a year later, Sia, who identifies as a trans woman, walked into a room in a residential society in Raipur’s Avanti Vihar area, dressed in a billowing red saree, to a warm reception by her friends from the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. The saree was still new to her, she admitted, as she excitedly planned details of Raipur’s first LGBT Pride march. This was her way of celebrating the decriminalisation of homosexuality in September 2018, which, she said, gave her hope during her months at the facility.

“I love working for Pride because this is the way I fight for our rights. This is our visibility and as I learnt from my life, our city desperately needs this,” said the 19-year-old, as her friends passed plates of fried snacks around.

Till about a year ago, the main organisers of the Pride -- scheduled for September 29 in the city of 2.6 million people, of whom nearly 36% are between 15 and 35 years old -- did not know each other. Scattered across cities in Chhattisgarh, they connected to other queer people on Facebook groups, Instagram pages and other social media. “Growing up, there was no one to tell me it was okay to be gay. There was no one like me where I lived; [I hadn’t] even seen a rainbow flag. I was unknown to myself,” said Aakash Roy Dutta Chowdhury, a western music vocalist.

All that changed this March, when trans activists arranged a mass wedding of 15 transgender women in Raipur. The event was attended by the chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, and covered prominently by the media. It acted as a catalyst in a state where many community members face harassment at the hands of family and police.

“We suddenly realised that the community numbers are huge. So many people showed up at the wedding — from hijra and trans women to old activists and young gay boys in heels and lipstick. It felt like we were in Delhi,” said Sidhant Kumar Behera, a fashion designer who was one of the attendees.

Buoyed by this, a group of 15-20 people banded over WhatsApp groups to hold another event on April 9. They set up Queer Chhattisgarh, a page on Facebook, and were soon inundated with messages from people in other towns and hamlets, and many from anonymous profiles.

The group came together on the birthday of one of their own, lawyer Akshay Mankar, whose two-bedroom ground-floor house in a residential society has since acted as the nerve centre of Pride planning. “We invited only 10-15 people but more than 50 showed up, and everyone said they were looking forward to more events. We’d only thought of indoor events, but this gave us courage,” he said.

The team then conducted flash mobs across Raipur and other cities such as Bhilai, using a medley of Hindi and English songs. In less than four months, they performed eight flash mobs in various parts of the city, including the railway station, Mahadev Ghat, the city’s main shopping plaza, Marine Drive, and major crossings. They also held sensitisation campaigns on gender and sexuality for the local press and officials.

“We saw that negative stereotypes were deep set, but could be removed this way. Plus, we saw a lot of young people joining us and encouraging us,” said Behara.

The team has big plans for their first Pride, which they say will change the way people look at queer communities. In addition to a cultural programme and events, they plan to carry a rainbow flag spanning the 2.5km length of the walk, and draw associations with Gandhi, whose 150th birthday falls three days later.

“I also want the superintendent of police to hold a rainbow flag and inaugurate the event. We are certain this Pride will be a game-changer for our community,” said Vidya Rajput, an activist.

Sandwiched between glitzy malls and old bazaars, Raipur’s LGBT visibility is muted. People gather surreptitiously in parks, public bathrooms, and other locations known to the community for sexual needs, and even though a boom in dating apps has meant more queer people are online, many of them steadfastly maintain heterosexual facades for friends and family.

And yet, Raipur defies the usual stereotypes of small-town conservativeness. The city, and the state, has been a pioneer in forwarding transgender rights: setting up a welfare board, issuing identity cards without physical examination, allowing trans candidates in government jobs, police sensitization, and a trans sports meet.

The decade-long work by trans activists such as Raveena Bariha and Rajput has also helped remove roadblocks such as police permission and non-cooperation of government officials for the Pride -- things that often derail queer events in bigger cities. “Earlier when we would go to government offices, they called us beggars, now they make us sit in chairs and offer tea. In many respects, we are far ahead of Delhi and Mumbai,” said Rajput.

Local attitudes towards LGBT people are surprisingly diverse. “When I told my mother recently that I wanted to fast for Teej [a festival in which women fast for their husbands], she laughed and said, is it for a boy,” said Piyush Singh, a Bhilai-based visual effects designer. Law student Saburi Raina said that the events have helped more lesbians come out, interact with each other, and clear misconceptions among the local populace.

What has also helped, explained Bariha, is the dominant tribal population, which forms a third of the state. “You see, in our societies, gender is not such a big thing. So, compared to others, tribal people accept us more easily -- though this is now changing because outside ideas are seeping in,” she said.

With a month left for Pride and most members engaged in draining day jobs, planning is often hectic. Members remind each other of flexes to be ordered, badges to be designed, and flags to be made, while checking in on each other’s family situation and most importantly, love lives. They have even launched an online crowd-funding exercise, with a small target of R25,000. They’ve managed to accumulate R13,000 till now.

Ravi Amrani, a 43-year-old astrologer, could not have imagined this day. “When I came out in 1997, I would think, would it ever happen that I could openly go to an LGBT event and be proud? I cannot believe this is happening in my lifetime.”