Presentation made by Sanjay Kabir Bavikatte - edited transcription.

The Moderator is Rev Michael James

Moderator:  Thank you very much Julie. I think we all
found that very stimulating and full of useful facts
and information; particularly to back up her main
thesis about the issue of homosexuality not being some
kind of sickness or disease. She however has
underlined that in societies like Australia that there
is a great deal of fear and anxiety and discrimination
in those societies that perhaps have been documented
more than elsewhere. So I think we have an interesting
basis too for furthering our reflection and for
furthering the dialogue that we’re going to have at
the end.



Now, I’d like to introduce our next speaker, he’s Mr.
Sanjay Bavikatte. He’s from India, Bangalore, from the
South of India and let me blow one immediate stereotype
… when I met Sanjay today I said `Ah! You must be a
Hindu then, right”. No, he’s a Muslim. So it’s very
interesting that his background coming from India,
that he’s coming from a Muslim background himself and
he’s right now lecturing at the Law Faculty at UG and
he will speak to us on the theme of Oppression of
Sexual Minorities. So we’ll now have Sanjay.




Sanjay Bavikatte
Bangalore, India
Muslim lawyer, lecturing at UG


Oppression of Sexual Minorities

Good afternoon. Before I begin, I must thank Vidya for
organising this open forum and giving me an
opportunity to speak. It’s an incredible act of
courage amidst this amount of enforced silence but
nevertheless I see the small moves, there will be
others to follow.  

I will be addressing various aspects related to the
debate around same sex orientation and the rights
ensuing therefrom. let me start with the notion of
culture. And I think this is where I’ll link what I’m
saying to Ravi’s point. I mean he asked the question
in terms of culturally what is the kind of society we
are. I mean that was the kind of question he raised
and how do we as a culture perceive homosexuality. To
begin with culture as a concept is never homogeneous.
Culture is fraught with dissent. There are multiple
views within a certain culture about what is right,
what is wrong. And invariably, when someone speaks on
behalf of a particular culture, in most situations,
and asserts that this is the view of a particular
culture, invariably that ends up being a certain
dominant view. And when I use the word dominant I
don’t mean it is supported by a majority but I mean
that within social power, the person who’s speaking
obviously occupies a position of power when he or she
can make a statement saying that this is what our
culture is about. And this is where I’d like to enter
and I’d like to point out that through history, every
time people have spoken about culture, this is our
culture, there’s invariably been the silencing of a
number of other voices within that specific culture.
And throughout history these have been voices of
women, voices of people of color, voices of indigenous
communities who differ, who feel that their notion of
culture is entirely different from this, but these
voices are consistently silenced. 

And what I’ll do to begin with today is to honour
these voices. Is to see what are the other voices that
have been silenced when we speak about culture? let me
start with, let me use gender as an example because
these were the beginnings of the Women’s movement.
Yes, there was this biological distinction between men
and women and that was sex but what about gender. Now
this is where the social constructionist model comes
and simply put it essentially means that while sex may
be biological, gender identity is socially
constructed. Now, what does this gender identity mean?
Gender identity essentially means the kinds of roles
people have to perform in society by virtue of
belonging to a particular sex. So what you have is
this entire narrative that comes from it. You know
when you define a man, masculinity is defined as
strong, rational, courageous, bread-winner, the one
who rules the household, so on and so forth. And
femininity essentially is weak, emotional, possibly
hysterical, irrational, someone who’s unable to
protect herself and so on and so forth but these are
gender roles. But how does this get perpetuated?
Because gender is nothing but performance, it is
performed. Gender is performitivity. People constantly
perform their gender. As a man I may perform my
gender, as a woman, she may perform her gender but
what ends up happening is that this ends up becoming a
dominant view say within our culture women have
essentially been weak. But when you make a statement
like this what gets hidden are stories of resistance
of women who think differently, who differ. And
likewise I’d like to take the position, I would kind
of move away from this typical question of is
sexuality nature or nurture. In the sense that is it
biological or is it by virtue of the kind of society
we live in because I feel it is a moot point really.
Because as far as rights go, it shouldn’t matter
whether it is by nature or nurture because on the one
hand people make the argument that if we are naturally
that way then we should be given rights. Then the
counter argument could be if you have a natural
proclivity towards violence does that mean you should
be given a right? So the idea isn’t so much about
nature or nurture, the idea is essentially about a
question of rights. I mean does the exercise of this
person’s rights affect the exercise of anyone else’s
rights. Now, I would try to point out that sexuality
like gender is predominantly socially constructed yet
I would say sexuality is more of a spectrum. Where you
may have extremes on either ends but what you have is
this vast gray area in the middle where people are
attracted to all kinds of different people who may not
necessarily stick to their strict gender roles.

You may have excessively feminized women who are
attracted to women who are masculinized in terms of
stereotypical gender roles or vice versa. Now, what
you have when you look at sexuality as something which
is wide, which is fluid, which is constantly changing
is the question that arise is where did this category
called homosexual emerge from? When did the homosexual
as a species emerge? And I think this is an extremely
important question because I lay the blame straight at
the doorstep of medical sciences. Think about this,
this is 18th Century, this is Victorian England what
you have is the religious prohibitions but largely
these are not enforced; what you have is a certain
fluid nature. No one defines homosexuality, you have a
variety of sexual practices in society. Now suddenly,
you have intersection between psychiatry and Victorian
morality where you have this emergence of a species
called the homosexual who becomes a legal and medical
subject. A legal subject who needs to be subjected to
surveillance who needs to be imprisoned, a medical
subject who needs to be put on a sterile table, who
needs to be examined, lobotomized and so on and so
forth. Science, you have to understand that science is
not this neutral field. Science in many occasions
works in service of power. And Science is informed by
social mores, by dominant groups, by people who fund
and so on and so forth. And this is pretty much what
Julie addressed. Now, where does this come down to
post-colonial societies like ours?

Speaking from within an Indian context, what did
happen was sexuality again was a spectrum in
pre-colonial India but what you do have is colonialism
as a stage which changes how sexuality is perceived in
India. You have writings by people like Catherine
Mayo- book Mother India where she describes the
Bengali anarchists as people who are prone to violence
because of their abnormal sexual practices. She says
these are clear criminal minds, that’s why they
constantly demonstrate and throw bombs and so on and
so forth. Now, what happens is how the Indian
intellengencia responds to this is and the Western
Indophiles, how they respond to this is not by
reclaiming their identity and interrogating the
Victorian morality itself. What they instead do is to
say `no we are as good as you’. So they Victorianize
Indian culture by saying `no, no, no. 
Homosexuality does not exist within our culture; even
within in our culture it is an abhoration. We define
heterosexuality in a particular way’- of course that
definition is never declared; heterosexuality is never
problematized it’s always homosexuality that is
interrogated. But anyway, so they come up and make a
statement like this and suddenly what you have is the
Indian penal code being drafted in the 1860s
where a criminal provision is introduced, criminalizng
homosexuality where it was never crimilaized prior to
that. Now, if someone ask me a question `what is this
suppressed culture you’re talking about? What are
these various cultures which have been suppressed?’ 

India is a country (which is) predominantly Hindu and
a substantial population of Muslims, the second
largest Muslim population in the world after
Indonesia. But the point is, as far as Hindu culture
goes, there was always this fluidity of gender in
terms of mythology. I am not saying 
there are necessarily translated into reality, never
does. But in terms of mythology, where Lord Shiva was
considered Hari Hara – he was
considered half man and half woman. The cosmic deity,
the one deity was considered transgendered at some
level, able to  
imbibe both masculine and feminine characteristics.
The South Indian popular deity Lord Ayappa  he was
considered as a result of the union of Shiva and
Vishnu. Two male deities again. And Lord Adhineswara again a
South Indian deity was considered a result of the
union of Lord Shiva and Vishnu and Harry being Vishnu
and Hara being Shiva. And likewise what you had was
again within the Mahabarata , you had people like
Sheikandi  who were again transgendered
individuals. And they were valorized. I mean they
weren’t denigrated in this kind of a mythology. 


7 century AD, you had the Bhakti movement. Now, the
Bhakti movement again was a result, where a substantial
section of people said `we have to look at God from a
perspective of devotion, where God is perceived as
either a friend, or God is perceived as your child or
God is perceived as your lover. So what you have is a
number of these monks taking on female roles of either
a mother or lover of God and it’s through that kind of
selfless love, they feel that they realize God. And
even today in places like Ayodhya, you have a sex
called Ramnandis where male monks dress up as women
and embody Sita’s personality to realize Lord Ram. So
there you have that. Here you come to the Islamic
traditions, again in India, where you have a number of
Sufi saints who have constantly expressed homoerotic sentiments.
And saying that the kind of selfless love they are
able to embody is a way how they realize God. I mean
it’s interesting in terms of the Sufi Saint ….. he was
Sheik Hussein who was in love with this Hindu man
called Madho Lall. And he was tried in the court of the
Emperor Akbar and it’s interesting in terms of  the
poetry he recites, where again, he’s forgiven by the
King because of the purity of his love. When he’s
released by the king despite being tried for his
homoerotic sentiments, he responds saying “sway in
ecstasy in your dance in the courtyard. The Lord is
near those who chant his name. In the courtyard the
flow many streams, each with a thousand boats. I have
seen many sink in the water 
and some cross over to the other shore. This courtyard
of mine has nine doors and the tenth is always locked.
No one knows the door of my beloved, he comes and goes
as he pleases. There’s a lovely alcove in the
courtyard with a beautiful window in it. I spread my
bed in this niche to enjoy the night with my
bridegroom. A wild young elephant roams in the
courtyard breaks his   chains to pieces. It could never harm those who are
truly awake,” says Husain in the Fakir of God.
What Hussein is trying to point out is the kind of
pure love which he is able to embody, where he says
it’s not about heterosexuality or homosexuality but
it’s the purity of one’s love that is important. And
very similar sentiments are expressed by other Sufi’s
Sheiks like Sheik Afi Jamshed and Samad.

And what is interesting is, where do these people, now
with the strict prohibition or so-called strict
prohibition of homosexuality within Islam where do
these Sufi Sheiks draw justification of what they do?
A number of them in some of their writings, they say
“well there is no condemnation of homosexuality within
the Koran”. Now, how they come up to statements like
this? Simply because the word for gay is Luti in
Arabic and this word is a relatively recent word. And
19th Century Arabic sociologists have been trying to
figure out the word for homosexuality and they use the
word fahisha which essentially means odd, not found in
large numbers. Now the Koran has words for desire
which is Rajaba or Shaawara for lustful appetite. But
it does not have a word for homosexuality. You see the
word they picked this word out from is Fahisha. Now,
fahisha is translated as transgression. But it does not
define this transgression is supposed to be homosexual
transgression. What ends up happening is that the word
faisha is picked out from the verse which describes
the story of Prophet Lut, may Allah’s blessings be
upon him. But you see you cannot pick out a particular
verse and interpret it that way, what you need when
you try and understand religious texts, firstly a
semantic analysis. A semantic analysis essentially
means that you don’t pick out words from out of
context. Words have meanings only in relation to other
words. So you pick out all the verses using that
particular word and try to get the gist of the meaning
in the way in which it was used. And transgression has
always been used (to mean) moving away from the
boundaries set by God, that’s invariably related to
worshipping false gods and so on and so forth.
Thematic analysis is another way that is used and
thematic analysis essentially means you take the
different verses within the Koran which speak about
Prophet Lut and you construct a story out of it and
then you get the essence of what is the true essence
of that particular story because you see the Koran is
not written in a chronological order, it is like a
kaleidoscope. Things occur over and over again in
different contexts to put across different meanings.
When you construct the story in terms of Lut in terms
of putting together the various passages which speak
about Prophet Lut, is you have a story where the
people were smote down, not so much because of their
sexual practices but because of their greed, but
because they robbed
Strangers and because they raped strangers that was
homosexual rape. But there was nothing about this idea
of homoerotic love, that was ever mentioned in the
Koran. And this is the kind of view which feminist
Islamic theologians like Fatima Waheeda, Amina Wadood…. This
is the kind of view they put. Because when you read a
text, the whole question is you are an interpreter
with baggage, you come there and then you read a
particular text and you derive the interpretation you
want. And when I talk about liberating suppressed
parts of culture this is what I am saying. Liberating
the views of other people, minorities, people of
colour, indigenous people who read the text and read
differently.


Alright, let me move on to this whole idea of Global
Cultures; where most people tend to believe, and this
is the kind of experience I have had when I have
spoken about homosexuality to people, that it is
something that is Western, it is decadent, it is
something that is imported and not an intrinsic part
of one’s culture.

But again studies have shown that homosexuality or
same sex orientation is prevalent in a number of
cultures. They haven’t accepted existence of same-sex
or ransgendered unions in 
19th Century Nigerian society, pre-Columbian native
American society, 19th Century Zulu society, ancient
Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Mesopotamian, the Azande,
Ceba, ……Bantu …in Africa,…. Chinese, Vietnamese,
Indian, Japanese, Burmese, Korean and Nepalese
societies. I mean it has existed in virtually every
society. Now, where does this suppression come from?
Where does this denial come from? Well you see, I
think this is where you have to pose the question
which is linked to what Ravi mentioned, that he hasn’t
come across anything. And this is where I want to
point out to you, that you see power does not just not
just suppress, power is active, power creates and when
it creates, it creates invisibility. Power operates in
a way where it organizes space. Where some people can
be seen and some people can not be seen. Now, how do
you have, when people who have a same-sex orientation,
who are scared of the kind of backlash and
discrimination they are likely to face, how is it
expected that they come out and claim their identity,
when they would receive an enormous amount of
discrimination just by virtue of stating who they are?


And this happens say in schools and colleges, where in
….. can he or she declare his or her orientation where
all the other adolescents are declaring their sexual
orientation as far as the opposite sex is concerned.
In work spaces, again they say bring your spouse along
for an office party. It does not mean bring your
spouse along for the same sex. I mean dare you bring
it along and prior to this I was speaking to one of
the members in the audience and he was saying he
experienced this same kind of discrimination when he
applied for a job. I mean they didn’t like his attire,
they said `if you don’t change your attire which
represented some kind of a transgendered sentiment,
then you don’t get the job. And likewise in various
other institutions whether you talk of Insurance,
whether you talk about inheritance, whether you talk
about adoption all these issues come in. Any other
unit besides the heterosexual family unit is not
recognized. As a lawyer, I will tell you, almost all
laws underpin the notion of a heterosexual family
unit. You do not fall within that then you are denied
various civil rights. And likewise as far as your
fundamental rights go too, if you are beaten up by
somebody you can’t go to the police, ‘cause  to go to
the Police is in so many ways to declare who you are
especially if you are beaten up for your sexuality. 

The repression is not just local, the repression is
global. It’s an interesting fact but the human rights
discourse, I mean most people trace the origins of the
current human rights discourse as the Universal
declaration of Human Rights to second World War,
because  the Nazi holocaust
And millions of Jews being gassed to death. What is
ignored is that a number of gays and lesbians who were
also killed, thousands of them? I mean, men were made
to wear the pink triangle, the women were made to wear
the black triangle but they were killed. But you see
the invisiblization that has occurred, they never got
the chance to articulate their rights. When rights
were declared it was about the rights of groups,
primarily in terms of religious groups. 

The same thing happens in Iran article 110, provides
the death sentence for gays and lesbianism gets a
hundred lashes; Saudi Arabia gets the death sentence.
In Egypt currently fifty-two men have been held and
are being tortured in prison and not because they were
caught in the act but because they are suspected to be
gays. In Colombia right wing death squads killed more
than 300 gay men from 1986 to 1990. Peru revolutionary
left wing squads killing homosexuals as a
social cleansing. Brazil 1300 gays have been killed
since 1980 and an average of one gay, lesbian or
transvestite is killed every three days. Even in the
US, there’s the story of Matthew Shepherd who was
taken, he was tied up and he was pistol-whipped and
killed just for expressing his sexual orientation.


In Zimbabwe Mugabe has made a statement saying
homosexuals are worse than dogs and pigs and the group
GALAZ (Gay and Lesbian Association of Zimbabwe) –
there offices have been ransacked and burnt. So you
see, there’s global oppression. This is reason enough
for rights and it is important to articulate this
oppression and to articulate it over and over again.
Not to deny pain, to take suffering seriously. Because
it is only when a victim realizes that he or she is a
victim, they no longer remain a victim but they are a
threat. Thank you.


Moderator: Ok, thank you very much Sanjay. Again I
think we  have been treated, I wish we could have had
more forums like these at the university that could
attract people to come up from Georgetown where you
can be exposed to, you know, a genuine broadening of
our spectrum. I think the experience from out of
India, from the Hindu, the short references that
Sanjay made to the Hindu mythology, very, very
interesting. Interpretation of Islam, also very
interesting. And then you can begin to make some cross
references. When he mentioned, for example the case of
the woman in India, you know the problem with these
people behaving badly was because they were rising up
against colonial repression. But the problem really
wasn’t that they were rising up against colonial
repression, it was because of their bad sexual
practices that was causing them to rise up. I
immediately thought of the experience from the
Caribbean from Jamaica and I think some of you might
be familiar with the work of Edith Clark in Jamaica in
1938. When you had the uprisings right across the
Caribbean and you had the Mone Commission come down to
find out why people were rising up. In Jamaica, it was
interesting that the governor’s wife, I think she was
a lady called Lady Huggins, made the startling
discovery that the reason why these sugar workers were
rising up and causing problems ostensibly about poor
wages was because they were not married, was because
they were engaged in common-law unions. So what she
organised in Jamaica was a mass marriage process, she
brought up hundreds of people from Western Jamaica to
get them married because if we could reform people
morally then they would be much more pliant in terms
of their economic and political oppression. Well,
Edith Clark, Jamaican sociologist, did a very
interesting analysis of Jamaican family – My Mother
who fathered me; very interesting book and it might be
interesting for some of us to follow-up on that.

But interesting, you know, some of the comparisons
that we can make from one culture to another with
regard to - End of Tape