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Beware of Modi-loving NRIs: No love for gays, even in America

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Vikram Johri
Vikram JohriSep 29, 2015 | 18:07

Beware of Modi-loving NRIs: No love for gays, even in America

Writing in FirstPost, Mohammed Shaik Hussain Ali, the chairman of Trikone, a US-based gay rights organisation focusing on South Asia, recounts his experience of raising the issue of gay rights at a rally organised to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi to San Jose.

Ali writes: "All I, being the chairperson of Trikone, did was to peacefully take a stand on the public grounds of the city of San Jose holding the sign -"377". The old British law still haunts Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Maldives, Myanmar and more… #LGBTQ Rights. … I was attacked. My fellow comrades holding equally neutral messages were attacked. My sign was snatched, broken and thrown. I was dragged, pulled out by my collar, held on my neck and was yelled at - 'you don't belong here'. The attackers were my fellow Indians. The attackers asserted their Indian majority status."

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#LGBTQ protesters stage a demonstration during Modi's US visit.

In the piece, Ali goes on to talk about his move to the US after growing up in India where he was a double minority-gay and Muslim. Moving to the US entailed a more open environment, at least with regard to his sexuality (if not religion). But this event has brought home to him a disturbing truth. He writes: "Collecting myself off today's moments, I am left with a haunting question - if the Indian majority, the 'educated' lot, standing on non-Indian ground, can resort to such means to drive their point across, what is the plight of the LGBT minorities on Indian soil?"

Ali needn't wonder. The plight of LGBT Indians back home continues to be grim. As I wrote recently, even for out gay men in India, there comes a time when they invariably ask themselves if coming out did them more harm than good. But my article went with the assumption that this was true for those in India alone, against those who had chosen to settle abroad.

In many ways, that assumption is correct. Gay communities in the West are more evolved than ours, simply because the conversation over gay rights is at a far forward point there. Gay marriage is a reality in the US today, as it is in several other countries, mostly in Europe. A trip to Paris this summer brought me face to face with a gay couple, one of whom was white and the other brown, and I wrote about the goosebumps I felt seeing them kiss on top of Eiffel Tower.

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To live this reality, however, would entail cutting ties with gay projects back home, for if you don't do so, and your heart still beats for the subaltern in Bangalore, Benares or Bhatinda, you risk exposing yourself to ridicule and physical harm, as Ali experienced. It must have stung and felt no less than a slap on the face to realise that this crowd of tech geeks from back home - people who live fully American lives - thinks so little of your rights as a homosexual.

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NRIs have repeatedly targeted their #LGBTQ members.

The NRI base, since Modi's anointment as prime minister, has treated him with clear and present adulation. A common gag pokes fun at Modi for travelling abroad because that is where he can forget his troubles and be treated like a rockstar. But such light-hearted humour hides the bitter face of the NRI. In spite of having made it, this species of the foreign Indian continues to inhabit the dark ages when it comes to liberal ideas. I find this particularly galling because the NRI has benefitted immensely from generous immigration policies, one of the hallmarks of the liberal movement. For him to then cock a snook at other members of the umbrella is hypocrisy of the first order.

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The NRI's regressive social agenda also fails to cohere philosophically. When I was younger, I was under the impression that those who made their lives abroad did this out of an urgent need to quit the restrictive conditions back home. They led lives whose quality was materially better to be sure, but more, it entailed a freedom that was lacking back home. A freedom from khaps and dowry and caste politics. Kanpur, say, had (and continues to have) no electricity, but emigration from that place, in my view, was not just about going to a place with 24x7 power. It was as much about escaping the confines of regressive social practices that continue to hobble Indians.

Apparently not. If Ali's experience is any indication, the NRI is as steeped in neuroses of the motherland as those who are left behind. Meanwhile, the gay man back home will have to fight his battles alone. If he expected support from his peers abroad, he was mistaken. The cult of Indian-ness expands far and wide. It may be technologically advanced and rolling in money but when it comes to the simple matter of human rights, it will shut you down.

Last updated: March 12, 2016 | 16:14
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