Caste, Desire, and Dalit Queer Resistance in “Geeli Puchhi”

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Acknowledgments

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Prof. Chris Roulston for her incisive comments and suggestions on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Paul writes that the short film “stands out for its vivid and luminous rage”; Aiyappan terms it “gloriously messy” and observes, “we rarely see narratives that explore intersectionality in such impressive detail, let alone make for an effective commentary on social power and its hierarchy.” The film has received an overwhelmingly positive response from audiences (Kameshwari).

² In the Hindu caste structure/hierarchy, there are four varnas: Brahmin (the highest caste traditionally engaged in priesthood), Kshatriya (the warrior caste traditionally engaged in ruling), Vaishya (engaged in trading and moneylending activities), and the Shudras and Ati-Shudras (lowest in the caste-Hindu hierarchy and engaged in manual labor and working as artisans, sometimes termed “service caste”) are within the caste structure but owing to their location at the bottom rung of the caste hierarchy, are marginalized and oppressed by dominant upper-caste Hindus: Brahmin, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas. Shudras and Ati-Shudras constitute Bahujans and many of them are also considered “untouchables.” Savarnas, or those with caste, have historically oppressed and exploited Dalits, or the avarnas, those without caste, who were rendered “untouchables” for centuries by Brahmins and upper-caste Hindus. Even though Bahujans remain within the caste hierarchy, and are not considered “without caste” like Dalits, they are still oppressed by upper-caste Hindus because of their marginalized caste location. Even though Bahujans are within the caste hierarchy and Dalits remain outside, both are oppressed by the caste system and upper-caste Hindus. Hence, Bahujans have more in common with Dalits than they have with savarna-Brahmins and have historically joined forces to resist Brahman-savarna supremacy. Suraj Yengde notes, “In India, casteism touches 1.35 billion people. It affects 1 billion people. It affects 800 million people badly. It enslaves the human dignity of 500 million people. It is a measure of destruction, pillage, drudgery, servitude, bondage, unaccounted rape, massacre, arson, incarceration, police brutality and loss of moral virtuosity for 300 million Indian Untouchables” (Yengde, Caste Matters 2).

³ In India today, after the reading down of Sec 377 by the Supreme Court of India in 2018 – which criminalized “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and was socio-politically interpreted as the law that “criminalized homosexuality” – the next step in queer activism on legal reform has been declared to be marriage. This declaration has been contested as trans people without caste and class privilege continue to be variously marginalized. Queer subjects whose rights to sexual citizenship through marriage can be secured are predominantly those with caste and class privilege since Dalit trans and queer people without such privileges demand equity in the form of affirmative action and not exclusively the right to marriage. See P. Gupta, “Same-sex marriage gets a push in India, but some in queer community feel other rights require more urgent attention,” Firstpost, 14 July 2020, www.firstpost.com/India/same-sex-marriage-gets-a-push-in-India-but-some-in-queer-community-feel-other-rights- require-more-urgent-attention-8,592,451.html.

⁴ Based on Fire, the novel by Shohini Ghosh (New Delhi: Orient, 2011).

⁵ See “Ban unfair, says Unfreedom director” (March 31, 2015). The Hindu. Retrieved from www.thehindu.com/news/national/ban-unfair-says-unfreedom-director/article7050602.ece.

⁶ Kolhatis are a community living in western India (primarily Maharashtra), categorized as a “nomadic tribe” by the Indian state, who are professionally engaged in dancing and performing as a means of providing popular entertainment. Performance is not just a profession for Kolhatis, it also constitutes an important aspect of their cultural lives. “Lavani” is a popular Maharashtrian dance form which Kolhati performers have expertise in.

⁷ Queer politics, despite using caste-based violence to further its agenda of decriminalizing Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code (Dutta 4), a sodomy law, did not make demands regarding the “right to livelihood, education, or health.” As Parikshit, a Dalit queer person notes, “in the absence of livelihood there is no real meaning of being queer. What is the point in saying oh you can kiss in public if you cannot be alive in public?” (Ponniah and Tamalapakula 5).

⁸ In 2019, a nineteen-year-old Dalit woman was raped and murdered by upper-caste Thakur men in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh (Ara). Teltumbde notes that “Atrocities on dalits have been consistently rising since 1991 and currently take place every one and half minute (33, 719 in 2011) but they have never been able to evoke any reaction in public” and also writes that “Dalit women are raped with impunity as if dalits were meant to be abused” (11). Khobragade writes that Dalit women have been stripped naked and paraded in “states with poor law and order situations” in India (57).

⁹ The financial precarity of Brahmins has often been cited to dismiss the violence of caste (“Are Brahmins Today’s Dalits in India?”) and to position class as the only source of inequity in India. Moreover, in 2019, Lok Sabha approved 10% reservation for the “economically backward”, other than Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, which entitled upper caste Hindus to this benefit (The Economic Times 2019). Framers of the Constitution envisioned affirmative action to create provisions of reparations in the form of affirmative action to undo the caste-based exclusion of minoritized peoples and violence meted out to them owing to feudal and casteist social order in India (Bhaskhar 2019). Reservation policies that foreground class, do not acknowledge the violence of caste, and refuse to recognize that caste and class are inextricably linked.