LAUNDA DANCERS: THE DANCING BOYS OF INDIA

Abstract

The tradition of men dancing in place of women (launda naach) has a chequered history in India. The dancers mostly come from poor families with a disproportionate number from West Bengal. They face significant violence, both at home and in their profession, for so much of identity in India is centred round the family and appropriate roles within the family. Launda naach offers a certain freedom as well as a measure of economic Independence. But it remains a narrow and limited space.

Notes

1. The MSM (men having sex with men) category in India is classified around gender as well as sexual behaviours. According to Ashok Row Kavi (2007), kothis are a subgroup within this MSM category. This is premised on the context that kothis are men who have a feminine sense of self and who enact ‘passive’ sexual roles. See Paul Boyce, ‘Conceiving Kothis’: Men Who Have Sex with Men in India and the Cultural Subject of HIV Prevention’. Medical Anthropology Vol. 26. Issue 2 (2007): 175–203, and Ashok Row Kavi, ‘Kothis versus Other MSM’, in Brinda Bose and Subhabrata Bhattacharya (Eds.), The Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India. Kolkata/London: Seagull, 2007, pp. 391–398.

2. Kathryn Hansen, ‘Theatrical Transvestism in the Parsi, Gujarati and Marathi Theatres (1850–1940).’ South Asia Vol. XXIV (2001): 59–73.

3. DFID UK has recently stopped funding the only outreach program for HIV and other sexual health interventions within the launda community. PLUS is desperately looking for funding to continue their work.

4. Names have been changed upon request. Verbal consent was required from the participant before an interview took place. Interviews were semi-structured and conducted mainly in Bengali. Whilst some of the interviews took place within the shelter home, a majority of them were conducted in different public spaces in the city. I have used the pronoun (him or her) as requested by the interviewee. To read more about Agniva Lahiri and PLUS, see Subhash Chandra, ‘Interview with Agniva Lahiri’. Intersections Issue 22. October 2009. Available at: http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue22/chandra_interview.htm. The only available report on the launda community that I am aware of is Agniva Lahiri and Sarika Kar's, Situational Assessment Report on Adolescents and Young Boys Vulnerable to Forced Migration, Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation in India. Kolkata: PLUS, 2007, which was funded by the UNDP.

5. Ratna Kapur, ‘Post-Colonial Economies of Desire: Legal Representations of the Sexual Subaltern’. Denver University Law Review Vol. 78. Issue 4 (2001): 855–885.

6. Diepiriye Kuku, ‘Queering Subjectivities: On the Praxis of Outing Gender, Race, Caste and Class in Ethnographic Fieldwork’, in Sanjay Srivastava (Ed.), Sexuality Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 205–227.

7. Nivedita Menon, Sexualities. New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2007, pp. 38–39.

8. Tehelka Vol. 10. Issue 20. Available at: http://tehelka.com/dancing-queens/.

9. See Akshay Khanna, ‘Taming of the Shrewd Meyeli Chhele: A Political Economy of Development's Sexual Subject’. Development Vol. 52. Issue 1 (2009): 43–51.

10. See Anna Morcom, ‘Film Songs and the Cultural Synergies of Bollywood’, in Rachel Dwyer and Jerry Pinto (Eds.), Beyond the Boundaries of Bollywood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

11. Hansen, 2001.

12. Also see the PLUS report on how during sex, the launda is meant to be quiet and still (passive) and not act upon his/her desire and only do what the client asks of them.

13. Judith Butler, ‘Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual?’ Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies Vol. 13. Issue 1 (2002): 14–44.

14. ‘Introduction’, in Brinda Bose and Subhabrata Bhattacharya (Eds.), The Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India. Kolkata/London: Seagull, 2007, pp. ix–xxxii.

15. People Like US (PLUS), Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee and Pratyay Gender Trust's new shelter home Purbasha (The Home in the City) are some support organisations and shelter spaces available right now.