More than a million people have taken part in the 50th anniversary of the UK's first Pride parade in London. Hundreds of LGBTQ+ community groups attended the march from Hyde Park Corner to Whitehall Palace earlier. The parade paid homage to the original 1972 march, organised by the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), and saw revellers pass significant sites from the UK's LGBTQ+ movement.
Fashion designer Abhishek Ray married his partner Chaitanya Sharma in a ceremony that’s standing as a beacon of hope for the LGBTQ+ community in Kolkata. As per a Times of India report, the wedding followed all Hindu rituals including a priest chanting mantras, varmalas and vows taken by the couple around a holy fire. This, however, was not the first time that the city was witnessing a same-sex wedding, but the first such wedding that followed Hindu traditions. Initially, Ray had been apprehensive about what the reaction to his wedding would be.
Ray told TOI about how the LGBTQ+ community has “always craved inclusion". “People live-in or perform small functions at home when they want to stay together. When we decided to marry, I told Chaitanya to do it in a way that it remains memorable for our friends and family," he said. The wedding involved a Bengali and a Marwari family, and hence rituals of both communities were maintained. Photos from the event went viral on social media.
Asian Voice reached out to Ray and Sharma but didn’t hear from them until we went to press on Tuesday. However, British South Asians shared their perspective on how far has the community come in accepting the LGBTQIA community.
Change doesn’t happen overnight
Saima Razzaq is a British political activist and was the first South Asian woman to lead a Pride parade in Britain. She’s the Head of Diversity and Inclusion, Birmingham Pride. Speaking to Asian Voice, she said, “Here in the UK we certainly are seeing a shift in LGBTQI acceptance from within our South Asian communities. Every day we’re seeing more and more LGBTQI South Asians reclaiming their own narratives authentically, with the nuance required to represent all their intersections.
“I think one of the biggest milestones has been LGBTQI representation within South Asian entertainment and media. I never thought I’d see the day where a Bollywood film like ‘Ek ladki ko dekha to aisa laga’ would be produced, with a star-studded cast, let alone for it to include an LGBTQI version of DDLJ’s classic train scene.
“As a British-born South Asian, I am fully aware of the fact that LGBTQI discriminatory laws were introduced into our home countries at the hands of the British during colonial rule, and from my perspective, if it wasn’t for colonialism we’d have all been Indian. As South Asians, we are still recovering from the generational traumas that were imposed on us at the hands of partition.
“Change doesn’t happen overnight and we’ve still got a long way to go to be a fully inclusive, and united South Asian community. I truly hope that in time we come to realise that we as South Asians have far more in common than the westernised divisions imposed on us. We will be so much stronger together, as a united South Asian community, both at home in South Asian and abroad, if we can just treat each and everyone from our community with the mutual respect they deserve.”
Real positive shift and wider acceptance
Author of Ghostcloud, Michael Mann, mixed-race, gay parent and teacher of British Indian origin told us, “I've noticed a real positive shift and wider acceptance in my generation vs my grandparents and parents' generation. There's still work to be done - coming out can be hard whatever your community - so we do need to keep fighting for equality and acceptance. But I'm hopeful for the future."
Queer erasure is colonial violence
Dancer/Choreographer Ash Mukherjee told the newsweekly, “1st of July 2022 marked the 50-year anniversary of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) members marching through the streets of London in what became known as the nation’s first-ever Pride march. On that day I was honoured to be in a room full of Indian and British Asian people in Birmingham as part of the Birmingham Indian Film Festival organised by Dharmesh Rajput, presenting Vishnu’s Got My Back, a queer coming of age story from post-colonial Kolkata to London.”
Ash said that to be able to present this piece to desi queer people and allies and see them sitting upright on their seats with their eyes shining as they felt their story heard and represented was a privilege.
According to Mukherjee, India has a strong queer heritage. Queerness has been represented in myths, temple carvings, and scriptures, from depictions of ardhanareshwar and ayappan to name but a few. Same-sex love, non-binary and gender-fluid beings have always existed throughout time. It’s not part of some modern ‘woke’ propaganda.
“It is not something that is being ‘borrowed from the west’. In fact, its erasure is. Well, it’s time to give back that what does not serve us. Queer erasure is colonial violence. Queer erasure is a systematic and methodical step created by Abrahamic patriarchy towards the suppression of the sacred feminine or Shakti. It is symptomatic of a post-colonial hangover. It is wonderful to live at a time when we are beginning to wake up from this hangover and proudly reclaim our innate Indian queer heritage. There is still a lot of work to be done. We are still in the early stages of this paradigm shift as we begin to accept ourselves and each other. The movement of reclamation is strong however as we begin to live our lives again, being able to discover who we really are as people,” Ash added.
