TQC Exclusive : The Reasons For Pride
TQC - Feb 2011
BY PARTHA SARATHI BISWAS
Photograph by Akshay Bajaj
For young Rohit, participating in the
recollection of the Pride March that I
have become almost a very common
Mumbai Pride March in the year 2008, was a very overwhelming experience. A
have as of today was the instant peace that engulfed me when I saw the crowd
feature in quite a few cities across the country. While some in the community
small town boy, Rohit did have his share
with whom I was to march”, is how
frown upon this ‘aping’ of a Western
of apprehensions and fears before he mustered up the courage to go to the
Rohit explains his first pride experience two years later.
concept, by and large, the LGBT community of the country is slowly
Pride March. “I was afraid that people would recognize me or make fun of me.
Be it the flamboyant drag queens, with their vibrant costumes or the ‘dykes on
waking up to the need and the purpose of Pride as an important milestone in
Although I was out to my family and
bikes’, Gay Pride Marches across the
the LGBT liberation movement in India.
some friends, I still was in the closet, so to speak. Many questions were coursing
world have always been a source of intense debate; be it within the LGBT
It started off in Kolkata in the year 1999, with a Pride March, which took
through my mind, as I went to August Kranti Maidan. Once I reached the
community or society at large. While, in the West, Pride Marches have
the whole country by storm, and how! Anindya Hajra, a queer and women’s
venue, it was as if by magic, my fears
become another excuse to party, India
right activist fondly recollects the
and apprehensions vanished. In that sea (it did appear to me like a sea) of
is slowly coming to terms to the greater politics and purpose behind the Pride
impetus that made the Kolkata Queer Community take their march to the
humanity, I felt at home and I was immediately at peace. The only
Marches. Post the historic judgment of the Delhi High Court, gay pride marches
streets. “Pride marches have been the symbol of protest by the marginalized 1