Jibes, TV aur Ghulam

The Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad earned the wrath of queer groupsu00a0with his remarks in public. Barbs and snide comments about gays in the private space too, sometimes couched in humour, pierce like a dagger into the heartu00a0of the community

Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad's faux pas this week, though he said later that he had been misquoted, only sought to bring into perspective the easy and flippant manner in which an entire community can be put down by a disparaging off-hand remark.


The D'KLOSET in Bandra, a gay-centric store

Being prejudiced against an opponent who is perceived as weak or 'invisible' can allow people to be mollified into believing that the mind-set they are accustomed to be part of is valid and real. Humour is most easily created from 'safe prejudices'.

Embittered
In India, we have a genre of cinema that has been created around the humour of gay panic, even from filmmakers who think (mistakenly) that they are espousing the gay cause. They believe they're championing gay rights even as they try to undermine the already fragile psyche of an embittered people.
u00a0
Each time a gay story is reported upon with a sensationalistic headline that objectifies its queer subjects; each time someone laughs along with one of those homophobic gags performed by our A-list stars, they add to the propagation of such ideas.

The agents of such mass-scale homophobia cannot entirely be blamed, since they're only part of the prevailing mind-set.u00a0

This mind-set pervades our society, a society that has been constructed around very rigid notions of masculinity and femininity. Even if you leave aside sexuality and the complexity of human desire, even exhibiting a trace of gender non-conformism can set people off in a tizzy.

Private
Mostly however, the slip-ups take place in private, not in the public domain. In real life, ordinary people manage to make the most unkind remarks those little utterances don't get highlighted as topical 'sound bytes' on the airwaves, but in the world of the person who may be at the receiving end of such a missive, the impact of even a few words can be as damaging. At one time, the fear of homosexuals was openly exhibited.
u00a0
Effeminate men were laughed at on the streets, tomboyish women were sniggered about behind their backs, hijdas were consigned to the margins of society.

Gay people reacted almost instinctively by trying to pass off as the 'other', by being more masculine, more heterosexual, even more homophobic themselves, adding to the silent burden that the invisible millions were carrying. When people are transparent in this way, then you can go into the reasons for their homophobia.

You can dissect their actions, and understand the kind of upbringing that offers insights into such cluelessness.u00a0 When you are faced with open homophobia you can either act like victims (which is what most people do) or take the bull by its horns and try and educate the ignorant. At least you know where you stand.

Enlightened
In today's so-called enlightened times, there are people who know how to mince words. They know all about being politically correct, they know that certain words have the power to hurt, damage and disfigure. However, instead of embracing these ideas as beacons of progress, people have instead started to disguise the manner in which they display the kind of Neanderthal hatred that they still cannot shrug off.
u00a0
Just as right-wingers use tangential arguments to quell what they think is the great liberal agenda, or chauvinists disguise themselves as reconstituted men to take on what they consider to be the feminist conspiracy, so do latter-day homophobes rely on office-speak to cast the same kind of aspersions that were once openly made.

When queer folk are successful in certain businesses, like in the world of fashion, they are said to be in cahoots and part of a Velvet mafia that operates nefariously behind closed doors.

Just like racism in the West has become more veiled, more difficult to perceive, but still an important part of the daily experiences of the disenfranchised, so too, gay men and women who have decided to come out and embrace themselves for who they are, now find that they are now up against a kind of camouflaged gay-baiting.

Bigots
Elsewhere, where the politics are lesser known, people continue to behave like bigots. There are people in the country who believe gas chambers didn't exist because they are not aware of the Holocaust or the politics of anti-Semitism.

There are people in the country who continue to use the N-word when describing people from a certain continent because the history of slavery and the Civil Rights movement has passed them by.


Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham pretend to be gay in the movie Dostana

It is difficult to sometimes expect very much more when it comes to the rights of sexual minorities. People now think the media has been hijacked by the homosexual agenda, because it is that kind of news that sells these days.

However the talons only come on in places like the Internet where an anonymous identity allows one to have a field day while opining on any subject under the sun.
u00a0
In real life, where a certain decorum needs to be maintained a demand of these politically correct times, people behave in ways in which homophobia is only in the subtext, which makes it all the more difficult to diagnose and root out such conditioning.

Persuasion
In the microcosm of our offices, as soon as someone steps forward and announces themselves of having a certain sexual persuasion, all the right noises are made about how this is a valid choice, but instantly that person drops out of contention in the rat race.

Gay men are still considered flighty and frivolous and of generally suspect disposition, and the glass ceiling slams down on them much harder than they are prepared for. Being gay is no impediment to competitiveness and in a shark-eat-shark world; some of our more celebrated suits are gay.
u00a0
There is a reason why they will not step out and declare themselves as such. There is a reason why sportspeople the world over have the worst track records when it comes to inclusiveness. This is because there is still that widespread notion that being gay is a chink in your armour, when really it has nothing to do with anything at all except for what transpires in a person's private life.
u00a0
How you are perceived is a very important part of many success stories, and strangely your sexuality or how you project it, still seems to play an inordinately important role in all of this.

Perceptions
Even though multinational companies in India have inherited anti-discriminatory clauses in their employee policies, they are sometimes ill equipped to implement these policies because of the perceptions that continue to beset their work force.

It is important to realise that it is not just the more openly queer people that may be at the receiving end of jibes and ill humour, it is also the large number of closeted queers who bear the brunt of such work conditions. In strictly monetary terms, a demotivated and demoralised work force is an expensive proposition, almost like the Sword of Damocles.

Just like racism in the West (or regionalism in India) is part of an organisational machinery, so too homophobia is institutionalised in our country.

The gentleman's club at the top is open only to men of a certain pedigree. Not even women have managed to break through in any large numbers. The bigoted may not call you names anymore, but they are still staunchly contemptuous of a world view that allows queer people a right to even the air they breathe.

Channels
Also dangerous are the antiquated notions that seem to thrive in their own home. Cinema beams into these worlds via television premieres, while reality TV brings in a motley crew of freaks and geeks who proclaim to represent entire queer populations.
u00a0
Channels that air progressive viewpoints are easily cast aside with a click of the remote. If parents are dismissive of their queer children, they can cause a lot of hurt, but they cannot stop their children from living with their choices.



Sometimes, and not entirely because of self-loathing, gay folk tend to be more understanding and dismissive of homophobia that exists within their own families, even if they are up in arms against the rest of the world.
u00a0
Outrage is sometimes only a fashionable idea but it is important to never condone even the slightest bit of homophobia one encounters.
u00a0
If our society has to evolve, anything discriminatory in the very least must be wiped out, be it in the treatment of the girl child, or the horrendous honour killings we hear about in the news, or in the treatment of its homosexuals.

The writer is former editor, Bombay Dost and writes on issues affecting the queer community

Azadu00a0Speak
Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Monday at a function in New Delhi that Men having Sex with Men (MSMs) is not only unnatural but also a disease. Azad added that the disease had come to India from foreign shores and Indian society needs to be prepared to face it.

He made the comments while addressing Zilla Parishad chairpersons and mayors on HIV/AIDS.u00a0 The inevitable storm broke after his comments sending Azad to hurriedly call a press conference to say that his comments were taken out of context and he was misquoted. The damage though, has been done.