In this episode,  anthropologist Dr. Naisargi Dave joins us to discuss letter exchange as a form of community-building for women loving women in the 1990s, the fraught relationship between the lesbian movement and the autonomous women’s movement in India, and the problems with arguing for queer rights on the basis of the right to privacy.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Title Image Credit: Outlook Magazine 

Notes:

01:05:23- What led to the emergence of lesbian activist movements in India? How did the word lesbian open up new possibilities of personal attachment and community?

02:50:08- How did letter writing come to play a significant role in the formation of lesbian communities in India?

06:42:08- Where did the idea of exchanging letters to build a community come from? The involvement of Sakhi, Bombay Dost magazines.

07:55:15- Did they face any resistance back then? Was there any censorship against these ads?

11:29:16- Why was the relationship between the lesbian movement and the autonomous woman’s movement in India fraught in the 1990s?

15:02:03- Did we see these conflicts in any of the public debates or exchange of articles?

16:38:00- Are the two goals of queer activism — of creating and attaining legal rights and the achievement of justice — in conflict? Could you explain this in the context of the landmark Naz Foundation case?

20:57:16- When did modern animal rights activism originate in India and what different forms did it take? How does it relate to the larger history of liberalism in India? 

27:22:03- How did some of the first few  historic moments in Indian animal rights activism look at protection of animals without looking at oppression of humans?

30:53:08 - What is this emphasis of the ‘witnessing human subject’ in animal rights activism?