Dr. Anurima Banerji takes a historical look at colonial legal discourse in 19th-century India and analyzes how female dancers, transgender performers, and gay men became symbols of a “queer India” for the British imperial regime. Dr. Banerji argues that these bodies collectively became a metaphor and metonym for a national body politic; the laws she examines expose how the idea of abnormal movement was central to the formation of the “queer" politics of the Raj.

Monday, October 3, 2016

12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
10383 Bunche Hall
UCLA

British patriarchal practices rooted in the colonial period have significantly impacted present-day societal relations in South Asia. The British Raj, in an effort to secure power through the policy of divide and rule, contributed in major ways to the accentuation of existing differences based on class, region, caste, religion, and gender. The sphere of sexuality was not exempt from this process. One avenue towards understanding the subordination of queer bodies in South Asia today—as expressed in contemporary legal doctrines and social practices that stigmatize sexual difference— is to analyze how “queerness” emerged as a potent discourse in 19th-century India, especially in the scene of performance, as colonial disciplines were being consolidated through the mechanisms of law and political regulation.

While earlier studies have ably situated the social histories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and same-sex practices in India, and other postcolonial projects have analyzed the stigmatization of performers like devadasis (female ritual specialists) and nautch-girls (professional dancers) under colonial-nationalist regimes, this talk endeavour to productively bring together these strands of scholarship. “Queerness” here is a broad frame for theorizing minoritarian gender expressions and the performative labour of bodies stigmatized on moral and sexual grounds, rather than referencing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) identities alone.

The talk takes a historical look at colonial discourse in 19th-century India and analyzes how female dancers, transgender performers, and gay men became symbols of a “queer India” for the British imperial regime. The author argues that these bodies collectively became a metaphor and metonym for a national body politic; the laws she examines expose how the idea of abnormal movement – as embodied by hijras, dancers, and homosexuals—was central to the formation of the “queer” imaginary in India and the queer politics of the Raj.

Sponsor(s): Center for India and South Asia