Journey Into Night

[Guest guest]

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20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt">Long Day’s Journey Into Night:

India’s Slow Descent Into Homophobia

 

12.0pt">By Amara Das Wilhelm

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12.0pt"> Ancient

India’s acceptance and accommodation of many forms of eroticism within its

culture, including homoeroticism, has been well documented in early Sanskrit writings,

art and architecture. This makes

modern day India’s sexual puritanism and homophobia, which reached its zenith

in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, all the more astounding.

In today’s world, India has been

relegated to the level of the most backward countries in the sphere of personal

liberties, and one might wonder how such a drastic change could ever have come

about. Through careful

examination, India’s long and troubled past reveals a gradual descent into

puritanism and homophobia, chiefly introduced during the foreign subjugation of

Islamic and Christian rule.

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Timeline

 

Vedic India. Generally assumed to have ended with

the dawn of the Kali-yuga age or just over five thousand years ago. At this

time, many forms of sexuality

are accommodated within India’s native culture such as polygamy, prostitution,

sexually explicit art, courtesans, etc.

Homosexuality is recognized as a separate and third nature

(tritiya-prakriti.) Transgender

citizens are fully incorporated into society, most notably within artistic and

religious communities.

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Post-Vedic India. Vedic culture slowly declines over

several thousands of years.

Society becomes more rigid and a strict caste system develops based upon

birth and body type. The priestly

class becomes arrogant and exclusive.

Vedic rituals are abused and animal sacrifice as an excuse for meat

consumption becomes rampant.

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Buddhist Period. Beginning approximately 500 B.C.,

Buddhism gradually spreads throughout India.

yes"> Vedic culture has degraded to such an extent that the

population of India eagerly embraces Lord Buddha’s teachings and rejects the

Vedas. Buddhism reaches its peak

around the time of Christ.

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Gupta Period. This period begins around 300 A.D. The influence of Buddhism over India is

gradually waning and eventually driven out by Sankaracarya, who reinstates the

authority of the Vedas. That

authority is later reinforced by other great acaryas such as Ramanuja and

Madhva. During this period a

renaissance of India’s Vedic culture blossoms.

yes"> Not surprisingly, many artifacts and temple ornaments can be

found from this era depicting homoerotic themes.

yes"> The sage Vatsyayana also recompiles the Kama Shastra at this

time.

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Islamic Invasions begin. In the closing years of the tenth

century, armed migrants begin to move into India from regions west of the

Hindukush mountains such as Afghanistan and Persia.

yes"> This starts an invasion that culminates in the establishment

of kingdoms in northern India ruled by Muslim overlords.

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Hindu-Muslim co-existence. Originally confined to military

centers, Muslim migrants carrying Perso-Turko-Arabic traditions quickly

disseminate into large urbanized areas within northern India. This is further

accelerated by a mass

migration of scholars, poets and elite administrators from other Islamic

kingdoms to the west. These migrants are seeking refuge from the depredations

of the Mongols who are ravishing most of Asia during this time. Hindus and

Muslims co-exist peacefully

during this period, and there is a great cultural exchange between the two

ethnic groups that lasts for centuries.

Although Islamic tradition does not recognize a third gender, Muslim

clerics are free to interpret religious doctrine according to their own

discretion and rarely punish homosexuality.

yes"> On the contrary, it flourishes and is well documented within

popular poetry from that time.

Muslim migrants also introduce the Middle Eastern practice of castration

among homosexual slaves. Domestic

slavery existed to a small extent in pre-Islamic India but now becomes an

enormously profitable enterprise.

Early sultans are heavily dependent on slaves as both soldiers and

laborers, and many keep up to 180,000 slaves or more.

yes"> Of these, a good number are castrated eunuchs who command a

high price. Eunuchs are prized

commodities and they are considered to be the most reliable and trusted of

servants. By 1492, India is

world-renowned for its exotic treasures and wealth, and European nations clamor

for a way to reach her lands by ship so as to avoid Muslim middlemen. During

the time of Sri Caitanya

Mahaprabhu, the Spanish entrepreneur Columbus accidentally discovers the

Americas while searching for India.

yes">

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The Mughal Empire. The Islamic Mughal Empire, established

in northern India in 1526, ends the peaceful co-existence between Hindus and

Muslims with its new brand of Islamic extremism.

yes"> Enforcing strict religious codes that have already

suffocated much of the Middle East and Western Asia, these invaders forcibly

convert or kill Hindus, plunder their villages and wealth, and destroy Hindu

temples and religious Deities. Not

surprisingly, they also begin to mistreat women and criminalize people of the

third sex. Homosexuality is

punished under extreme Islamic law by flagellation or death, and this is

accomplished by burning the victims alive, stoning them, collapsing walls upon

them, or by impaling their rectums with hot iron rods. Fortunately the Mughal Empire, along

with the rest of the Islamic world, soon declines in the 1600’s when new

advances in world trade and ocean shipping rob them of their prosperity.

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The Trading Companies. By avoiding Muslim traders,

European shipping posts along India’s coastlines quickly flourish and establish

powerful trading companies and ports.

In 1757, the British East India Company becomes the dominant European

trading company in India, a reign that will last for one century. After losing

America to the colonists,

the British are free to focus all their attention on India. At this time in

Christian England and Europe,

homosexuality has been vilified and routinely punished with torture and legal

execution since the Dark Ages.

This punishment is also administered to lesbian women. People accused of homosexual acts are

often put in the pillory and pelted with garbage until half dead. With the

decline of Islamic influence,

eunuchs are scorned by the British and abandoned as social outcastes. Also

during this time, puritan scholars,

fascinated by India’s Sanskrit literary works, translate them into English but

omit or hide any references made to homosexuality because it is shocking to

them.

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British Rule. In 1857, widespread rebellion breaks

out in India against the British East India Trading Company. The rebellion is

brutally crushed by

the British Navy and in 1858 India is officially incorporated into the British

Empire. Two years later, the

antisodomy law of 1860 is enforced upon the entire empire that now includes

India. The law, which remarkably

is still in place in India today as Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code,

reads: “Whoever voluntarily has

carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal,

shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either

description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall be liable to

fine.” This law was taken to be an

improvement for Great Britain, which had previously punished homosexuality by

execution and torture, but for India, it was a great step backwards. Hindu

India had never before punished

homosexuality with anything more than a fine or ritual bath. By British

estimation, India was a

backward country with a barbaric culture and primitive religion. The British

Empire would impress upon

the Hindus their Christian values and educate them in proper civilized behavior

while exploiting their country’s resources for another full century.

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Independence. In 1947, after considerable struggle

through civil disobedience, India achieves political independence and the

British Empire is dismantled.

However, as a country, India is culturally scarred in many ways. Most Indians

believe that their

original Vedic culture and religion are inferior to Western counterparts. They

consider their heritage shameful

and something to be abandoned.

Mahatma Gandhi, educated in England, sends squads of his disciples to

smash the erotic representations on the ancient temples of Khajuraho and

Chapri. Only the poet Rabindranath

Tagore manages to stop them.

Pandit Nehru attempts to halt the publishing of photographs that depict

sculptures showing homosexual relations, claiming that such vices are due to

Western influence. In fact, it is his own perception of vice that has been

influenced by the West.

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On To The Future. In 1967, the United Kingdom repeals its

outdated antisodomy law, effectively decriminalizing homosexuality for all of

its citizens. India, on the other

hand, continues to cling to these outdated laws and values imposed upon it by

foreigners without considering its own native culture and traditions. Labels

such as “abnormal,” “unnatural,”

and “unhealthy” are of relatively very recent origin in India and are certainly

not rooted in traditional Vedic or Hindu thought.

yes"> Indeed, the very inventors of these labels, Euro-American

psychologists, have already retracted them and come to the conclusion that

homosexuality is natural, normal and healthy behavior for those born of that

orientation. As Western culture

and science gradually adopt a more open and realistic approach in dealing with

its homosexual citizens, it is expected that India will eventually follow.

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Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Views On

Homosexuality in India

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12.0pt"> It

cannot be underestimated how great an influence early British scholars and

educators had upon the current homophobic environment still present in India

today. Many professional and

religious authorities growing up in India during the nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries were heavily indoctrinated with homophobic stereotypes and

views by English educators, and these out-dated beliefs persist down to this

very day. While most people will

consider these views outrageous and even laughable by today’s standards, India

still continues to enforce laws based upon such fallacies. The result is that

literally millions

of gay and lesbian Hindus living in India are pressured or forced into unhappy

marriages, involuntary celibacy or remarkably, sometimes even the unnatural

practice of castration. Below are

a few excerpts taken from academically recognized books printed and read in

India during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of which

are still taken as authoritative references today.

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12.0pt"> “Mothers

and fathers in Western countries, who are lovers of knowledge, are so careful

of their children that at night they even tie the child’s hands to their sides,

so that during the night, the child should not inadvertently touch its lower

organs and spoil its health. When

one’s own hand can be harmful for oneself, what use can a legal enactment or

imprisoning the body be?”

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(Pandit Madhavacarya’s

“Kamasutra,” 31, published in 1911)

 

 

“Ways of Protecting Young

Boys and Girls”

 

Never let

children sleep with maids, female servants or strange women.

Get children

into the habit of sleeping alone on their beds.

Young girls

should not be allowed to sleep together on the same bed.

Boys and

girls should be stopped from sleeping on the same bed.

Boys and

girls should be watched so that they do not go to the bathroom together

and do not stay there alone for too long.

yes"> It should also be ensured that they do not go to the

bathroom at odd times. In

whatever way possible, a secret vigilance has to be maintained.

Young boys

should not be allowed to sit in a room alone.

yes"> Privacy is destructive for the young.

Keeping boys

and girls busy in play, studies or housework protects them from bad

habits.

Young girls

who are friends often talk for hours alone in rooms or on the roof. It is

essential that they be

watched. However, there is no

harm if they are alone for a short time.

It would be

better if they were made to sit where the older women of the family could

occasionally watch them.

Stories and

novels about love and romance should not be available to them.

Husband and

wife should not have intercourse in the presence of their children. In fact

they should sleep on

separate beds.

When you are

awake after the young boys and girls have gone to sleep, you should have a

look at them. If, in the

morning, the young stay tucked in their quilts for a long time, then

trouble is possible.

Therefore they should be awoken early and made to rise from bed.

Do not always

consider them as angels, innocents or “only a child.” In the light

of the true examples

I have presented above, you should guard your children completely.

 

(Hakim Muhammad Yusuf

Hasan’s “Do Shiza,” 140-42, 3rd ed.1934)

 

 

“The Reason for the

Present Disasters”

 

12.0pt"> “The

present government has laid down severe penalties for unnatural fornication and

the subjects fear these penalties, but who then are the immoral ones who

practice unnatural immorality? We

are not told how to recognize them, but in the section on oral sex, the author

of the Kamasutra has drawn a portrait of their activities and has also

introduced us to their identity, saying, ‘Usually, this act is performed by

shandas’ (a term used for people of the third sex).”

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12.0pt"> “These

evil practices are spreading among young men today like an infectious

disease. If these tendencies are

not removed from their hearts by good education, they could become healthy,

disease-free, good-charactered heroes, who would adorn the country by their

lives.”

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12.0pt"> “Such

boys do not engage solely in oral activity, they also engage in another type of

unnatural fornication. People

involved in theatre commonly are puppets of that type of vice. They all pretend

to be pure, though. On one occasion, a fight with daggers

broke out between students of a college over such an affair.”

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(Pandit Madhavacarya’s

commentaries on the ninth chapter of the “Kamasutra”)

 

 

“Hermaphrodites”

 

12.0pt"> “Therefore

it is necessary to discuss those beings who are neither men nor women. Eunuchs

exist not only in India and in

the East but also in Europe and America.

In India the eunuchs are formally organized.

yes"> There is complete agreement and unity among them and they

are constantly intent upon expanding their community.

yes"> You can well ask what sort of wretched person would want to

join the community of these hijras.

You might not know but there are countless such men who are counted as

men but whose emotions are exactly the same as those of women. In their hearts

they wish that they

were with an attractive man, one with large dark eyes, a rosy and glowing

complexion, red lips and a beautiful moustache, one who would take them in his

arms, hold them tight and make love to them.

yes"> They are constantly in search of such a man. European doctors have mentioned such

cases in their medical books. The

moment they get the opportunity, men with such feelings join the community of

hijras.

12.0pt"> Since

there are men who prefer to love men and who find satisfaction in it, there is

no reason why there should not be women who dislike men and prefer other

women. Therefore there are women

who to all intents and purposes are free from the qualities of women and have

manly qualities. Such women are

well built and slightly fair with a muddy complexion.

yes"> Desire and lust drips from their eyes. They laugh often and prefer masculine

manners. They stride along with

their heads held high and they try to make friends with beautiful women.

Gradually they entrap them in their

magic and get closer to them.

Simple respectable women, trusting them as other women, accept their

love and friendliness as affection.

Slowly they start kissing and petting.

yes"> Finally they seduce them towards illicit relations. If by chance or in

the course of joking

and playing, a woman falls into their hands, we should take this as the end of

that poor creature. These illicit

relations develop so fast that in a couple of months the poor woman starts

looking as if she suffers from tuberculosis.

yes"> The simple one turns into the unbought slave of the manly,

shameless one. Eventually, the

woman loses her health and finds a place in the grave. The shameless one then starts to entrap

some other woman. I have treated

one such woman. This woman

admitted to her crimes in detail but I cannot describe them here because they

are obscene.”

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(Hakim Muhammad Yusuf Hasan’s “Do Shiza,” a very

popular medical book on sexual science, originally published at the turn of the

century in Lahore.)

 

 

“The Existence of Eunuchs

is Dangerous”

 

12.0pt"> “Do

not allow eunuchs or hijras to enter the house.

yes"> If the existence of lewd women is a danger, so is the

presence of eunuchs. Eunuchs may

corrupt the thoughts of respectable women with their poisonous

conversation. Therefore it is not

wise to let them come into the house or to make them guard women. Instead, it

is an invitation to the

corruption of respectable women…”

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(Hakim Muhammad Yusuf

Hasan’s “Do Shiza,” 132-35, 3rd ed.1934)

 

 

 

 

 

12.0pt"> Most

of the material and information for this article is from the book “Same-Sex

Love in India,” by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai, 2000, St. Martin’s Press, and

is available from amazon.com.

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12.0pt">For more information, please contact The Gay and Lesbian Vaishnava

Association (GALVA): http://www.geocities.com/galva108

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[Guest guest]

Haribol, Amara prabhu

 

Thanks for sending that article. I am going to have to get this book

because it sounds like a good read, even if just from the historical

point-of-view.

 

I have put the article up on the Resources page, as you requested

(http://www.nine9.ukshells.co.uk/galva108/).

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Your friend and servant,

 

Rama Kesava dasa

 

--

rama.kesava.BVTS nine9

http://www.nine9.ukshells.co.uk/galva108 ICQ: 41974841

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