1 00:00:00,730 --> 00:00:06,100 Thank you very, very much for that very generous and very warm introduction that I just finished my amnesty in 2 00:00:06,100 --> 00:00:13,120 intellectual history last year and I'm doing the MPP very fancy non academia related practical degree, 3 00:00:13,120 --> 00:00:19,390 but I'm very excited to present today because I've been following the intellectual history seminar 4 00:00:19,510 --> 00:00:25,629 since its inception and it is an honour to be able to present and to really set up the stage for, 5 00:00:25,630 --> 00:00:30,640 I think, broad engagement around a topic that I've been involved in for the past few 6 00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:35,410 years and also for sort of the development of critical scholarship around it. 7 00:00:35,980 --> 00:00:40,209 At the very outset, I want to start off by saying what the stock is not about, 8 00:00:40,210 --> 00:00:46,110 because we've had some online engagement on this and some of you might might have come from those online engagements. 9 00:00:46,110 --> 00:00:51,160 So I welcome your inputs and your objections as they might be. 10 00:00:53,560 --> 00:01:00,700 The stock is not about Kashmiri queerness or any form of Kashmiri quietness. 11 00:01:01,090 --> 00:01:06,430 The stock is about the development of a particular strand of Hindu nationalism, 12 00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:12,069 which has subsumed quietness within the ambit and weaponised the language of 13 00:01:12,070 --> 00:01:17,050 LGBTQ rights to justify the abrogation of Article three seven in particular, 14 00:01:17,350 --> 00:01:20,850 and the larger sort of occupation of the Chinese. Right. 15 00:01:20,890 --> 00:01:28,990 So this is tracing developments within Hindu nationalism, its tracing its weaponization of LGBTQ rights officially. 16 00:01:29,230 --> 00:01:34,480 It does not theorise or speak about Kashmiri queer resistance. 17 00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:44,560 Also, although I'm happy to share about work being done in Kashmir by several friends and organisations that I sort of spent a lot of time with. 18 00:01:44,860 --> 00:01:50,740 But again, this this comes from a very different space, so it's going to have three focus points. 19 00:01:51,310 --> 00:01:56,980 One is on the diffuse origins of this narrative that presents India as emancipatory 20 00:01:57,340 --> 00:02:03,300 and Indian presence in Kashmir as particularly beneficial for LGBTQ rights region. 21 00:02:04,430 --> 00:02:13,040 The second thing it theorises around the implications for such a discourse for queerness within India and for queer people within India is one. 22 00:02:13,940 --> 00:02:19,969 And the third thing is it sheds a little light and sort of tries to grapple with frameworks to 23 00:02:19,970 --> 00:02:26,870 oppose this form of construction within India and within the Indian queer movement in particular, 24 00:02:26,870 --> 00:02:32,360 but Indian progressive movements at large. This builds upon my own position. 25 00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:44,270 So as the dominant caste in the Indian working as a cisgender queer man, I am both the perpetrator of this, 26 00:02:44,270 --> 00:02:49,310 but also the exact kind of person who does discourses produced by and produced for. 27 00:02:49,610 --> 00:02:57,230 So in many ways, this is something that I've grappled as as something that I have almost been expected to reiterate and then. 28 00:02:58,530 --> 00:03:07,200 I've taken the time to unpack it, working upon my experiences within queer activism in India and then my work in Kashmir. 29 00:03:08,220 --> 00:03:13,530 So the broad theoretical framework that I'll be working here will be with Just Be. 30 00:03:13,530 --> 00:03:25,259 It was common nationalism. It'll be sort of seeing how nationalism has evolved or rather morphed from its initial sort of disdain for LGBTQ rights 31 00:03:25,260 --> 00:03:32,550 into a more sort of generative acceptance for LGBTQ rights in a very limited way and its subsequent weaponization. 32 00:03:32,910 --> 00:03:36,540 I'll also be sort of touching upon what done it on Hindu nationalism, 33 00:03:36,540 --> 00:03:43,440 but people like the chant about the iron ore ships that got some very important work done by Natasha Coleman that could be on 34 00:03:43,650 --> 00:03:49,950 the sort of construction of history and it's gendered imaginary within the Indian imagination on we're not done by moon upon 35 00:03:49,970 --> 00:03:58,260 a CIA and some not so much on welfare to welfare and the sort of narrative that's changing and particularly now and then a 36 00:03:58,260 --> 00:04:03,570 little bit by the whole downstream issue about what it means to sort of oppose this within an Indian constitutional framework. 37 00:04:04,380 --> 00:04:11,790 I think before I begin, we have to acknowledge that this is the unprecedented moment of sort of state subjugation industry. 38 00:04:12,300 --> 00:04:21,750 Several writers, journalists, academics are in jail most often under acts like the Public Safety Act or the EPA, which are non-bailable. 39 00:04:22,710 --> 00:04:30,150 There has been a clampdown on freedom of speech and there have also been heightened instances of atrocities 40 00:04:30,150 --> 00:04:35,850 after the abrogation of Article 370 and the lockdown and complete communications blockade that followed. 41 00:04:36,060 --> 00:04:40,680 So I think this is also a moment that's theorised by a lot of people as a transition of the Indian 42 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:47,000 states presence in fishmeal from being that of a colonial power to a settler colonial power. 43 00:04:47,550 --> 00:04:53,950 And I'll touch upon by the sort of language of LGBTQ rights is particularly relevant in that transition. 44 00:04:54,810 --> 00:04:59,520 So I'm going to start off with the stories that have already set the sort of theoretical framework, 45 00:04:59,850 --> 00:05:04,270 and the story sort of begins in 2013, in December 2020. 46 00:05:06,090 --> 00:05:09,120 In December 2013, you had the BJP. 47 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:15,709 Rising its phenomenal ascendance under the stewardship stewardship of Narendra modi, 48 00:05:15,710 --> 00:05:22,670 who then prime ministerial candidate and its sort of position within the Indian election campaign as frontrunner 49 00:05:22,910 --> 00:05:29,030 and widely touted as succeeding the Indian National Congress as the sort of next party to govern the country. 50 00:05:30,230 --> 00:05:32,990 The BJP has historically maintained its stance, 51 00:05:32,990 --> 00:05:41,420 have been smeared as one of opposing any form of autonomy and supporting complete forms of integration of meat into the Indian Union. 52 00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:50,000 That has there had been, at least for a while before the sort of arrival of Modi and the pre-eminence of Kashmir on the national stage. 53 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:58,730 Once again, under Hindu nationalism, a sort of quiet and rhetoric around Article 70 that had presumed that Article G 70 would stay as is, 54 00:05:59,060 --> 00:06:03,890 where very few had thought it possible that Article G 70 could ever be removed. 55 00:06:04,580 --> 00:06:14,570 So the first thing that happens is, in the first week of December 2013, the Indian modi leads the first election rally in Kashmir by the BJP in Jammu. 56 00:06:14,840 --> 00:06:21,620 This is the little car rally. It's the biggest rally that the parties held in Kashmir in the in recent history. 57 00:06:21,980 --> 00:06:30,230 And it sets the tone for the BJP's policy and how this meeting will feature in the national conversation around the national elections, 58 00:06:30,380 --> 00:06:34,010 which are to be held just six months later in May 2014. 59 00:06:34,490 --> 00:06:42,860 So December 2013, at the local rally, Narendra modi makes a provocative speech in which he questions the need to continue with Article 70. 60 00:06:43,340 --> 00:06:51,379 Now, Article 37 is the provision that grants autonomy to Kashmir under this other instrument of decision signed by the then maharajah of Kashmir, 61 00:06:51,380 --> 00:06:53,540 Hari Singh, with the Indian state. 62 00:06:53,810 --> 00:07:02,210 That essentially provides for a greater degree of autonomy to army of then then granted to any other state in the Indian Union, 63 00:07:02,420 --> 00:07:10,010 and also sets the dawn for a sort of transition into independence after the holding of a plebiscite in the region. 64 00:07:10,460 --> 00:07:18,950 And so Article G 70 is incredibly important to Kashmir, primarily because it gives the region autonomy and protects that sort of special status, 65 00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:22,399 but also it prevents people from buying land in the region, 66 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:25,850 therefore preventing a settler colonial project and from voting in the region, 67 00:07:25,850 --> 00:07:35,600 therefore allowing for a degree of democratic participation that cannot be influenced by India, which is much larger, both in size and in population. 68 00:07:36,500 --> 00:07:41,570 So Modi sets the stone and makes the provocative claim as to why do we need Article 70 anymore? 69 00:07:41,690 --> 00:07:46,129 And it makes national headlines that evening on Arnab Goswami NewsHour, 70 00:07:46,130 --> 00:07:51,020 which is the most watched English news television debate over the course of the election campaign. 71 00:07:51,350 --> 00:07:56,270 The topic of discussion is Article 70, with multiple panellists coming in, 72 00:07:56,270 --> 00:08:02,569 weighing in and sort of building this narrative for the eventual abrogation of Article 70 and 73 00:08:02,570 --> 00:08:08,090 for the need to subsume Kashmir within the Indian Union under a very strong national structure. 74 00:08:09,280 --> 00:08:15,490 Just ten days later, on the 11th of December 2013, the Supreme Court of India. 75 00:08:16,850 --> 00:08:23,060 In a landmark shocking verdict overturns the Delhi High Court verdict passed not too long ago, 76 00:08:23,300 --> 00:08:29,060 which puts the very controversial laws Section three, seven seven back on Indian Statute books. 77 00:08:29,420 --> 00:08:32,240 Now, Section 377 is India's anti-sodomy law. 78 00:08:32,540 --> 00:08:41,389 It was introduced in the 1860s under British imperialism to criminalise sodomy and has over the years been used 79 00:08:41,390 --> 00:08:49,400 to specifically target the LGBTQ community as it prohibits carnal intercourse against the order of nature. 80 00:08:50,270 --> 00:08:56,020 So this became, again, an incredibly large event, right? 81 00:08:56,180 --> 00:08:59,540 And it led to the politicisation of LGBTQ rights. 82 00:08:59,760 --> 00:09:08,320 Right at the heart of an election campaign. Never before had you seen LGBTQ rights being discussed in the political sphere in such a fervent manner. 83 00:09:08,330 --> 00:09:16,100 And it's such scale because the Delhi High Court in 2009 had already struck down Section three, seven, seven, calling it unconstitutional. 84 00:09:16,340 --> 00:09:19,430 You'd seen a flowering of the LGBTQ rights movement in India. 85 00:09:19,760 --> 00:09:23,989 You'd seen people come out. You'd seen sort of corporate participation, 86 00:09:23,990 --> 00:09:30,350 also sort of legal action being taken that allowed for a certain set of rights to be granted to LGBTQ persons, 87 00:09:30,650 --> 00:09:34,640 and a lot more visibility for LGBTQ persons in general on the national stage. 88 00:09:35,150 --> 00:09:38,870 All of this visibility coalesced in protest against Section three, seven, seven. 89 00:09:39,140 --> 00:09:43,400 There was a global day of outrage. It became an international issue. 90 00:09:43,610 --> 00:09:49,909 There were various ways in which the queer issue, and specifically the Supreme Court's verdict on Section three, 91 00:09:49,910 --> 00:09:54,410 seven, seven became a rallying cry for the community to demand better from politicians. 92 00:09:54,860 --> 00:10:00,350 This became a moment when Indian queer started asking politicians, What is your stance on LGBTQ rights? 93 00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:06,670 That night, on a number of Sundays news hour, the topic of discussion was Section 37 seven. 94 00:10:08,360 --> 00:10:15,229 Now, Section 377, Article 37 does sound very similar to each other, and that evening were confused for each other. 95 00:10:15,230 --> 00:10:22,100 Several times over the next few months, the Duke provision started getting confused so often by politicians, 96 00:10:22,100 --> 00:10:30,589 by LGBTQ rights activists, like a lot of activists, and by everyone involved, that it almost led to some comical situations. 97 00:10:30,590 --> 00:10:43,219 In fact, a satire news article put out a piece that said a BJP spokesperson was defending Section 37 D of the removal of Section 317. 98 00:10:43,220 --> 00:10:51,620 I got some news, but ended up demanding the removal of section 377, instead prompting a question Does the BJP now support LGBTQ rights? 99 00:10:52,500 --> 00:11:01,850 And so amidst this confusion, amidst these sort of conversations around Section 77 and Article 70, a whole array of new provisions were born. 100 00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:07,679 So online you could find Article 377, Section 371. 101 00:11:07,680 --> 00:11:10,020 Was it the Indian Constitution? One was the Indian penal code. 102 00:11:10,030 --> 00:11:19,890 People are mixing up one for the other, resulting in a sort of discussion of the two legislations, and then by extension, 103 00:11:20,130 --> 00:11:25,230 a discussion of queerness and Kashmir in the same breath, which simply had never happened before. 104 00:11:26,620 --> 00:11:35,350 At this moment you saw the politicisation of LGBTQ rights take a peculiar to the Indian National Congress under the precedent of Sonia Gandhi. 105 00:11:35,590 --> 00:11:41,680 It is an unprecedented statement that came out against the Supreme Court verdict and in favour of LGBTQ rights. 106 00:11:41,980 --> 00:11:45,820 This was the first time that a national political party had taken a stance on the issue, 107 00:11:46,150 --> 00:11:52,120 and it led to a lot of liberal sort of support for the Congress's position and more importantly, 108 00:11:52,120 --> 00:11:59,320 a lot of liberal outrage as to why the BJP had been silent on the issue and in fact, why its own leaders, several of them, 109 00:11:59,560 --> 00:12:07,690 had made statements explicitly supporting the Supreme Court's verdict and coming out with sort of homophobic remarks. 110 00:12:08,590 --> 00:12:12,460 Amidst this, there was a lot of online conversation generated around these two provisions, 111 00:12:13,270 --> 00:12:20,620 and the general nature of conversation around these provisions when they were connected to each other was something along these lines. 112 00:12:20,620 --> 00:12:27,280 You had progressive individuals who are calling upon the BJP to take a stance on LGBTQ issues, 113 00:12:27,550 --> 00:12:32,000 appealing to moderate leaders in the BJP and calling by the Prime Minister himself, 114 00:12:32,020 --> 00:12:36,490 the prime minister candidate, then himself, to make a statement on LGBTQ rights. 115 00:12:37,180 --> 00:12:45,790 In response, you had trolls and the sort of right wing activist and right wing commentators primarily made up of online, 116 00:12:46,360 --> 00:12:56,890 predominantly middle class, upper caste men, responding with, Why do you care about Section 377 when you should be getting about national security? 117 00:12:57,430 --> 00:13:02,920 So in many ways, Section 377 and Article G 70 were pitted against each other. 118 00:13:03,310 --> 00:13:10,450 And apart from the confusion, you saw the emergence of a narrative that said that national security was more important than 119 00:13:10,450 --> 00:13:18,999 LGBTQ rights and that all those arguing for LGBTQ rights were arguing against national security, 120 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:25,810 against India's interests, effectively saying all LGBTQ black activists or those supporting LGBTQ rights were anti-national. 121 00:13:26,110 --> 00:13:30,320 That's been turned around more often than we'd like in the present day and age. 122 00:13:31,270 --> 00:13:40,360 So this was very classic, and it just resembled the standard definitions of Hindutva that we've come to sort of engage with over the years. 123 00:13:40,670 --> 00:13:48,760 Bala Chadha, in your remarkable work, has shown how internationalism has systematically excluded quilts, 124 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:58,090 and it manages to be sort of presenting masculinity as this desired idea and queerness as one of its fundamental threats. 125 00:13:58,370 --> 00:14:06,699 So tracing the evolution of internationalism, she, she's shown through publications by the RSS and by other sort of ideological 126 00:14:06,700 --> 00:14:13,120 armies of Hindu nationalism that actually queerness is systematically excluded. 127 00:14:13,300 --> 00:14:19,850 And, in fact. The project off into nationalism is diametrically opposed to the project of cryonics. 128 00:14:20,150 --> 00:14:26,780 And this was what played out in 2013. And this was the sort of debate that took place online, particularly within the Strand. 129 00:14:27,470 --> 00:14:31,910 I was fascinated by The Strand and traced it by collating large amounts of Twitter and 130 00:14:31,910 --> 00:14:37,220 Facebook data and seeing how these two arguments piece together evolved over the years, 131 00:14:37,520 --> 00:14:41,000 particularly with the sort of different social and political context. 132 00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:47,450 Every time you had a court hearing on Section three, seven, seven, an animated discourse around LGBTQ rights, 133 00:14:47,630 --> 00:14:52,850 you saw a similar spike in conversations around Article 317 and the reiteration of this discourse, 134 00:14:53,060 --> 00:15:00,170 which sort of dismissed anyone arguing for LGBTQ rights as somebody who was not in favour of national security. 135 00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:07,070 Things change, of course. 2014 saw the election of Narendra modi as prime minister with people voting majority. 136 00:15:07,790 --> 00:15:12,380 You saw the sort of complete, systematic. 137 00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:19,860 Presence of a Hindu nationalist government in India after almost a decade. 138 00:15:20,250 --> 00:15:24,720 And you saw a sort of changing of narratives around a lot of social issues 139 00:15:24,930 --> 00:15:29,010 because the party that was once in opposition was now in a position of power. 140 00:15:29,820 --> 00:15:35,610 In 2018, there was a major Supreme Court verdict that overturned the 2013. 141 00:15:35,610 --> 00:15:40,799 But in essence, a constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India had decided that its 142 00:15:40,800 --> 00:15:46,230 previous verdict was erroneous and said that Section 377 had to be struck down. 143 00:15:46,470 --> 00:15:56,280 Use the grounds of privacy, to use the grounds of human dignity, and essentially enable LGBTQ rights to be validated through law. 144 00:15:56,670 --> 00:16:01,739 In this context, and this is a moment of great celebration, again, made major headlines. 145 00:16:01,740 --> 00:16:06,750 It was seen as the new Independence Day for LGBTQ blessed Indians. 146 00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:10,589 Mumbai is where Pride Parade was actually called the Queer, 147 00:16:10,590 --> 00:16:20,220 as I imagine a in other strange sort of coalesce its call list nature of Kashmiri sort of resistance, movement, vocabulary and queerness. 148 00:16:20,580 --> 00:16:27,270 And you had this sort of overwhelming joy around this overturning of a colonial era law. 149 00:16:29,260 --> 00:16:37,390 Interestingly, this was a narrative that proved to be quite detrimental in the long run. 150 00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:43,750 Posters, placards and other sorts of forms of protest celebrated this Independence Day as the 151 00:16:43,840 --> 00:16:50,830 overturning of a sort of vestige of British morality and Victorian morality and imperial law. 152 00:16:51,490 --> 00:16:57,070 It positioned India as a safe haven for LGBTQ rights before colonisation, 153 00:16:57,400 --> 00:17:05,050 and built into this narrative that before the British arrived, there was actually a wide degree of respect for queerness within India. 154 00:17:07,310 --> 00:17:13,639 The strap that picked up on this was the Hindu nationalist and most directly an online. 155 00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:22,040 You saw rightwing accounts sort of supporting this verdict, using the language of promotion of Hindu culture, 156 00:17:22,250 --> 00:17:30,080 the tolerance of Hindu culture, and the inherent Hindu nature of India that had allowed for this sort of move to be made possible. 157 00:17:30,710 --> 00:17:36,290 The problem and of course, it only made this India before the British, the Hindu nationalist movement, 158 00:17:36,290 --> 00:17:40,700 took it one step further and said India before the British and the Mughals in a sort of. 159 00:17:41,770 --> 00:17:47,409 Increased all sort of extension of a process that engineering Descartes has very aptly 160 00:17:47,410 --> 00:17:52,930 termed as a form of archival hermeneutics that often leads to counterproductive results. 161 00:17:53,580 --> 00:18:02,649 Right. So in 2018, you see see a sort of shift in the Hindu nationalism narrative that is gradually generally embracing LGBTQ rights within 162 00:18:02,650 --> 00:18:10,600 a language of sort of Hindu how to make inclusion and the sort of essential acceptance of queerness within Hinduism. 163 00:18:11,020 --> 00:18:19,360 And online you see the 37377 connexion new forms being reworked in in very unique and strange ways. 164 00:18:19,960 --> 00:18:30,280 So in 2018, you see the same accounts that had opposed Section 377 overturning in 2013, done to a narrative that says, 165 00:18:30,610 --> 00:18:36,880 well, now that Section 377 is overturned, the Supreme Court should remove Article 370. 166 00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:40,540 And they frame this within a broader language of equality. 167 00:18:40,690 --> 00:18:46,480 In the first instance of the weaponization, of the language of LGBTQ rights, in the context of the state. 168 00:18:47,170 --> 00:18:53,410 So it's said that you remove section three, seven, seven because everybody is equal and everybody should have equal rights, including queer people. 169 00:18:53,830 --> 00:19:00,220 You must now also remove Article 37 to have the same grounds of equality, giving Indians and Kashmiris equal rights. 170 00:19:00,430 --> 00:19:05,410 Because why can't Indians marry Kashmiri Kashmiris right now or become citizens of Ishmael? 171 00:19:05,650 --> 00:19:10,629 Why can't Indians buy land in Kashmir? So this remains a relatively fringe narrative. 172 00:19:10,630 --> 00:19:12,940 It's promoted by a journalist called Article Singh, 173 00:19:12,970 --> 00:19:19,330 who's since gone on to become a prominent right wing spokesperson and testified in the US Congress and his thesis. 174 00:19:19,570 --> 00:19:27,070 You see it also being put forward by rightwing queer people themselves, including those like Abigail Mitra, 175 00:19:27,070 --> 00:19:33,820 who's a sort of commentator and and rightwing queer activist who owns rights and national security. 176 00:19:34,030 --> 00:19:40,840 And you see the sort of mushrooming of this argument that now the three, seven, seven is gone. 177 00:19:41,050 --> 00:19:48,010 The next step needs to be 370. It's also one that, of course, comes from the fact that the BJP government is in power. 178 00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:52,000 It hasn't fulfilled its electoral promise of removing Article 70 yet. 179 00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:56,920 Modi announced way back in 2013 that Article G 70 should go five years down. 180 00:19:56,920 --> 00:19:58,660 Article G 70 has still not gone, 181 00:19:58,990 --> 00:20:08,410 and the right wing is now placing its feet in the courtroom instead of in executive authority for such a transformation to come to fruition. 182 00:20:08,740 --> 00:20:15,580 Also, building upon the ways in which the courtroom has become a sort of pseudo policymaking chamber for the government under 183 00:20:15,580 --> 00:20:22,060 this present government in title disputes like the temple dispute and the sort of resolution of the bar being my ship, 184 00:20:22,300 --> 00:20:26,980 which was done again through the courtroom rather than through the executive, 185 00:20:27,190 --> 00:20:32,740 but in a way that resembled the executive will enforced through the judiciary. 186 00:20:33,940 --> 00:20:39,640 So in 2018, you see, it is now to build out that first three, seven, seven must go and then 370. 187 00:20:39,820 --> 00:20:45,010 And in 2019, the unprecedented the unprecedented happens again, 188 00:20:45,220 --> 00:20:52,420 which is the unilateral revocation of Article 70 by the Indian government in Parliament. 189 00:20:53,170 --> 00:21:00,850 So the BJP, in a surprise move on the 5th of August 2019, evokes Article 37 of the Indian Constitution, 190 00:21:00,850 --> 00:21:08,559 effectively severing Kashmir's autonomous status and degrading the region from an autonomous status to 191 00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:13,810 the title of union territory the region with the least amount of autonomy within the Indian Union. 192 00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:21,340 It also results in the partition of the the sort of erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir 193 00:21:21,670 --> 00:21:26,980 into Jammu and Kashmir as one union territory and the back as another union territory, 194 00:21:27,190 --> 00:21:33,700 sort of also disrupting the geographic boundaries of a disputed region under international law. 195 00:21:34,770 --> 00:21:40,469 This is accompanied by the communications blockade that has been one of the longest 196 00:21:40,470 --> 00:21:44,010 official meetings that was seen in the most brutal and most totalitarian right. 197 00:21:44,280 --> 00:21:46,440 It's accompanied by snapping of phone lines, 198 00:21:46,650 --> 00:21:54,810 all forms of digital communication and a curfew that is enforced through one of the largest military deployments the valley has ever seen. 199 00:21:56,100 --> 00:22:02,160 This goes on for almost six months. That is complete radio silence from what is happening inside Kashmir. 200 00:22:02,610 --> 00:22:07,200 Every single major political leader is placed either under house arrest or put into prison. 201 00:22:07,470 --> 00:22:10,890 Any forms of protests and demonstrations are banned, and India, 202 00:22:10,890 --> 00:22:17,160 on the international scale is facing massive amounts of global outrage around this sort of 203 00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:22,140 unilateral action and a flagrant violation of international law and territorial sovereignty. 204 00:22:22,950 --> 00:22:30,959 Amidst this, you see a sort of Indian state that is emboldened by its sort of second that it's just been 205 00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:38,830 recently elected into and also by its increased economic power that goes on firefighting mode. 206 00:22:39,660 --> 00:22:49,110 So across the country and both domestically and internationally, you see the BJP and the Indian state at large justifying this action in various ways. 207 00:22:49,500 --> 00:22:57,120 So the first one is primarily that Kashmir is an internal issue and that India is free to do what it chooses within its territorial boundaries. 208 00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:05,309 The second is that it is and it is a form of economic emancipation, and that this will actually lead to development in Kashmir, 209 00:23:05,310 --> 00:23:09,810 which is an argument that was used to get Modi elected to power in 2014. 210 00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:19,080 And the third one is and the most nefarious one is that this is actually an it is actually a move that's intended to emancipate ordinary Kashmiris. 211 00:23:19,770 --> 00:23:28,200 Now, this builds upon a narrative that but but it's a desire and something Mushtaq have pointed out earlier of the sort of portrayal 212 00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:35,850 of Kashmir women as oppressed and of Kashmir as being sort of economically underdeveloped because of its autonomous status. 213 00:23:36,300 --> 00:23:42,600 It also builds upon sort of standard tropes of Islamophobia that portray the Muslim woman in India as oppressed, 214 00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:44,730 which has played out in recent debates on the hijab. 215 00:23:45,210 --> 00:23:53,250 And it frames the entire debate in a sort of social emancipation context that sees the Indian state as almost an evangelical, 216 00:23:53,250 --> 00:23:58,750 emancipatory presence in Kashmir. This argument takes three distinct strands. 217 00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:02,270 One is with the rest with respect to the emancipation of women. 218 00:24:02,270 --> 00:24:08,600 And you see a lot of sort of arguments being put forth to the international stage about the emancipation of Kashmiri women. 219 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:15,590 This is countered by Indian feminist groups as well to some degree, but continues nonetheless within the mainstream discourse. 220 00:24:16,070 --> 00:24:21,920 The second one is a discourse on dust. There's an argument made that because the Street enjoys autonomous status, 221 00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:28,670 oppressed caste do not enjoy the same privileges of reservation and other forms of affirmative 222 00:24:28,670 --> 00:24:32,810 action that they do and constitutional protection that they do within the Indian state, 223 00:24:32,930 --> 00:24:37,340 which they will now enjoy in Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370. 224 00:24:37,700 --> 00:24:42,130 This is, again, splintering, anti-gas movements within the country. 225 00:24:42,140 --> 00:24:50,480 Many advocates, activists speak out against this form of caste washing and this this justification, which often yields no concrete results. 226 00:24:50,780 --> 00:24:55,010 And the third one, which is which is a fringe one, but yet an important one, 227 00:24:55,400 --> 00:25:02,960 is the justification of the abrogation of Article three seven and the revocation of autonomy as a victory for LGBTQ rights. 228 00:25:03,650 --> 00:25:11,390 The most prominent place in which this appears is in a debate by Jitendra on NDTV against Shashi, the root of the Indian National Congress. 229 00:25:11,660 --> 00:25:19,459 It's targeted for a very domestic, liberal, elite, English speaking audience that the BJP now needs to win favour with internationally. 230 00:25:19,460 --> 00:25:26,420 It finds we again with an article by Japan for the BBC intended to sort of play the 231 00:25:26,420 --> 00:25:31,190 same rules that the US played in many ways in the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, 232 00:25:31,190 --> 00:25:36,880 and the same sort of human nationalist narrative that's been used in the movement in an immense, 233 00:25:36,890 --> 00:25:39,500 [INAUDIBLE] way to justify occupation in other parts of the world. 234 00:25:40,310 --> 00:25:50,719 And it also finds its presence in people like the overseas wing chief of the BJP, who uses this to justify the abrogation of Article 70 in the US. 235 00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:56,120 And he's actually a series of talks in many cities facilitated by the Indian consulates 236 00:25:56,120 --> 00:26:00,830 and embassies that use this rhetoric to justify the abrogation of Article 370. 237 00:26:01,850 --> 00:26:10,340 Now, this strand is is peculiar because it manages to connect Article 70 and Section 77 in a very directly. 238 00:26:11,660 --> 00:26:21,110 The argument made here is that because India had overturned Section 77 through the Supreme Court judgement in 2018, 239 00:26:22,190 --> 00:26:29,180 that that did not extend to Kashmir in 2018 because of the abrogation of Article 70. 240 00:26:29,780 --> 00:26:35,509 So the abrogation of Article G 70 was necessary to create one nation, one law, one country, 241 00:26:35,510 --> 00:26:45,160 one rule that would allow for the extension of the privileges enjoyed by queer people in India to those enjoyed by queer people, 242 00:26:45,620 --> 00:26:53,120 to those enjoyed by equity beneficiaries of extension of these rights and the sort of direct correlation between Article 70 and Section three, 243 00:26:53,120 --> 00:27:00,530 seven, seven, that it was almost more nefarious than the initial one, which was similar, which was which was just a similar language of equality. 244 00:27:00,830 --> 00:27:07,010 So you see a direct connexion between these things. And this is promoted by some very prominent rightwing political accounts. 245 00:27:07,250 --> 00:27:10,430 It's promoted again by by BJP spokespersons themselves. 246 00:27:10,730 --> 00:27:18,139 And it sees that transformation of what exists is existed as a diffuse discourse of confusion into an organised 247 00:27:18,140 --> 00:27:24,709 sort of discourse of disinformation promulgated by the Indian state in sort of India and internationally. 248 00:27:24,710 --> 00:27:30,830 But I'm just reading now very quickly, this is what would happen has called the transition from welfare to welfare. 249 00:27:31,100 --> 00:27:39,829 So she is just how the development of dams in Kashmir, particularly in Doda and destroyed, has been used as a marker of development, 250 00:27:39,830 --> 00:27:48,020 as the panacea for the political resolution of the conflict, as the Indian state is the promoter of and saw enabler of development in the region. 251 00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:57,709 It also reflects what the shock and awe shot by that family has called for Hindu nationalism and the sort of conditional acceptance 252 00:27:57,710 --> 00:28:04,010 of queerness within Hindu nationalism as long as queer people participate in the political project of internationalism. 253 00:28:05,120 --> 00:28:11,610 Very interestingly, it manages to create a country that is simultaneously queer and queer phobic. 254 00:28:12,220 --> 00:28:17,810 So an analogy I know it could be an annotation. God has spoken about the gendered imaginary of history. 255 00:28:17,810 --> 00:28:22,160 This talking about how bushmeat is feminised because leading men in particular feminised. 256 00:28:22,340 --> 00:28:26,660 And the idea of cashmere, the land of cashmere has applied to feminine lengths. 257 00:28:26,690 --> 00:28:32,450 The Indian imaginary Fabian Hartwell has built upon this to show how extreme masculinity has actually 258 00:28:32,450 --> 00:28:37,700 been created in many ways and takes up the example of behind money in discourse on good money, 259 00:28:37,910 --> 00:28:43,370 which is almost homoerotic in nature. To showcase how the Indian state portrays women as queer. 260 00:28:44,620 --> 00:28:49,449 And then it is countered by this sort of assertion that bushmeat is inherently phobic, 261 00:28:49,450 --> 00:28:54,730 Islam is inherently fear phobic, and that India must emancipate Kashmiris. 262 00:28:55,060 --> 00:29:01,660 And it reflects what just before has sense, almost dialectic, that operates within the nationalism of the queer yet queer phobic. 263 00:29:01,900 --> 00:29:06,670 And it's sort of seeping into the sort of Indian states imagination of Kashmir. 264 00:29:07,620 --> 00:29:13,680 Now. I think this is a particularly important move because it signals an almost ideological shift that is. 265 00:29:14,810 --> 00:29:22,730 Presenting a ideological framework that can accompany the settler colonial process that is currently underway in pursuit. 266 00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:31,909 It allows for the building of a social narrative that can be used to go beyond arguments of only 267 00:29:31,910 --> 00:29:41,030 grabbing land to now include a sort of moralistic imperative that justifies Indian presence in Kashmir. 268 00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:50,310 What then are the alternatives to this? I'm going to turn to this very quickly before taking questions, because I know I've already run. 269 00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:56,960 I've been speaking for a while. So the alternatives to this have been two fold. 270 00:29:57,380 --> 00:30:04,210 The first one has been a direct assertion by several legal scholars, including a former justice of the German dispute, 271 00:30:04,310 --> 00:30:06,709 high court and other sort of legal experts, 272 00:30:06,710 --> 00:30:13,850 including those who actually fought the S.C. 77 case in the Supreme Court, that the BJP's argument is patently false. 273 00:30:15,170 --> 00:30:20,240 The Supreme Court of India has enjoyed jurisdiction in Jammu and Kashmir since 1951. 274 00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:28,130 There has been a sort of dilution of autonomy where before the abrogation of Article 370 and the Jammu and 275 00:30:28,250 --> 00:30:35,480 Kashmir High Court has always had to conform with the sort of decision of the Supreme Court of India, 276 00:30:35,690 --> 00:30:42,260 so long as it relates to an exact provision of Kashmiri law, as is being decided upon in India. 277 00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:50,899 So 1992 case actually makes it abundantly clear that if the Indian state rules on a provision 278 00:30:50,900 --> 00:30:58,250 of the Indian penal code which is replicated or is the same provision in the penal code, 279 00:30:58,250 --> 00:31:00,920 which especially its own penal for granted under autonomy, 280 00:31:01,220 --> 00:31:08,300 then the ruling of the Supreme Court of India will apply to Jammu and Kashmir and cannot be challenged even by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. 281 00:31:09,020 --> 00:31:10,910 So this is the argument that has been used, 282 00:31:11,150 --> 00:31:19,250 which is to say that the very foundation of the community of the BJP is discourse around greenness in Kashmir, 283 00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:23,090 is false, and that this is a project of disinformation. 284 00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:28,040 It's a narrative that I have argued for at the time in 2019. 285 00:31:28,730 --> 00:31:36,200 It's a narrative that has been built upon by several others who have also pointed out that the BJP's actions in 286 00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:41,900 Kashmir and its presentation of itself as an emancipator for queer people have not been matched by any action. 287 00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:50,660 So in 2018, actually, right before the abrogation of Article 70, 288 00:31:50,930 --> 00:32:01,829 you had a government that was actually a coalition with the BJP in the state and a finance minister from every one of these party introduced 289 00:32:01,830 --> 00:32:09,020 the provision in the Jammu and Kashmir budget after years of activism by the trans community and the queer community in Kashmir, 290 00:32:09,290 --> 00:32:17,300 which classified trans persons as economically weaker sections and in a landmark decision unlike anything seen in the subcontinent, actually, 291 00:32:17,570 --> 00:32:22,640 except potentially for certain provisions made by individual provinces of the budget in Pakistan, 292 00:32:22,970 --> 00:32:30,080 allowed for subsidies to be granted to trans persons and special sort of allowances to also be made in this case. 293 00:32:31,100 --> 00:32:37,490 The BJP, after imposing precedents rule on Kashmir, which continues after today, has failed to implement that provision, 294 00:32:37,670 --> 00:32:47,510 has failed to also carry forward that budget, and has shown that the sort of commitment or the lip service to LGBTQ rights extends only peripherally. 295 00:32:49,130 --> 00:32:57,080 This is also been the argument, interestingly extended when a group of protesters disrupted an event at Suez in 2019, 296 00:32:57,380 --> 00:33:06,950 which was led by Kashmiri activists and which saw disruption by masked people who entered the event with a rainbow flag. 297 00:33:06,950 --> 00:33:14,630 That said, Article 70 is so Islamophobic and argued that anyone arguing against Article 70 was actually being homophobic. 298 00:33:14,660 --> 00:33:21,890 There's an international argument that has been developed in response to arguments against the abrogation of Article de 70. 299 00:33:22,130 --> 00:33:25,100 That has been countered by saying that, well, 300 00:33:25,310 --> 00:33:31,760 you didn't do much for the queer community after you came into power, and neither does your sort of argument. 301 00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:43,170 Hold on. On legal, factual drones. Very interestingly, the real job has pointed out in a separate piece on the the Citizenship Amendment Act. 302 00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,680 How such a narrative done to constitutionalism and the law, 303 00:33:46,980 --> 00:33:57,420 particularly towards any framework that showcases the Indian state's inherent sort of gentility of benevolence in Kashmir has a darker side. 304 00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:04,230 He speaks about what and he speaks about how the Indian Constitution became the rallying cry for 305 00:34:04,230 --> 00:34:09,690 Indian Muslims and sort of Indian Dalits and other allied marginalised communities at large. 306 00:34:09,990 --> 00:34:15,899 During the Citizenship Amendment Act protest and how the upholding of that constitution means 307 00:34:15,900 --> 00:34:20,760 so little in Kashmir region that has been fighting to free itself from that very constitution. 308 00:34:20,970 --> 00:34:24,630 So what can a constitution mean to those who don't wish to be governed by justice? 309 00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:31,770 Beautiful line that he writes in philosophy. Now, philosophy, I think that encapsulates what such an argumentation does. 310 00:34:32,610 --> 00:34:40,349 And she may. Gosh, building upon that further demonstrates how the very opposition to this argument is perniciously 311 00:34:40,350 --> 00:34:46,320 tied into a form of formal nationalism that implicates itself in the gradual erosion of autonomy. 312 00:34:46,620 --> 00:34:53,639 Because the only reason the BJP's argument does not hold water is that governments before the BJP, 313 00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:58,709 non Hindu nationalist governments actually had put in place provisions that removed 314 00:34:58,710 --> 00:35:03,810 Kashmiri autonomy bit by bit over the years in the project of the Indian state, 315 00:35:03,810 --> 00:35:09,000 that has been the steady deprecation of and steady assimilation of Kashmir into the Union of India. 316 00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:16,550 And so it requires then a turning back and asking, what does this opposition to human nationalism entail? 317 00:35:16,830 --> 00:35:21,030 How we got in a sort of process of forming nationalism in opposing this? 318 00:35:21,300 --> 00:35:25,140 And then what does the sort of ethical opposition to this argument look like 319 00:35:25,500 --> 00:35:29,130 and what frameworks can to dig in a far more critical sense of interrogation 320 00:35:29,430 --> 00:35:38,580 that demonstrates the complexity of dealing with forms of lawfare that have been deployed by the BJP's ideological opponents in the region. 321 00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:41,360 So it's almost like between the devil and the deep blue sea. 322 00:35:41,370 --> 00:35:47,850 No argument really works here as some form of creative engagement to counter the discourse produce. 323 00:35:48,660 --> 00:35:56,970 So all in all, three very disturbing, disturbing developments that are happening that we aim to I hope to counter and I love love feedbacks. 324 00:35:57,210 --> 00:36:02,940 One is the sort of transformation of Indian nationalism and its attitude towards queerness from being inherently sort 325 00:36:02,940 --> 00:36:10,410 of excluding queers to now selectively assimilating queers as long as they participate in the Indian Queer Project. 326 00:36:11,100 --> 00:36:22,079 The second is the sort of transformation of queerness and its sort of encapsulation within Homo national politics that's required to find 327 00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:32,790 effective ways of building solidarity and retaining forms of support for folks immediate enemy and genuine sort of intersectional solidarity. 328 00:36:33,240 --> 00:36:37,080 And the third is the situation of Kashmir as not. 329 00:36:38,250 --> 00:36:48,630 Just the site off, but also the production of discourses of formal nationalism in India in very unique ways. 330 00:36:49,050 --> 00:36:54,150 And just to shed light a little bit on this, it's interesting that the Indian state has never before used this argument. 331 00:36:54,150 --> 00:37:02,070 For example, in Nagaland. It's never used this argument in bluster or within sort of Marxist strongholds. 332 00:37:02,340 --> 00:37:07,560 This argument has been uniquely used in Kashmir that reflects its sort of entanglements with homophobia, 333 00:37:07,740 --> 00:37:15,030 but also its wider implications for the sort of Indian states and Hindu nationalisms engagement with queerness in India as a whole. 334 00:37:16,050 --> 00:37:24,750 And as we move forward, I think it's going to be important to do engage with this discourse primarily to see is to build intersectional 335 00:37:24,750 --> 00:37:32,250 solidarity and to also then understand ways in which this discourse can be found in effective ways. 336 00:37:32,790 --> 00:37:41,160 And with that, I think I have spoken enough. I will leave the floor open to questions, comments, discussions and anything of the sort.