Homopopulism: A new layer of LGBTQ politics in India

Abstract

This paper seeks to conceptualize homopopulism as a popular relationality in shifting contexts of inclusion/exclusion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) identified persons. A new layer of queer politics is visible in contemporary India. Hinged between older colonial discourses, current neoliberal systems, and promises by state actors to include LGBTQ concerns, sexuality is explicitly and implicitly mobilized to create, claim, and resist the present social. This consists of organizational left and liberal efforts to include and represent LGBTQ identified bodies in election promises, with effects that are titled heavily toward the middle to upper-middle class, able, caste-Hindu bodies. Alongside this, groups such as Queer Hindu Alliance are working to claim a stake in the Hindutva regime. Parallel to this, the bodies and voices of queer and trans* persons aim and struggle to connect with Muslim and Dalit individuals and groups around survival and citizenship. This paper attempts to comprehend these unique and tumultuous moments through the concept of homopopulism. I argue that homopopulism offers a useful reference point to understand how a complex democracy, consisting of right-wing, left-liberal, and centrist state practices, uses populist discourses and methods to gradually mobilize LGBTQ identities for thin centered ideologies without necessarily having to create a recognizable population group with affirmative action policies and anti-discriminatory guarantees, as facilitating conditions for a liveable life.

Heteroactivism, Homonationalism and National Projects

“…This special issue aims to begin to address these gaps by examining the convergence between contestations of gender and sexual equalities with nationalisms and racial politics. The contributions in this issue refuse the common-sense North/South and East/West binaries that are mobilised when LGBTQIA+ rights are discussed transnationally (Mizelińska and Kulpa 2011; Kulpa and Silva 2016;Banerjea and Browne 2023). Instead, they use the recursive constitution of 'place', which can be epitomised through the nation in relation to resistances to sexual and gender rights.…”

Uncloseted

“…Hunt observes that "… as far as the conservative constituencies are concerned, religious or political or both, it appears that they are tapping a reservoir of homophobia that has deep roots in Indian history but suitably repackaged for modern India politics" (Hunt 2011, 326). Banerjea (2022) recently lamented the populist discourses political parties in India use to mobilize LGBTQ identities for "thin-centered ideologies" (3).…”

Sovereignty, Discipline, Governmentality, and Pastorate: The Ménage à Quatre of Contemporary Authoritarian and Right-Wing Populist Power

“…287, 294–296) describes, the populist masculinization of politics under Modi does not only go hand in hand with depicting Muslim males in terms of violence and threatening masculinity, but is also related to the “historical Hindu nationalist narrative of the ‘nation as mother as goddess’, which has taken its physical shape in the cow and the female” (2019, p. 295). In addition, as Banerjea’s conceptualization of “Homopopulism” (2023, p. 1) that she describes as “new layer of queer politics […] solidifying in India” (2023, p. 2) suggests, Modi’s populism seems less obsessed with the fight against queer identities than Western populist movements.…”