Tracing the Origins of India’s Queer Movement: Key Moments and Critical Events

India’s queer movement did not emerge overnight. It grew through decades of quiet courage – a journalist who dared to speak his truth in print, a small group of activists marching through monsoon rain, and communities fighting a colonial law that had no place in independent India. Understanding where this movement began means tracing specific acts of resistance, each one building on the last, that collectively shaped the vibrant queer rights landscape visible in India today.

The shadow of Section 377: a colonial inheritance 🔗

Before exploring the movement’s origins, it is essential to understand what activists were fighting against. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, introduced by British colonial rulers in 1861, criminalized sexual acts deemed “against the order of nature.” This Victorian-era law treated homosexuality as a criminal offence – not a feature of Indian culture, but an import from colonial administrators who imposed their own moral frameworks on a subcontinent that had, for centuries, acknowledged and even celebrated sexual and gender diversity. Ancient temple sculptures at Khajuraho, texts like the Kamasutra, and mythological narratives from epics like the Ramayana all point to a pre-colonial acceptance of fluid sexuality and gender. The enforcement of Section 377 effectively erased this history, forcing queer Indians into silence and invisibility for over a century.

The first coming-out story: Ashok Row Kavi (1986) 🔗

The modern queer movement in India is often traced to a single act of public courage. In 1986, journalist Ashok Row Kavi published an interview in Savvy magazine in which he openly spoke about his homosexuality – the first such public coming-out story in India. The interview, which featured his photograph and personal account, was a direct challenge to the social and legal taboos surrounding queer identity. His mother, Shobha Row Kavi, also gave an interview to the same publication – making it the first time a parent had publicly spoken about a child’s homosexuality in the Indian media. Row Kavi faced considerable professional risk for this disclosure, but his willingness to be visible changed what was possible for others.

Four years later, in 1990, Row Kavi co-founded Bombay Dost, India’s first registered magazine for the LGBTQ+ community. The inaugural issue, circulated initially in just 650 copies and distributed discreetly through street vendors in brown paper envelopes, contained a community charter pledging to be a safe space for all persons of alternate sexualities regardless of caste, class, or religion. It also featured early critical writing on Section 377 and HIV/AIDS. The magazine was not just a publication – it was an act of community-building in a time when queer Indians had no visible support structures. At its peak, the editorial team received around 3,000 reader letters weekly, revealing just how isolated and hungry for connection queer people across India were.

Building support networks: Humsafar Trust and early organizations 🔗

The same year Bombay Dost was launched, the Naz Foundation International was established in London to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with outreach extending to India’s queer communities. Domestically, the late 1980s also saw the formation of the AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) – translated as the AIDS Anti-Discrimination Movement – an eclectic group of social workers, doctors, lawyers, and activists that came together in 1988-89 to combat discrimination around HIV/AIDS. Unusually, the group was composed largely of heterosexual allies who deliberately chose not to publicly disclose members’ sexualities, believing that would have been politically counterproductive at the time. In 1991, ABVA published Less Than Gay: A Citizens’ Report on the Status of Homosexuality in India – one of the first documents to publicly acknowledge the discrimination faced by queer Indians.

In 1994, Row Kavi co-founded the Humsafar Trust, India’s first community-based organization focused specifically on LGBTQ+ health services and rights advocacy. Based in Mumbai, it operated drop-in centers and clinics, providing HIV/AIDS education, counselling, and outreach to sexual minorities. Over the decades, it reached over 110,000 beneficiaries – a remarkable achievement given the hostile legal environment it operated within.

The first legal challenge: ABVA’s PIL (1994) 🔗

Also in 1994, ABVA filed the first Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the constitutional validity of Section 377 in the Delhi High Court. The petition arose from a specific and telling incident: authorities had refused ABVA’s request to distribute condoms to inmates at Tihar Jail, exposing the way in which the criminalization of homosexuality directly harmed public health. Though the PIL was eventually dismissed by the court in 2001, it set a critical precedent – establishing that Section 377 was not just a moral issue but a constitutional and public health one. It was the opening move in a legal battle that would take another two decades to resolve.

Culture as activism: film, art, and literature in the 1990s 🔗

The 1990s saw queer stories begin to enter Indian public consciousness through culture. In 1996, filmmaker Riyad Vinci Wadia produced Bomgay, an independent short film that brought gay narratives to the screen. Two years later, in 1998, Deepa Mehta’s film Fire was released in India, depicting a same-sex relationship between two women. The film was based loosely on Ismat Chughtai’s 1942 story Lihaaf. Its release was met with violent protests from right-wing groups including the Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal, who attacked cinema halls across the country. Paradoxically, the backlash drew more public attention to the film and to the questions it raised about love, identity, and belonging. The controversy around Fire made it impossible for mainstream India to look away from queer lives.

That same year, a seminar on LGBTQ+ rights was organized at the National Law School in Bangalore by lawyer and activist Arvind Narrain – one of the early instances of queerness being discussed openly in an academic and legal setting. These cultural and intellectual interventions were not incidental. They were deliberate efforts to shift the terrain from criminality to humanity.

India’s first Pride Walk: Kolkata, 1999 🔗

On 2 July 1999, a small, determined group of 15 people walked through the rain-soaked streets of Kolkata in bright yellow t-shirts adorned with pink triangles. This was the Kolkata Rainbow Pride Walk – the first Pride march in India and in all of South Asia. The event was deliberately named a “Friendship Walk” rather than a Pride march, to minimize the risk of legal and political backlash in a country where homosexuality remained a criminal offence. Led by queer rights activist Pawan Dhall, participants had found each other through mailing lists and early internet groups. Kolkata was chosen deliberately – the city had a long history of human rights movements spanning feminist, Dalit, disability, and child rights activism, making it a natural home for this new form of public resistance.

The walk was modest by any measure. Only 15 people participated, and none of them were women. But its significance far outweighed its size. It demonstrated that queer Indians could claim public space – even imperfectly, even with tactical caution – and that they were not alone. The walk was not repeated again until 2003, but when it resumed, it brought with it a growing coalition. By 2008, Pride marches had expanded to Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, and by 2009, cities including Chennai, Bhubaneswar, and Kolkata held marches on the same weekend that the Delhi High Court issued its landmark ruling on Section 377.

The legal turning point: Naz Foundation and the Section 377 battle 🔗

In 2001, the Naz Foundation (India) Trust filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court challenging Section 377, arguing that it violated the constitutional rights to life, privacy, and equality. In 2009, the Delhi High Court ruled in the landmark Naz Foundation v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi case that Section 377, as applied to consensual adult same-sex conduct, was a gross violation of fundamental rights. For a brief, hopeful period, homosexuality was effectively decriminalized. However, in 2013, the Supreme Court overturned this ruling in the Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation case, reinstating Section 377. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called the decision a significant step backward for India.

The reinstatement galvanized the movement further. Pride marches grew larger and more explicitly political. In 2017, the Supreme Court’s landmark Puttaswamy judgment, which upheld the right to privacy as a fundamental right, laid new constitutional ground for the queer rights struggle. Then, on 6 September 2018, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down Section 377 as it applied to consensual adult same-sex relations, in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India. Justice Indu Malhotra, in a widely cited passage, stated that history owed an apology to members of the LGBTQ+ community for the suffering they had endured across centuries.

Intersectionality and the movement’s evolving scope 🔗

As the queer movement in India grew in visibility, scholars and activists began to interrogate whose visibility was being centered. As Shraddha Chatterjee argues in Queer Politics in India: Towards Sexual Subaltern Subjects, the movement’s mainstream narrative frequently erased lesbians, transgender persons, and those from lower-caste or lower-class backgrounds. The legal fight against Section 377, despite being a shared cause, often privileged the voices of educated, upper-class, urban gay men. Activists like Akkai Padmashali, who founded the organization Ondede in Bengaluru in 2014, worked to build a more inclusive vision – one that centered on dignity, voice, and the intersecting experiences of gender, caste, and class. Padmashali was a prominent voice in the protests that ultimately contributed to the repeal of Section 377, and her work reflects the movement’s ongoing effort to be accountable to its most marginalized members.

The passage of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 was another mixed milestone. While it legally recognized transgender individuals and provided protections against discrimination, it was widely criticized by trans communities for requiring district magistrate certification and proof of surgery to be recognized – provisions that many argued were invasive, impractical, and out of step with the lived realities of trans people in India. The movement’s response to this legislation illustrates that legislative recognition, while important, does not automatically mean community-defined justice.

From 15 marchers to a national movement 🔗

India’s queer movement did not begin with a single dramatic event. It grew through a series of deliberate, often risky acts: a journalist speaking his truth in print, a group of activists filing an unprecedented legal petition, a filmmaker putting two women in love on screen, and 15 people walking through the rain in Kolkata. Each of these moments built the foundation for the next. Today, Pride marches are held in over 21 Indian cities, and queer voices are increasingly present in law, politics, art, and academia. The journey from criminalization to constitutional protection was long and non-linear – marked by victories, reversals, and the persistent effort of communities that refused to disappear.

What do you think? How has the involvement of intersecting identities – caste, class, and gender – shaped the priorities and limitations of India’s queer movement? And what does it mean for a legal victory like the repeal of Section 377 to be celebrated as progress when structural inequalities for many queer Indians remain largely unaddressed?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_India
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_Row_Kavi
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Dost
4. http://aidsbhedbhavvirodhiandolan.blogspot.com/
5. https://lgbthistorymonth.com/sites/default/files/icon_multimedia_pdfs/2016/2016_LGBTHM_Bio-16.pdf
6. https://epcbits.wordpress.com/2020/06/08/the-history-of-the-lgbtq-movement-in-india/
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkata_Rainbow_Pride_Walk
8. https://homegrown.co.in/homegrown-voices/how-indias-first-pride-walk-ushered-in-a-new-era-of-lgbtqia-visibility-liberation
9. https://www.kelphr.com/blogs/when-is-pride-month-in-india/
10. https://www.mygwork.com/en/my-g-news/a-brief-history-of-lgbt-india
11. https://feminisminindia.com/2021/08/23/queer-politics-in-india-towards-sexual-subaltern-subjects-by-shraddha-chatterjee-book-review/
12. https://www.outlookindia.com/national/tracing-the-history-of-pride-month-news-291095