Feminism means nothing to poor Indian women: Hoshang Merchant

Sex and sexuality have been central to the works of Hoshang Merchant. The retired professor emeritus of the University of Hyderabad was one of the first men to come out as openly gay in independent India and Yaarana (Penguin,1999), an anthology of gay writings from India edited by Merchant, remains a significant intervention in queer studies. Merchant, however, does not identify as queer and steers away from both Right and Left politics. His Forbidden Sex, Forbidden Texts (2009) rejects the understanding of homosexuality as a monolithic identity emphasising on its heterogeneity in the Indian context. Merchant has authored several collections of poetry and his latest commentary is titled Secret Writings of Hoshang Merchant (OUP India). The inimitable poet, spiky and at times sarcastic, talks homosexuality, feminism in India, and nationalism in times of dissent. Edited excerpts What does dissent mean to you? It is the general public which calls me a dissenter. Most of these men (homosexual men who get into heterosexual unions) are f**king girls, getting children and messing up their lives. That is what I don’t do. I also stop other fairies from doing that. How does it pertain to your writing? You have been openly gay since a time when hardly anyone in India had even heard of the term. Since sexuality is integral to your work and we are all talking of free sex – Free sex?? What’s that? I paid for everything! There is no free lunch. [caption id=“attachment_2854492” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Hoshang Merchant. Image courtesy: Facebook/Hoshang Merchant[/caption] Do you conform to the tag of the “anti-national” since homosexuality is criminalised by the IPC? What is anti-national? Homosexuality is doing the greatest service to an overpopulated nation. Else I would be labelled as the mother of this nation. I would have been given a gold medal! We are imitating the West. Our society is different. That’s why Ashley Tellis does not go to these Pride Marches because he feels our society is poor. We are not a consumerist society [like the West]. But if I am not mistaken the Leftist queer groups don’t take corporate sponsorships – They wear masks! In these Pride marches they are even ashamed to show their faces. Either you are out or in. You can’t be half in and half out! But isn’t the closet always shifting? It is not fixed, right? Well… I am so unmasked that I can’t mask myself with anything. I remember nobody wanted to print me. I was hitched on to this bandwagon by these big presses as I was writing something which sells in the West. I have been co-opted too. But I am no Joan of Arc of the revolution. So what is the future of the [Queer] movement? Firstly let’s recognise class in urban spaces. What does gay liberation mean for that chakka who has to show his organs for 50 rupees? What movement are you talking about? Thirty years I have fought and taught for them. Did I deserve this? They came yesterday. Where were they when I was screaming in the wilderness ? Of late a lot of emphasis has been on a Queer Marxist feminist resistance to the state. Do you see such acts of intersectionality as constructive or mere idealism? All bullshit! …maybe in the West, in the textbooks, in the dreams of these intellectuals. Here in practice, there is no solidarity. They only want to co-opt us for their own purposes. I am not a harem eunuch. Thank you! They [feminists] should be ashamed of themselves. Once I made up a joke on how this postcolonial feminist would slap her husband in midnight and tell him, “Colonise me”! She went livid and now calls me Horrible Hoshang! But don’t you think that feminism brings together people from the margins? Only on paper! I have seen feminists in Palestine, Iran, America, Germany and I have seen them in Hyderabad for last 30 years. It’s bulls**t. It does not exist. This is not Indian feminism. What is Indian feminism then? Indian feminism is for the maid who is working for those bob-cut walis for 30 rupees a day. That woman needs feminism. When that woman is empowered by that bob-cut wali, that will be Indian feminism. So you associate real feminism with the working class and Dalit rights? See, feminism in India was imported. It was Beauvoir and all those theorists who they couldn’t even pronounce. When that phase was over, they wanted to co-opt the Dalits. The onus of the Hyderabad suicide could also be laid on the Left’s door. Now these people have come to the Queers. You reduce feminism to a despicable word. Feminism is a stupid word. Doesn’t mean anything to a country of poor women. So there is no Leftist-Dalit solidarity? A Dalit who is un-empowered can not be empowered by a privileged Left. That’s not the way power evolves. It does not trickle down like that. Let the grass roots people come up. But even when they do, they become bourgeois. OK. Your poems use sexuality as a way to mark places and bring ethnicities together – See. The colour of blood is red. The colour of semen is white. There are no different labels or signs for desire. That’s why the most democratic creature is a prostitute. Second most is the teacher and third most is the artist. I am all three. I do what I say and I say what I do. I don’t have a party dictating my line. Finally, what is the purpose of poetry and writing in general? Poetry sweetens human beings. It gives hope to the defeated. The first sentence of my new book Secret Writings of Hoshang Merchant is from (Martin) Heidegger –“What are poets for? Poets are there to sing the night of the world”. Coming to the second part of your question, writing is to change the mind and heart of these stupid people. They reject me because I don’t use jargons, read (Jacques) Derrida or conform to labels like Queer.