To be queer in India is to ride a roller-coaster of acceptance and rejection in an endless loop. On May 31, you could be targeted for your gender identity, and on June 1, every corporation will change their logo to the rainbow flag. So much of it can seem too tokenistic. But when has quitting ever been an option? For as long as it has existed, the queer community has had to wake up every day and brave the odds. Anish Gawande, the first openly gay man to be appointed as a national spokesperson of a majority political party in India, confesses that he doesn’t have the option of cancelling people just because they are homophobic. As a man of the people, he must face the bigots and have a dialogue, yet keep them from bringing him down. Then, he must do it all over again the next day.
Like Gawande, Radhikaraje Gaekwad, the titular maharani of Baroda and the founder of Gazra, Gujarat’s first cafe run by LGBTQIA+ people, upholds centuries of royal tradition while sailing against the current. Over a two-hour conversation, Gawande and Gaekwad find that they are, in different ways, doing the same work: carrying queer conversations into rooms not built to hold them.
Vogue India: Inclusion has become a buzzword rather than a call for meaningful action. What has been your approach to it?
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Radhikaraje Gaekwad: My first learning came while running Shri Maharani Chimnabai Stree Udyogalaya, a vocational training centre and one of the earliest women’s self-governing organisations, founded in 1914. It was very frustrating because I’d start something, trans people would come for a few days, then drop out. I finally had to say, “Alright, I’m opening my regular classes to you, and if you wish to join in any form, we support that.” That’s when they started coming in—as teachers and administrative staff. If I had tried to create a classroom or space entirely for them, I would only have segregated them further.
Anish Gawande: There are moments when you’re faced with overt homophobia, which is driven partly by ignorance but also by condescension. Those, you have to brush off. But at other times, it can be such a wonderful way to start conversations. Understanding that people are at different stages of comprehension is very important. If somebody doesn’t have the privilege of knowing the correct vocabulary or terms, chiding or berating them for not knowing better is not a useful way forward. It might just make them more resistant to learning and being better.
