Dalit-Queer And Necropolitics: Simultaneous Co-Option And Marginalisation of the Dalit-Queer Community

Illustration by Sanigdhaya Mahajan

“We live in the age of uncertainty” is a platitude that has been used ad infinitum to explain today’s rapid global political developments, with ceasefire deals that fall through within months and every attempt at finding answers to human rights questions being met with ifs and buts that allow even human dignity to be debated. There was a time when diversity meant celebration and an acceptance of differences. Now, equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) connotes an attempt at attacking the sovereignty of the nation. 

During these uncertain times, the world saw as one legal authority determine the boundaries and definitions of what it means to be Queer and Trans. The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court has determined that, under the Equality Act 2010, the terms "woman," "man," and "sex" refer to a person's biological sex at birth, irrespective of whether they possess a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) or identify and live as a different gender. This level of certainty and clarity over what it means to be a “woman” makes me wonder how the world is so uncertain and unclear on many other issues. It seems that the question of gender and what it means to be Queer specifically has been discussed, deliberated and standardised to clean up the confusing mess of queer identities. 

With standardisation comes homogeneity, and homogeneity creates anomalies who do not fit into the mould and therefore need to be discarded on the margins. These beings on the margins, who do not fit sanitised and legally-enforced definitions created by states and adopted by nations, are at the centre of the discussion. Dalit-Queer folx (people who are both Dalit and Queer) inhabit the "death worlds" that Achille Mbembe discusses in his theorisation of Necropolitics.

Caste positionality and lived experience are still glaring blind spots within many queer movements in India. The role caste plays in shaping how Dalit-Queer folx desire and are desired, especially in dating landscapes, remains under examined. Notions of caste purity and hygiene quietly seep into conversations about dating and desire, even in supposedly progressive urban spaces like Mumbai. What’s more, Savarna (Upper caste) culture has come to define a homogenous, affluent queer aesthetic; one that feels worlds apart from the realities of marginalised Dalit-Queer bodies.

The deliberate marginalisation of communities like Kothis and Dalit-Queers by the Savarna-dominated queer movement in India is hard to ignore, particularly when examining the nature of discussion and representation in the lead-up to the landmark decriminalisation of Article 377. At the same time, the male-dominated Dalit movement has often failed to fully embrace Dalit-Queer bodies. Reimagining a Dalit existence that flourishes in its multitudes of layered identities requires confronting both silences: the exclusion by the queer movement and the erasure within the Dalit movement itself.

“Death Worlds” and The Wretched of the Earth 

To make sense of the isolation faced by the Dalit-Queer community in India, Achille Mbembe’s theory of Necropolitics (Mbembé, 2019) offers a compelling lens. It helps illuminate the sinister and varied ways in which liberal democracies and their so-called legitimate subjects reduce a section of society to death-like beings, whose existence is tolerated only as long as their labour fuels the entertainment and survival of the masses.

In Mbembe's ideation of Necropolitics, these death-like beings inhabit "death worlds", which are places of extreme poverty and exploitation, wherein living beings survive in a place somewhere between life and death, thus creating both a metaphoric and physical manifestation of the state's and/or society's contempt for them. He engages the work of Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth (Sartre & Farrington, 1963) and observes the connection between racial enmity, as he believes that racism is singularly the most significant contributor to the expansion of Necropolitics and the creation of colonially-occupied spaces to control, create, and, in the process, alter the subjectivity of the disposable other (Mbembé & Meintjes, 2003). 

In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon describes a colony as: 

"a place of ill fame, peopled by men of evil repute. They are born there; it matters little where or how; they die there, it matters not where nor how. It is a world without spaciousness; men live there on top of each other, and their huts are built one on top of the other. The native town is a hungry town, starved of bread, of meat, of shoes, of coal, of light. The native town is a crouching village, a town on its knees, a town wallowing in the mire." (Sartre & Farrington, 1963, pp. 39)

Centuries of socioeconomic marginalisation and exploitation of the Dalit community in India have deeply shaped the subjectivity of the Dalit-Queer community. To understand this, it’s essential to engage with the idea of spatial and metaphorical manifestations of racial enmity and neglect, which have the power to construct and alter the subjectivity of those reduced to isolated, death-like beings, as proposed by Mbembe. It is important to note that while Mbembe cites racism as the primary cause of enmity in his work, a similar argument can be proposed in favour of isolation and neglect that arise out of caste-based enmity and prejudice in the Indian context (Beteille, 1990). 

Indian cities and villages are well-known for being structured around caste-based residential segregation, with Dalit and Muslim communities relegated to the most impoverished sections of these areas (Choudhary, Sinha & Rana, 2020). In light of this spatial and social marginalisation, the experience of Dalit-Queer individuals is one of compounded precarity and isolation, as their subjectivity is situated at the intersection of multiple overlapping identities.

The Dalit-Queer community has faced co-option and marginalisation at the hands of the Queer and the Dalit movements, respectively, in India. However, there is greater co-option by the Queer movement than marginalisation by the Dalit community, and the latter has shown a greater commitment to inclusivity than the former. It is noteworthy that the critique presented here is purposely directed towards the democratic-liberal Queer movements that claim to further Queer and Dalit rights, as it is their denial and subsequent alienation of the Dalit-Queer cause along with the apparent abandonment of the state that arguably creates the "death world" of sub-human and disposable bodies relegated to the margins by the very same movements that claimed to protect them.

Many scholars have already examined the role played by the Indian state, which is based on the ideas of hetero-patriarchy and Brahmanical caste supremacy and is committed to enforcing a contemporary form of untouchability in the nation. Less common are critiques of the role of democratic-liberal Queer movements in marginalising the Dalit-Queer community while co-opting and championing their cause (Ilaiah, 2009).  

This simultaneous co-option and abandonment merits a detailed analysis of this paradoxical stance taken by the Queer-rights movement, it is important to note that the nature of these organisations and their critique is common knowledge and a discussion point within Dalit-Queer and Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi (DBA) circles.

Casting Queer Desire

In his paper titled, 'Brahmin men who love to eat ass', Akhil Kang looks at Savarna men who voluntarily engage in the act rimming and juxtaposes it with the Brahmanical ideas of purity that these men, owing to their caste positionality, have grown up believing. For these men, who grew up in households with grandparents who boast of never having to see or clear their own faeces, the act of pleasuring an anus becomes an exercise that both raises their casteist anxieties around purity while at the same time providing them with an opportunity to attain a sense of freedom by hypersexualising the inferior other (Kang, 2023). 

Their rationales varied, with some claiming to racially profile anuses to establish the Dalit or Muslim identity of an individual in order to eliminate “the dirty ones", while others hypersexualise Dalit bodies for their "Dalit rawness" (Kang, 2016) that enables them to have "more freeing sex with non-Brahmins". 

An important point to note is the role played by the segregation of the city along caste and religious lines that enabled these men to eliminate partners based on localities and areas they come from. As a man profoundly declared, "I know when I meet someone from Kurla, I wouldn't be rimming them"; he later went on to justify the same argument with a racist logic that comfortably proclaimed, "rim the white twink but not the buffed black man" (Kang, 2023). 

The adoption of casteist argumentation and the relevance of caste positionality in determining the desirability of an individual in the modern queer dating scene in India highlight how caste and its dictates around purity created a complex ideation of Dalit-Queer desirability, where they are at once abhorred for their dirty inferiority while being instrumentalised as hyper-sexual beings that can be used for the entertainment and gratification of Savarnas. These “lowly” beings who inhabit the undesirable corners of the city are utilised for the "maximum utility and enjoyment" of the desirable ones (Mbembé, 2019, p. 36). 

The denial of caste's influence on queer sexual politics and subjectivity in India, of which the LGBTQI+ movement and academia are both guilty, makes this discussion even more important. Refusing to acknowledge the influence of caste as both an ideology and a positionality that has the potential to influence an individual's life experiences and which has the power to pervade into all the aspects of their life, including whom they can desire and are desired by, is an error that resulted in the alienation of Dalit-Queer folx from the queer movement in India, as it fails to reflect the material and social realities of their existence (Menon, 2009).

A similar sentiment of hurtful neglect has been voiced by Dalit-Queer youth: 

"When I read Gautam Bhan's or Pramada Menon's book, no one was talking about queerness with caste... the default of the queer movement was the upper caste. Caste cemented the aesthetics of queerness. Desirability was very much tied to the savarna middle class, good English, and good family. That did not seem like the queerness I could have" (Ponniah & Tamalapakula, 2020).

This denial of acknowledgement of caste reality raises obvious questions about the cause of such a wilful denial of an existential and material reality that is caste in India. This denial has roots in the Savarna co-option of queer politics in India. This co-opting has resulted in a homogenised and monolithic queer aesthetic and politics that are centred around a queer discourse that is entirely based on only acknowledging sexuality as legitimate intersectionality without any acknowledgement of class and caste positionality, alienating Dalit-Queer, Trans, Hijra, and other identities that stand at the intersection of multiple overlapping identities (Das & Kang, 2015; Kang, 2020). 

Ultimately, the most detrimental outcome of this co-option of queer discourse is the marginalisation that it creates for the already-marginalised Dalit-Queer folx who are still in the process of coming to terms with their queer identity while navigating their caste identity in the rapidly-changing political and social landscape of a Global South country like India. 

The Decriminalisation Of Section 377, Meritocracy, And the Denial Of Agency And Voice

Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju are two female lawyers who have been touted as the faces and the force behind the petitions that led to the decriminalisation of Section 377, and they have been credited for single-handedly generating a positive discourse around the demand for same-sex marriage in India through their ground-breaking speech at the Oxford Union in the April of 2020.  

However, a close examination of the history and legacy of Queer rights mobilisation against Section 377 will tell tales of the activism of Hijras and sex workers in India. The legacy of Section 377 is also one of state abuse, violence and economic deprivation at the hands of the penal code that directly affected the livelihood of communities like Hijras and Kothis (Li, Rawat, Rhoton, Patankar, Ekstrand, Rosser & Wilkerson, 2017). The act of presenting Guruswamy and Katju as the face of the movement is in direct alignment with the history of the invisibilisation these communities have faced in the Queer movement in the country. Moreover, the quiet acceptance of all accolades and credits by Guruswamy and Katju, who belong to the Savarna sections of society, is emblematic of the Savarna politics of acceptance of caste capital that allows them to take legal and social space. 

In their viral article, 'Guruswamy and Katju, Your rainbow doesn't hide your casteism' Vqueeram Aditya Sahai and Akhil Kang discuss the betrayal of the broader agenda of the originally-submitted petitions against Section 377. The petitions argued for decriminalisation as a way to end the inherent violence and state-based oppression that members of the queer community face when the state upholds the penal code. The argument was brought to the forefront by members of the Hijra and sex worker communities. 

The subsequent court proceedings spearheaded by various Savarna lawyers including  Guruswamy and Katju completely abandoned this chain of argumentation in favour of presenting decriminalisation as a matter of privacy, pride and respect, thus making it more palatable to the exclusively upper caste and upper class judicial bench (Kang, 2020). 

Katju and Guruswamy, to quote the famous proclamation of Audre Lord, tried to dismantle the master's house with the master's tools. To align the discourse on Penal Code 377 with respect and privacy would amount to the neglect and invalidation of the material precarity that the economically-challenged communities like Hijras and Kothis inhabit, a crime that the queer rights movement is guilty of committing yet again with the debate surrounding the legalisation of same-sex marriage. 

The debate on extending marriage rights to the Queer community in India is a case of gross homogenisation and the denial of a voice to the marginalised sections of the queer community. Guruswamy and Katju, in their famous Oxford Union speech, spoke about the traditional kinship model of Indian society and raised a demand for the inclusion of the community in the same structure. While they choose to mention caste as a site of intersectionality in their speech, this demand for inclusion in the Indian kinship models hints at their and the movement's self-imposed blind spot when it comes to examining the nature of these kinship structures, which are based on the endogamous practises of caste-based marriages (Chakravarty, 1993). 

To further make the petitions palatable to the sensibilities of the Savarna masses and the judiciary, the petitions that were presented in front of the court were carefully curated profiles of seemingly casteless, socially acceptable and valuable queer individuals who represent the top merit of the country (the fact that they graduated from the top premier universities like Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) has been mentioned by the petitioners) and are therefore, worthy of being heard and represented by the legal system of the country. 

This form queer politics that is rooted in furthering the rights and voices of those who are deemed socially desirable by the majority population of the country is a practice that wilfully relegates the undesirable minority to the margins of the society, wherein their existence is solely based on the gratification they provide to the majority of the masses. This can be seen in the case of the rise in Dalit-Queer academic writings by Savarna scholars, who have based their careers on the constant romanticisation of the victimisation of the community. 

Dalit Masculine Politics and the Caste Politics of Queer Denial 

A majoritarian ideology of control and exploitation has oppressed marginalised communities like Dalits and Adivasis as a whole, but hetero-patriarchy has permeated even in the margins of society and has further created a hierarchy that grants power and privilege to a select few within these communities. The Dalit community is no exception to this idea. Brahminical patriarchy and its dictates have trickled down from the top of the caste order and have influenced the ideal of masculinity embodied by Dalit men (Arya, 2020). This type of masculinity is rooted in the idea of biological reproduction of caste and is, therefore, inherently heterosexual. Furthermore, it is influenced by the Brahmanical idea of masculine control over its female counterparts to maintain the traditional kinship structure (Chakravarthy, 1993).

In light of this, one can explain the enormous attention the Dalit movements in India have given to heterosexual desire. While most anti-caste discourses in the country focus on Dalit men's and women's rights, with Dalit politics predominantly accessible to men, a similar level of engagement is not visible for the Dalit-queer cause. 

Many queer individuals have confessed to being asked to prioritise their Dalit identity over their queer politics (Ponniah & Tamalapakula, 2020). The Dalit-Queer community in India is compelled to only engage with one of their marginalised identities. While the Queer movement in India refuses to acknowledge their caste identity and its role in shaping their subjectivity, the Dalit movement, with its at times hypermasculine politics and heterosexual outlook, denies them the space to explore what it is like to be a Dalit-Queer in contemporary India. It is essential to point out that there has been an increase in the involvement of Dalit women in the politics and representation of the community at the national and international levels. However, the same cannot be said for the Dalit-Queer community that still inhabits the margins of the movement (Ciotti, 2006). 

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Fanon described the colonised town as a place of ill-fate, whose inhabitants live and die in complete neglect of the majority of the masses (Sartre & Farrington, 1963). A similar fate has been accorded to the Dalit-Queer community in India.

These individuals, like their heterosexual Dalit counterparts, occupy segregated spaces like Metropolitan slums and colonies located away from the affluent sections of the city – a physical and spatial manifestation of the enmity of the state and the majority masses. At the same time, the metaphorical manifestation of this enmity is the co-option and abandonment of the Dalit-Queer caused by both the Savarna-led queer movement as well as the hypermasculine and heteronormative anti-caste movement in the country. 

These individuals who inhabit multiple disadvantaged positionalities that make their existence materially and existentially precarious are being forced into inhabiting the metaphorical and spatial death worlds created by the apathy of the Indian state and the betrayal of their own movements. The following lines from the book Kari by Amruta Patil brilliantly articulate the different and paradoxical realities occupied by Dalits-Queers and their non-Dalit counterparts, and how desire and queer love is a reality that is marred by caste and its oppressive gaze. 

"They were inseparable – until the day they jumped. Ruth, saved by safety nets, leaves the city. Kari, saved by a sewer, crawls back into the fray of living." (Patil, 2008) 

Vaishnavi Manju Pal (she/they) holds a Distinction in Gender Studies from SOAS, University of London, where their research focused on 'Dalit Masculinities and Alternate Politics of Radical Dalit Assertion.' They are a lecturer and module leader in Social Sciences, based in London.

A columnist at Political Pandora, they write 'Frames of Reference,' a column that examines socio-political realities through multiple theoretical lenses, with a particular focus on the Indian subcontinent. Their work engages with the lived experiences of its diverse populations, aiming to bridge the gap between academia and public discourse through accessible yet critically rigorous cultural and political analysis.

A firm believer in the power of marginalized voices, Vaishnavi has served as President of the SOAS Ambedkar Society. They are committed to contributing to radical discourse—one class, one student, one paper, and one revolution at a time.

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• Li, D. H., Rawat, S., Rhoton, J., Patankar, P., Ekstrand, M. L., Rosser, B. S., & Wilkerson, J. M. (2017). Harassment and violence among men who have sex with men (MSM) and hijras after reinstatement of India’s “Sodomy Law”. Sexuality research and social policy, 14(3), 324-330.

• Mbembé, J. A., & Meintjes, L. (2003). Necropolitics. Public culture, 15(1), 11-40.

• Mbembe, A. (2019). Necropolitics. Duke University Press.

• Menon, N. (2009). Sexuality, caste, governmentality: Contests over ‘gender’in India. Feminist Review, 91(1), 94-112.

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• Ponniah, U., & Tamalapakula, S. (2020). Caste-ing Queer Identities. NUJS Law Review, 13(3), 1-8. 

• Sartre, J. P., & Farrington, C. (1963). THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH

Keywords: Dalit Queer Rights, Caste In Queer Politics, Necropolitics India, Queer Marginalisation, Intersectionality In India, Caste And Desire, Dalit Queer Movement, Queer Inclusion Failures, Savarna Queer Critique, Section 377 Legacy, Caste In LGBTQ India, Dalit Queer Identity, Queer Kinship Critique, Co-Option In Queer Movements, Marginalised Queer Voices.