Going by the earliest human remains that we have discovered, our existence dates back at least 200,000 years. Out of these 200,000 years, we have written records of the history of only the most recent 5000 years. By comparison, 200 years do not present themselves to be a significant amount of time. But we
often fail to give time its due credit.

200 years, give or take a few of them, is the amount of time the British ruled over India. 200 years of an unfeeling cruel rule, 200 years of tactfully orchestrated cultural and physical violence. 200 years through the lens of suffering do not seem so insignificant. Perhaps it is Human Malevolence we fail in giving
credit to.

Our oppressors knew that unity among the oppressed is the death of tyranny. Their solution to this potentially rule crippling issue was simple. It is hard for people to come together when they have nothing to unite over. When they realised a constant united resistance would eat away at profits, they decided to take away the core of that resistance. They decided to wage a war on our culture. They decided that this land’s millennia of shared culture was too large an obstruction to their exploitative rule and it must be eliminated. They understood that people who already had strong shared ideals through their culture would not accept the ideals of another nation. They would not lay down as they were told what to think and what to believe.

Acculturation is what happens to an entire culture when alien traits diffuse in on a large scale and substantially replace traditional cultural patterns. This is what was done to Indian culture. Anything that the British were not willing to understand, anything that went against their ideals, anything going against their bigotry, was erased. This may sound like an impossible task, but for a regime with
complete control over a region’s educational institutions, media, businesses and has no qualms about how it exercises said power, doing so becomes relatively simple, with the only inconvenience being the amount of time needed to accomplish said task.

It must be noted that this article will only be focussing on the Hindu ideologies surrounding LGBTQ+ identities with a reference to the basic Christian ideology surrounding the topic to set up a comparison between the two.

A great victim to this was the ideology surrounding the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community in India. It is seen that condemning homosexuality as unnatural and against nature is much more the prerogative of Judaeo-Christian environment, whereas in the Hindu world, it is considered as a mere impure act (not unlike other things).The Sushruta Samhita, for example, a highly respected Hindu medical text dating back to at least 600 B.C. referring to transgender people states that men who behave like women, or women who behave like men, are determined as such at the time of their conception in the womb. The Kama Sutra is an ancient text dealing with kama or desire (of all kinds), which in Hindu thought is one of the four normative and spiritual goals of life. The philosopher Vatsyayana who compiled it from earlier texts describes homosexual practices in several places and lists several types of sex/genders. The author goes on to acknowledge that these relations are based on love and a bond of trust. The Kama Sutra also refers to svairini, who are “independent women who frequent their own kind or others” (2.8.26) — or, in another passage: “the liberated woman, or svairini, is one who refuses a husband and has relations in her own home or in other houses” (6.6.50). Which ultimately is a long-winded way of saying that these
women engaged in homosexual encounters.

Meanwhile, the British outlawed homosexuality through the implementation of Section 377 in India. It comes as no surprise that out the 71 countries where homosexuality is a crime, more than half are former British colonies. It is said that a culture’s art acts as a mirror to its ideologies and mindset. As such, societal acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities can be seen in multiple ancient Hindu fictional texts and art pieces. To give a few examples- The Mahabharata has an interesting story about Shikhandini, the feminine or transgender warrior of the
time and responsible for the defeat and killing of Bhishma. Multiple carvings at the Lakshmana Temple in Khajuraho show women engaging in homosexual acts. However, the casual viewer decides to disregard such evidence to avoid an uncomfortable confrontation with their own dearly held beliefs.

However, the fact now stands, that ancient Indians were aware of the existence of multiple sexualities to the extent that they were mentioned in medical texts, literature and art. Moreover, these portrayals were done in a positive and respectful manner.

This is not meant to imply that there was no opposition towards individuals not participating in heteronormativity. Bigotry was not an invention of the British rule, it was just one of its more formidable elements. The Skanda Purana even states that those who indulge in homosexual acts will acquire impotency. As per the The Arthashastra of Kautilya homosexual encounters were punished with a small
fine, which though not perfect, far surpasses the outright illegalisation of LGBTQ identities carried out by the British. Neither does this imply that all our ancestors did was morally right. The practice of forced Sati is one such instance where our ancestors failed to follow basic humanity. But that was a practice that caused direct irreversible harm to people. The only harm caused by the LGBTQ+  community is and was to the sentiments of bigoted people.

Keeping in mind the notion that the march of time is directly coupled with increasingly liberal opinions, it is shocking to see the sheer amount of deterioration in our ideals. We have strayed away from our cultural roots. Despite the staggering amount of evidence showing us otherwise we have become convinced that being a part of the LGBTQ+ community is a sin.

To every person who wants to preserve our culture, this too is our culture. These too are our ideals. These are what our ideals are supposed to be. People who try and go against members of the LGBTQ+ community in the name of our ancestors must understand how cowardly, how disgraceful that is. Such hatred, such bigotry are not their ideals, they are yours, they are ideas and sentiments of a tyrannical
rule. These ideals are shared by a rule that cared more about profit than human lives. We fought against the people who enforced these ideals into our nation’s consciousness and now it is our duty to fight against these thoughts themselves. I believe that this is the least that we owe to the memory of our ancestors.