Description
If you are looking for an esoteric volume on Queer Theory, this is not the book for you. This book is a trilogy of the author’s experiences of the past two decades as a Gay activist working in Pune (India).
Book I – ‘Shadowland’ covers the years of his return to India from the USA in April 2000 till the 2009 Delhi High Court judgment on Sec 377 IPC.
Book II – ‘Twilight’ covers the period from 2009 to 2013, when the Supreme Court struck down the Delhi High Court judgment on Sec 377 IPC.
Book III – ‘Shadows At Dawn’ covers 2013 to May 2020, when surviving Covid-19 became an all-consuming goal.
The LGBTIQ movement in India, started by Ashok Row Kavi, India’s first Gay activist, has evolved over the last 2 decades. Many of the 50+ generation Gay activists in India started with the objective of increasing awareness amongst the mainstream about LGBTIQ issues and reducing HIV/AIDS and STI incidence in Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders. The author was one of them.
With Naz Foundation (India) filing a PIL in the Delhi High Court in 2001, pleading unconstitutionality of Sec 377 IPC, the movement gained momentum, but the struggles and failures that the older generation of Gay activists repeatedly faced on the field remained mostly undocumented.
I, Bindumadhav Khire, am an LGBTIQA rights activist with over two decades of work experience in Pune (Maharashtra, INDIA).
I was the founder and president of Samapathik Trust (Reg. E3662, Pune) and am currently the director of Bindu Queer Rights Foundation (a section 8 Company), which works on health and rights issues of the LGBTIQA community. From 2022, I am a member of the ‘Transgender Grievance Redress Board’ (Pune district).
I have worked on reading down IPC 377 (which criminalized adult, consensual same-sex intercourse);
I have been the organizer of the Annual LGBTIQA Pride Walk in Pune;
I have been the Director of ‘Advait’- Pune Queer International Film Festival;
I have been Director of ‘Mooknayak’ the first Marathi LGBTIQA Sahitya Sammelan;
I have been the Project Director of the MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) / TG /HIV/AIDS Targetted Intervention Project.
