Description
A STEP-BY-STEP MANUAL FOR BUILDING INCLUSIVE WORKPLACES—AND A LESS UNEQUAL WORLD.
The reading down of Section 377 by the Supreme Court in 2018 has led to a fundamental shift in the rights of India’s LGBTQ citizens and necessitated policy changes across the board—not least in the conservative world of Indian business. In this path-breaking and genre-defying book, Parmesh Shahani draws from his decade-long journey in the corporate world as an out and proud gay man to make a cogent case for LGBTQ inclusion and lay down a step-by-step guide to reshaping office culture in India.
He talks to inclusion champions and business leaders about how they worked towards change; traces the benefits reaped by industry giants like Godrej, Tata Steel, IBM, Wipro, the Lalit group of hotels and many others who have tapped into the power of diversity; and shares the stories of employees whose lives were revolutionised by LGBTQ-friendly workspaces. In this affecting memoir-cum-manifesto, Shahani animates the data and strategy with intimate stories of love and family. Even as it becomes an expansive reference book of history, literature, cinema, movements, institutions and icons of the LGBTQ community, Queeristan drives home a singular point—in diversity and inclusion lies the promise of an equitable and profitable future for companies, their employees and the society at large.
Parmesh Shahani’s new book Queeristan: LGBTQ Inclusion at the Indian Workplace (Westland Business) was released in August 2020. His first book Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)Longing in Contemporary India, was originally released by Sage Publications in 2008 and re-released as a special revised edition in June 2020.
Parmesh is Vice President at Godrej Industries Ltd. and the founder of the award-winning Godrej India Culture Lab (indiaculturelab.org). He is a passionate advocate for LGBTQ inclusion in corporate India and has guided many of the country’s leading companies on their inclusion journeys. He is a member of the FICCI task force on diversity and inclusion and a Khoj International Artists’ Association board member.
Parmesh holds an MS in Comparative Media Studies from MIT. He has been a TED Senior Fellow, a Yale World Fellow, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. His Twitter handle is @parmeshs, his Instagram handle is @parmeshshahani, and you can also find him on LinkedIn, and FB, and learn more about him on his website www.parmesh.net.
