Jason Keith Fernandes was recently invited to participate in a discussion which looks on how the politics of Pride and Gay liberation in India impacts on the larger questions of citizenship of marginalised communities.
From the EPW podcast description: “A 2018 Supreme Court ruling that decriminalised queer sex was widely celebrated. Judges and petitioners framed the move as India “decolonising itself” of British legislation and beliefs. Based on an examination of the 495-pages long judgement, researcher Jason Fernandes shares with us that the court’s framing is simplistic and limited. Rather than rupture the Brahmanical nationalist project, the judgement buttresses an “ideal citizen subject of the Indian nation-state.” The insights he will share are based on an article he published in the EPW on 4 January 2020 titled “Probing into the Freedoms of Queer Liberation in India.”
By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA
We live in times when commercial Mother’s Day ads stereotype the role of mothers, even as they do not give value to their work. We live in times when jingoism runs high and we are pushed into a situation where our concern as mothers – literally and figuratively – of the menfolk on the country’s borders has to be translated into applauding them for giving up their lives or losing their lives for the ‘nation’. We live in times when we are not expected to interrogate the circumstances and political diktats under which the armed force men became vulnerable to these killings.