Charu Gupta New Delhi

Censorship of sexuality has historical roots. While exploring the linkages between sexuality, identity and censorship, I want to peg this discussion on certain key elements, which reveal the intersection of the three. There are multiple sites of censorship, which of course is done by the State over and above all, but there is explicit and implicit censorship done in India by dominant castes, majority communities and patriarchies. I am interested here in this kind of censorship, used to silence and marginalize alternate sexualities, ambiguous religious identities, sex workers, certain languages, people, symbols and culture. My examples come largely from a colonial context and from contemporary India, exploring how sexuality becomes a key arena for the imposition of censorship by the moralist Hindu brigade particularly, in literary genres, print and visual media, and in actual practices.

In the second part I will discuss how identity politics too contributes to a different kind of censorship. I argue here that in the construction of a homogenous Hindu community identity, which operates and works through a reworked and updated patriarchy, censorship becomes a critical tool, as it helps to control sexualities on the one hand and impose a fixed identity on the other. In fact escalation of sexually repressive censorship is intricately tied to heightened assertion of a Hindu community identity. 

Foucault’s work has revealed how propagation of disciplinary regimes requires an intensification in the management and policing of sexuality, which further leads to distinctions of identity. It has been also asserted that obscenity emerged as a distinct regulatory category in the modern period, and was subject to intense censorship particularly in Europe, in part due to the rise of literacy, the spread of print and a wider dissemination of written texts, and in part due to Victorian notions of chastity. Combined with this of course, this debate has extended to pornography. Sharp lines have been drawn between anti-pornography and anti-censorship feminists in the West. Catherine MacKinnon in her powerful critique of pornography claims that it institutionalises the sexuality of male supremacy, fusing the eroticism of domination and submission with the social construction of male and female. However, feminists like Judith Butler question the pervasive power of pornography. She builds a case for performative contradiction, whereby utterances cannot be assigned a consensus of meanings. Divisions often made between legitimate erotic art on the one hand and obscene pornography on the other, where the latter is subject to censorship, have been attacked, linking it to debates on high and low culture. It has also been pointed out that distinctions need to be made between sexually explicit representations and sexism. Consensual and coercive sex cannot be collapsed. Some even say that pornography actually reflects male anxieties and fears. Moreover, it is argued that while women are victims of violent crimes, the persistent foregrounding of pain marginalises women’s sexual pleasures and desires.

In India, feminists have pointed out that there has broadly been a ‘conspiracy of silence’, combined with censorship, regarding sexuality. In recent years examples of such censorship abound, be it the attack on songs like ‘choli ke peeche’ or M.F. Hussain painting Saraswati or the withdrawal of the 1997 Delhi Tourism Diary due to the protest by BJP for the inclusion of a representation of the bronze statue of the nude Yakshini or ‘Dancing Girl’ from Mohenjo-daro.

There is a long history of such censorship, and in the colonial period particularly, a moral panic of sorts at gripped a section of the British and the Hindu middle classes, creating anxieties regarding questions of sexuality, which was reflected in various arenas. Implicit and explicit censorship was used here for a coercive and symbolic regulation of women, which helped in replenishing colonial authority, updating indigenous patriarchy, and proclaiming a collective identity.

In north India for example, there were endeavours made particularly by the Hindu publicists to redefine, control and censor literature, entertainment and domestic arena, especially pertaining to women, to forge an empowering Hindu identity. The discursive management and control over sexuality was essential to project a civilised and vibrant sectarian Hindu identity. Regulation and censorship of sexuality thus was, and continues to be, central to identity politics, be it fundamentalist, racial or nationalist.

However, sexuality, pleasure and love have been expressed in diverse ways. Through various mediums women and men have found ways to undermine implicit assumptions about gender systems and to negotiate codified sexual relations. We have a rich variety of experiences and practices, which are indifferent to and sometimes even subvert the tyrannies of respectability and standardisation. Such transgressions have precluded the crafting of a master narrative, and ‘disorder’ has crept into the ‘moral order’ of the censorship brigade. In the colonial period same-sex attractions or inter-religious love represented a dangerous breach to nationalist ideals and Hindu community assertions. Deviance from 'normal' codes of behaviour revealed the possibility of diversion from the accepted and the expected.

I want to first explore a book written in this period on male-male sexual bonding, which became a major target of attack by the Hindu publicists and faced severe censorship and condemnation. This was a period when efforts were being made at linguistic standardisation of Hindi, combined with attacks on any hints of eroticism and obscenity in Hindi literature, which were seen as hallmarks of a decadent, feminine and uncivilised culture. There was a growing fear of romance, of sexual and bodily pleasure, seen as a transgression of the ideals of the nation itself. Aesthetics became an exercise in ethics.

At the same time, print facilitated the widespread production of ‘ashlil’ (obscene) material as a commodity, and erotic consumerism became a part of the publishing boom in UP, surreptitiously disturbing the dominance of ‘clean’ literature. Such popular literature came under increasing attack, especially with charges of obscenity levelled against it. The first obscenity laws appeared in India in the late nineteenth century Sections 292, 293 and 294 of the Indian Penal Code were explicitly designed for censorship of any form of obscenity. However, in spite of various rules, regulations and agreements, the term obscenity has remained vague. It has often been used to censor not only pornography as it is often defined today, but also in nineteenth century England to outlaw publications on birth control. In colonial India too there was not clear definition of the term, and it could encompass a variety of meanings in common usage and debates. Extremely divergent material could thus be classified as obscene and thus subject to censorship.

The strongest however was the case of Pandey Becan Sharma Ugra’s book Chaklet published in 1927, which dealt with issues of sodomy, sexual acts between adult males and adolescent boys, and other aspects of male homosexuality. Chaklet was a collection of eight short stories, variously titled ‘He Sukumar’ (Oh, Beautiful Youth), ‘Vyabhichari Pyar’ (Adulterous Love), ‘Jail Mein’ (In Jail), ‘Hum Fidaye Lackhnau’ (I am a Fan of Lucknow), ‘Kamariya Nagin si Bal Khaye’ (The Waist Twists like a Female Snake), etc. Written in a titillating fashion, these stories were against sodomy and homosexuality, claiming to draw inspiration from real life incidents. However, by the process of condemnation, they also acknowledged the wide prevalence of such practices, especially in UP, where the beautiful young boys were called ‘chocolate’, ‘pocket-book’ and ‘money-order’. Chaklet hinted at homosexual tendencies between Krishna and Arjun, Ram and Tulsidas and Krishna and Surdas. It proved to be a commercial sensation and within six weeks of its publication, two editions of it were sold out. However, it was soon banned and its next edition could come out only after independence.

The guardians of morality actually launched militant criticism against the book, and through it, against many writings like Ugras' Dilli ka Dalal (Delhi's Broker) and also books like Vyabhichari Mandir (Adulterous Temple) and Abalaon ka Insaf. Such works were referred to as ghasleti sahitya, and a movement against it, known as ghasleti andolan was sustained for 12 years. Banarsidas Chaturvedi, the editor of Vishal Bharat, took a lead, and was largely backed by the new Hindi loci of authority -- university departments, literary associations and important journals. In UP, the magazines, Chand and Sudha published material against such literature, and the associations, Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and Kashi Nagari Pracharini Sabha adopted resolutions against these books. Gandhi initially wrote against Chaklet without reading it, but later after going through it, did not find it obscene. He wrote a letter to this effect, which, however, was brought to light only in 1951.

The point is, why did a book like Chaklet, which actually attacked sodomy and homosexuality, lead to such a hysterical reaction? The campaign against it was at once a paternalist and a moralist stance, deployed to ‘protect’ the public from ‘unhealthy’ influences. However, its reach hints that here there was something more volatile at stake than the mere offending of ideas of purity and respectability. Ugra wrote on a taboo subject, an unmentionable act, and spoke the unspeakable. The critics claimed that the actual effect of Ugras’ writings was to titillate and excite his readers and thus to encourage, not discourage, homosexual desire. Colonial presence, growing nationalist movement, emerging high literary trends and its links with Hindu identity gave the campaign a specific colour in north India at this time. The attack on Chaklet was also part of a nationalist critique, as the de-gendered male was one stereotype of colonial domination. Chaklet threw into doubt the stability of the heterosexual regime, procreative imperatives and modern monogamous ideals of marriage. It was a stigma and a disgrace of effeminacy and sexual inversion in male behaviour, which was at best unmentioned.

Chaklet brought into public view emergent urban male attachments and alternate sexualities, posing a danger to civilisation, at a time when the imagery of a strong, masculine Hindu male was a concern of the nation. It opened an epistemological gap, a void in maleness itself. The consequences of this conflict, which pitted critics against popular literature, and by extension against entertaining fiction, was a long-lasting rift between Hindi literature that was enshrined in a large part of the canon. Reading such books was considered a crime for students, and critics made sure that they were never included in the syllabus, indeed in the history of Hindi literature. But this literature survived, thanks to its popularity. The conflict continued well over the coming period and saw many debates in the 1940s as well -- over Jainendra Kumar’s Sunita, Yashpals' Dada Comrade, and Ismat Chugtai’s Lihaf (The Quilt).

Another result of such censorship for example was that there was a pervasive and systematic attack on sensual poetry of the earlier times. Serious charges were levied by an influential section of Hindi writers against sringar ras poetry, particularly that of obscenity, centring on the woman’s body. It also appears that obscenity was redefined by many literary writers, especially to control certain female sexual identities. The debate on obscenity was largely a debate on sex for pleasure and recreation versus sex for reproduction. The figure of Radha also almost completely disappeared from the canons of Hindi literary syllabi and normative standardized poetry. In earlier poetry, Radha was a potent symbol of a woman in love who is neither mother nor wife. Her sexuality could not be contained within any rigid bounds of conventional propriety. But now from a predominantly aesthetic category, the image of woman became a stiflingly moral one.

Even in the case of films, we see that in colonial India the Censor Board banned various films like Strange Interlude and Passion on charges of ‘obscenity’. The opposition was to bathing scenes, short skirts, kissing and embracing, as they were supposed to have a ‘demoralising’ effect on the spectators. In fact, the Hindu Mahasabha wanted its representatives to be nominated to the Censor Board of each province to ensure a proper scrutiny of films, in order that they did not corrupt the morals of Hindu boys and girls.

I am now going to shift the terrain somewhat and show how identity politics and the assertion of a Hindu communal identity too has led to a different kind of censorship, again pertaining to women specifically. Examples of this again abound in colonial and independent India. In the campaigns and discourses of the Hindu Right, censorship imposed in gendered terms has become an important means of defining and contributing to sharper divisions between Hindus and Muslims. What concerns me here are the kind of taboos and censorships attempted to be imposed by the Hindu Right, especially to keep Hindu women away from Muslim men and from symbols, customs and occupations perceived as ‘Muslim’, and the fantasies and cultural discourses surrounding daily interactions between Hindu women and Muslim men. What is also significant here is the extension of this control over women to the realm of everyday. Not only any intimate liaison but even day-to-day contact with Muslims is perceived as a serious threat, leading to a new set of instructions for Hindu women, commanding them to censor all such contacts. Further, it has also become another way to attack the ‘Other’.

The debate on censorship has been focused till now, and rightly so, on State censorship, particularly of films and documentaries like Final Solutions or War and Peace. But censorship has actually invaded our daily lives. We cannot love whom we wish, speak what we believe in, express our desires or revel in our ambiguities of identities and sexualities. And of course the biggest culprit here has been the Hindu Right. Everyday sites and relationships and their scrutiny and regulation by the Hindu Right has often provided the basis for collective action against the minorities, against women, against Dalits, even though explicit grounds for violence may have been different. Be it Muslims of Gujarat, Dalits in Jhajjar, or various facets of daily life of Hindu women, the Hindu Right has attempted to make serious inroads into the business of daily living, using censorship as an effective tool. 

Examples of such censorship in our everyday lives abound. Let me give some. Before and during the Gujarat pogrom, there were regular pamphlets circulating, emphatically advocating the boycott and censoring of Muslims economically and socially. The instructions, aimed at all Hindus, were extremely detailed and specific. There were endless lists of suggestions to Hindus to have no dealings with bakeries, automobile shops, computer centres, carts selling tea, omelettes, sari and cloth businesses, shoes and sandal shops, and mutton shops run by Muslims. The second side of such censorship was that Hindus were asked to urgently take up those professions, which have been largely in the hands of Muslims, and to literally ‘steal’ such jobs. And after the riots, when some of the Muslim villagers wanted to come back, the following terms were set for them by their Hindu neighbours – ‘convert to Hinduism, shave off your beard, drop your rape charges, don’t participate in our functions, let us use your vehicles for free.’ Of course such censorship has a particular relationship with women’s sexuality and desires.  An innocuous case of elopement in Gujarat’s Randhikpur village, where two Muslims ran off with two tribal girls, was turned into a communal issue. The entire Muslim community was censored and driven out of the village and couldn’t come back for a month. Another example: Activists of VHP and Hindu Jagran Manch of Kotdwar, a town in Uttaranchal, forcefully tried to stop Hindu women from visiting Muslim male tailors and censored women who did so. Thus, ccensorship by communal forces operates at various levels. It of course functions through the State, organized politics and religion but it also finds expression in everyday life.

Through these various arenas of censorship, the Hindu Right wishes to establish a fixed Hindu identity and outlaw all spheres of Hindu-Muslim interaction. The censorship imposed on Muslim tailors was extended to Muslim beauticians, barbers and hairdressers in Pauri Garhwal. Censorship is used in such cases to divide people on communal lines and extend occupational divisions along religious affiliations. It is a part of identity politics of demonizing the ‘Other’. Censoring the Muslims in any form provides the Hindu Right a common reference point, significant for larger mobilisation. The attack on tailors, critically associated with women’s bodies, reiterates certain cultural stereotypes of the Muslim male, like their ‘lack of character’, lecherous and lustful behaviour, which are constantly at work at the unconscious level.

This censorship has a deep relationship with women, and reveals an anxiety about the particular relationship of women to the everyday arena, and a fear that they are deciding many aspects of their lives on their own. This was also reflected in colonial India, where there were a number of tracts published called Alarm Bell, with slight modifications. Again they had minute and detailed instructions for women ordering them not to worship Muslim graves, tazias or Muslim Gods, not to listen to invocation of pirs, not to sit alone in a vehicle driven by a Muslim, not to buy bangles from Muslims etc.

Implicit in such censorship actually is the fear of Hindu women losing control of their sexuality and falling to Muslim male desires. An economic and social boycott is intended to facilitate the isolation of Hindu women from Muslims and to reduce the anxieties of Hindu men. Thus, Hindu women’s lives, experiences and identities are made a matter of instruction, control and censorship by men. A new language is employed for women vis-à-vis Muslims, telling them how to move, whom to talk to, where to go, and what to do. Various places of possible contact between Hindu women and Muslim men, public and private, are coming under this ambit of censorship.

Such censorships send multiple messages. They endorse the vulnerability of the Hindu woman and the strength of the Hindu man, who is reasserting his power over her. They construct notions of decency, propriety and dharma; they reveal a growing suspicion of any aspect of the cultural, social and economic life of Hindu women, which is perceived to be outside the control of the Hindu community. Women have competence in everyday life. They exercise social influence through the family and outside the home, through their nurturing power and social networks, through their endurance and flexibility, and through sexual relations. Thus, women’s practices are brought in the ambit of censorship in the name of religion. There is a desire to spread norms of female seclusion, especially from Muslim men, in order to create a single Hindu standard and community.

Censorship here is also about anxieties around Hindu masculinity and patriarchy. It is for example the popularity of Muslim tailors and their reach over women that has to be stopped. In the eyes of the Hindu Right, going to Muslim tailors has implications for the sexuality of Hindu women, Hindu men and Muslim tailors. Implicit here is the fear of a sensuous ‘play’ between the tailor and the body of the woman, and her private, secret alliance with the tailor. The power of the tailor to determine women’s dressing sense is seen as a threat. Muslim tailors are also being attacked because women’s body is identified as a sign of purity, and for any Muslim to touch it, even for the sake of taking measurements, is seen as dangerous. Censorship here combines ‘negative’ portrayals of Muslims, with fears of women’s agency. There is an attempt to shift the basis of activity of Hindu women and replace it with Hindu tailors, preferably that too female, partially legitimizing relations only between Hindus.

These attempts at remapping gender boundaries not only mirror control over women’s sexuality or assertion of patriarchy and community identity, but also indicate that many social, economic and cultural issues are being interpreted through the prism of religious consciousness. Drawing on supposed myths of Indian culture, moral policing, rumours and gossip, the Hindu Right has attempted to operate in a public domain, and monopolise the field of everyday representation through censorship. It has tried to deeply fracture the public sharing between communities and instead draw sharper and broader categories encompassing all ‘Hindus’ and ‘Muslims’ by definition. Censorship of everything that does not fit into a given neat framework is perceived as necessary for creating cohesion in Hindu identity.

However, it would be incomplete to stop here. Such censorships and attempts at control have received a constant challenge, and various forms of assertions and resistances question the given models of sexuality and the so-called homogeneity and cohesion of community identity. Besides formal sites of protest, again we see that our everyday lives are an arena where resistances to such censorships abound. Everyday is an area, where maybe due to pragmatic reasons, maybe due to sheer indifference and unconcern, it is not so easy to continue to impose such censorships and draw rigid boundaries, as they show the messy complexities of working together. Even amidst new regulations of control, examples abound of freedom, of sharing, of assertion. They inspire us to come to terms with ‘difference’ and conflict and live with such differences. Perhaps these examples can be seen as subversions and alternative assertions. But more than that, to borrow from James Scott, they are everyday forms of resistance, in their own way challenging stereotypes, and refusing to be silenced.

Such interventions through documentaries, street theatre, media, women’s movement, our daily living practices etc. highlight the messy complexities of reality and inchoate ways of life, suggesting a different order of rationality against efforts made through censorship to categorise, classify and project a particular kind of sexuality and identity, and silence or marginalize others. Such interventions weave a narrative thread, which illuminate ruptures in dominant paradigms of sexuality and identity. When we celebrate our freedom of expression, when we resist censorship and break silences, we are in a way challenging and, within limits, transgressing an oppressive social order. We are celebrating our heterogeneity, our differences, and pluralities of our existences and experiences in spatial and political practices. We are disrupting the logic of rigid boundaries and providing moments of vulnerability in the dominant discourse.

Censorship of everything that does not fit into a given neat framework is perceived as necessary for creating cohesion in Hindu identity.