Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav will join leaders in the first meeting of Opposition parties to be held in Patna today. However, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary has excused himself from the mega meet. In a letter to the host Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Chaudhary said that he was committed to attending a family function this Friday.
Yadav has floated yet another interesting formula to defeat the ruling party in the general elections to be held next year. It is: PDA is an acronym for Pichde (backward), Dalit, and Alpasankhyak (minorities).
The Muslim Yadav (MY) has been the main pillar of support for the SP in the past. In an effort to be more inclusive and to reach out to more voters, the party seeks the support also of Dalits and of members of other minority communities apart from Muslims.
One of the SP slogans is ‘assi harao BJP hatao’ (defeat 80 remove BJP), referring to the 80 Lok Sabha seats that Uttar Pradesh (UP) has.
However, Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) Mayawati has interpreted Yadav’s PDA idea as a ‘parivar dal alliance’, revolving around the extended Yadav family which is all that the SP is!
Deaths in Ballia
Meanwhile, people continue to die in UP’s Ballia district. The hospitals are spilling over with hundreds of patients but the cause of death is unknown. Officials are still not sure if desert-like high temperatures are responsible for the tragedy.
Temperatures have touched 45 degrees Celsius in recent times and citizens have suffered dehydration and heatstroke, leading to many deaths. The prolonged exposure to even moderate heat, with poor nutrition and hydration levels lead to death, say experts.
Others blame poverty, and the near absence of proper primary health care facilities in the country’s most populous state for the continuing deaths in UP.
Pride Month
June is also the month when Lucknow misses historian and gay rights activist Saleem Kidwai the most. Kidwai passed away in 2021 at 70 years of age, leaving behind a daring legacy of mentorship that is fearlessly rare.
Kidwai was a pillar of strength for the queer community in the city. He had encouraged people to take pride in who they are and to rejoice in Pride Month celebrations.
He co-authored ‘Same Sex Love in India’ and had constantly reminded his students that same-sex relationships and gender fluidity have been depicted in art and literature in South Asia for thousands of years. That same-sex love is not an import of western culture.
The ancient ‘Kama Sutra’ describes sex between two men as well as two women, while 18th Century Urdu poetry depicts same-sex desire in the same tone and with the same intensity as heterosexual desire.
It wasn’t until the British Empire imposed its rule over India in the mid-19th Century that same-sex relationships became taboo. In 1861, Victorian values dictated that the colonial government introduce a law criminalising same-sex relationships that was in contrast to centuries of local cultural attitudes around sexuality. The criminal law was overturned in 2018.
In ‘Same Sex Love in India’ Kidwai pointed out how marketplaces and taverns mentioned in mediaeval literature were pleasant spaces where men met, mingled and had formed alliances. Poets living in the 18th Century praise the Indian city as the ideal place to live. While the indoor life of women had bustled with a life of its own and an ambience most creative.
Co-author of the same book by Kidwai, Professor of Liberal Studies at America’s University of Montana, Ruth Vanita explored the cosmopolitan sensibilities of Urdu Poetry written in the late 18th Century and early 19th Century in the city of Lucknow in ‘Gender, Sex and the City’.
Vanita writes that historians tend to assume that urban Indian modernity is largely a colonial product. In her studies she demonstrates that pre-colonial poetic cultures swept away by colonial rule had forged a legacy that had left its stamp on the urban imagination.
It is that liberal and joyous legacy that citizens in Lucknow today long to reclaim.
Encouraging Addebaazi
To do so, Kidwai had felt the need for a formal space where everyone visiting would feel safe and happy. The venue chosen by him was the courtyard of Sanatkada, the city’s arts and crafts community centre located in the former home of a medical doctor who has left behind a powerful aura on the premises that continues to help heal many a heart.
The walls of the courtyard have been painted bright and the space strewn with a swing seat, chairs and tables. This space is called the adda (nerve centre) and the coming together of citizens to rendezvous there is popularly known as the very laidback act of ‘addebaazi’.
‘Addebaazi has a new meaning for me thanks to Sanatkada,’ independent communications consultant Alisha Asif told The Citizen.
Asif finds the time spent at Sanatkada’s adda, mast (carefree).
‘Being welcomed here is important for people who need safe spaces where they can be themselves, especially the young because god knows now many insecurities we carry within,’ said Asif who appreciates the place as conversations that take place here matter.
Here people are encouraged to speak their mind and to listen to what others say. This is a great way to connect as a community.
The need of the hour, Asif said, is to try to make all citizens feel happy, and safe in Lucknow.
Why June?
So, why June? This is because on June 28 1969, a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village was raided by nine policemen. In the 1960s, the Village was the ‘adda’ of New York’s counterculture and the police barged into the bar saying that it did not have a liquor licence.
Violence had followed. This is not the first time that a group of queer people were hurt in those days. Every safe place that was created by them was attacked and declared illegal. Fed up of being bullied, members of the LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) communities went on a riot that day in June.
The incident was a turning point in the life of LGBT people around the world. The barbaric treatment of fellow human beings by the police was condemned and the global celebration of Pride Month declared, inspiring one and all to always be open about your truth.
As part of the on-going addebaazi, Pride Month is celebrated as ‘mah-e-garv’ by Sanatkada’s Bioscope banner. This June there was music, dance and conversations. Asif read excerpts from Kidwai’s ‘Same Sex Love in India’ on Amir Khusro’s love poems written in the 13th Century for his beloved mentor, the mystic Nizamuddin.
Lucknow Bioscope is an upcoming museum of culture for documenting ideas and artefacts that enrich and add value to human existence. The idea is to continue to encourage citizens to branch out into spontaneous discussions about concepts like intimacy, and to reflect upon the need for a more gender neutral language.