Exclusive: Anish Gawande speaks about Kolkata case, 'Queer Tax', and being labelled a 'gay politician'

India’s Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) recently appointed Anish Gawande as its national spokesperson.

With this, the twenty-eight-year-old Gawande became the first openly gay national spokesperson of an Indian political party.

WION’s Akul Baiju caught up with Gawande for a candid chat, not just about queerness, but also about the Kolkata doctor death protests, being labeled as a ‘gay politician’, and much more.

WION: India has seen many queer politicians, like Harish Iyer, Shabnam Mausi, and Madhu Bai Kinnar. Why did the media headline you as India’s ‘first gay politician’?

Gawande: “Today queerness sells, so let it sell. It is misleading because I am not the first queer politician. The headlines are always decided by the newspaper and not by me. I think there is a certain way in which queerness is commoditised. I am the first gay national spokesperson of a political party so, some of those headlines were fair. It is just that a certain kind of queerness sells. When there is a trans-woman from a non-dominant caste community, it does not sell and that is the kind of conversation we need to have.”

WION:Is India behind the world in queer rights?

Gawande: “The levels of transphobia today in large parts of the West are much higher than here. In the Netherlands, the far-right has taken up queer discourse and become an Islamophobic queer rights movement.”

India is on its journey because in this country queerness is not yet a dominant identity factor.”

WION: You’ve spoken about how queers cannot be a vote bank in India. Why?

Gawande: “How can they be? Today, there are queer Adivasis, Dalits, and Muslims too. Those identities are under attack to a much larger extent today. Queerness in India does not have to make itself separate. When you go to the Court, you have to prove that queer people are different. But when you go into the political arena, you have to create solidarities with the differently abled communities, climate justice warriors, and those who are fighting hatred on all fronts.’

WION: A man flashed at a protest organised against the Kolkata rape case and murder. Why do men do this?

Gawande: “The incident is deeply shocking. It has stirred the collective conscience of this country. There is a valid critique to be levelled as to why only this incident. Does the sort of privilege of the victim matter? But I think we are looking at a bigger problem. We have an epidemic of sexual violence in this country. Our response to RG Kar and sexual violence has been “chauraahe pe lagaake, pathar maar ke maar daalo (drag them to the public square and stone them to death!.) That is not the right response.

WION: Why?

Gawande: “Because the perpetrators of sexual violence are not the exception, they are the norm. More than half of sexual violence is perpetrated by people who are known to the victim. You cannot exceptionalise it. That is not the solution!”

WION: Queer people have a greater mental health burden than straight people. Why?

Gawande: “That is the queer tax! You have to pay more to get a therapist. You have to pay more to travel by Uber at night because you don’t know if you’re safe on the metro. Queer people have to pay more to lead their regular lives. That is something that the government needs to acknowledge. This is a question of disparity of access to public spaces.”

WION: NCRB data showed that the rate at which young people are killing themselves is more than India's population growth rate. If you become an MP, how will you tackle this?

Gawande: “In 2020, I went with Supriya tai [Supriya Sule] to meet Ajit Pawar and I said that we need to have a helpline for LGBTQ+ kids and the immediate answer was yes, because that is something everyone can get behind. We cannot let our kids down.”

Watch |New Delhi: LGBTQIA+ community takes out 14th Delhi Queer Pride parade

WION: A young MP has said that after becoming a politician, she had to archive some of her previous Instagram photos in which she was wearing jeans, skirts, etc. Will you also do this if you become an MP?

Gawande: "If I become an MP, I will quit Instagram. Who can take this much tension? We’ll just call it deepfakes!”

WION: If you had to archive, which ones would you do and why?

Gawande: “I actually didn’t archive anything. There was a feeling that some of them should be archived—particularly photos of pride. Photos where you are too queer, they may need to be ‘straightened’ a little. But then I thought that I had come this far to not do this. Once you’ve dipped your toes, you might as well jump into the deep end of the pool. I was like…you know what, deal with my queerness.”

This was part one of a two-part WION-exclusive interview series.