Bengaluru: The Bangalore Literature Festival 2016, which ended on Sunday, hosted a long list of illustrious names such as Abhishek Poddar, Rohini Nilekani, T.V. Mohandas Pai and Kris Gopalakrishnan among others. The second stage saw Vasudhendra Chanda’s book Mohanaswamy being discussed by the author, translator Rashmi Terdal and Romal Laisram in a session titled ‘A compelling account of being gay in India’. The book deals with sexuality as the protagonist is a gay man in rural India.
This move has led to a chorus of voices from the LGBTQIA+ community in India to condemn the move. They insist that the session should have been held on the main stage which was titled #Beda instead of being relegated to the second stage and away from the limelight.
Laisram, a panelist on the session later tweeted saying the LGBTQIA+ community should have a literary fest dedicated to the community. When contacted Romal said, “The session was held on the second stage and initially I did not have any problem with it. But later I thought about it and realized that if any literature fest was going to be LGBTQIA+ community friendly, then the event should have been held on the main stage. Furthermore I believe there should be a dedicated literature festival for the gay community.”
Shilok a member of the community said, “First of all it was a great effort to give space to the community in a mainstream literature festival. But nevertheless the community should have a dedicated literature festival, so that more and more writers penning novels in regional languages could be encouraged to write more on the topics of gender and sexuality. The Bengaluru Queer Film Festival (BQFF) exists and will enter its eighth year since being founded. It is about time we have a literature festival dedicated to the queer community and also encourage writers to pen books in regional languages on the community.”
Akkai Padmashali of Ondede, an organisation spearheading the fight for sexual freedom and rights said, “The very fact that the session was held on the smaller stage shows there people are still extremely phobic to sexual minorities on the inside if not outside. I too believe it is time a literary festival dedicated to sexual minorities is organised.”
The Bengaluru Literature Festival 2016 was a resounding success with the event recording its largest turnout since its inception five years ago. But it has infuriated certain sections of the society who believe topics exploring sexual minorities were not given due credit even at an open-minded and intellectually charged events such as the Bengaluru Literature Festival 2016.
