Abstract
Emptying language of heterologocentrism has been a concern for queers for a long time. In this article, I look at two very old local languages from India – one a lavender language and the other a lingua literaria – which show possibilities of queering language, while simultaneously, liberating the language of sexuality from the shackles of neo-liberal universalisms which have colonized the global language of sexuality identity politics. The first is used by an underprivileged class of sexually non-conforming individuals – by the hijra/kothi/dhurrani communities since the 19th century, and other was fashioned by a radical poetic community in the 14th century – each informed by an erotic excess that contest colonial, bourgeois sexual puritanism which was liable in marginalizing, oppressing and eliminating queer lives. The article while critically discussing these two languages as a possibility of decolonizing queer languages in India, it also looks at the pitfalls of doing so in the era of unprecedented rise of the right-wing and their every trick to co-opt the queer. It argues that vapid decolonization may lead to homonationalist ideas to take precedence which is precarious for the LGBTIQ+ community.
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