Introduction

Abstract

Imagine a divided mountain-scape. A line of ceasefire. Fog. Imagine coming to a clearing. In a mist-covered, militarized order of here and t/here, affection makes way where vision or bodies cannot. Mothers call out to daughters; sons identify their mothers’ voices in two-way traffics of sound. So long as the vocal exchange lasts, somewhere along the disputed territory of the Golan Heights, an Elsewhere opens.

Elsewheres in Queer Hindutva: A Hijra Case Study

“…The critique of both Muslim- and Hindu-origin gurus due to their similar attempts to establish hierarchical authority, even by kothis like Bina who might have some Hindutva propensities, points to an ethical and political ‘elsewhere’ in the sense of a ‘not-yet-here’ that ‘open(s) up imaginal and concrete possibilities of critiquing the present’ (Kasmani et al , 2020, p. 95). That such critique emerges from compromised spaces rather than politically pure ones suggests that they bear a surplus irreducible to Hindutva that potentially gestures towards an elsewhere in the sense of ‘something else’: ‘another formation’ where queer subjects interrogate and reimagine the structures and relations they inhabit, even if momentarily (Muñoz, 2019, p. 59).…”

“…Building on this observation, I explore shifting and multiple logics of status, power and resistance within hijra and kothi communities that impede the crystallisation of communal rifts and destabilise alliances with Hindu nationalism. These unstable liaisons suggest how the Hindu Right might become fractured and vulnerable as it tries to assimilate ‘elsewheres’ that trouble it from within rather than from a ‘removed position’ (Kasmani et al , 2020, p. 92).…”

“…I analyse these ruptures as arising from contradictory negotiations between Hindutva and its ‘elsewheres’. As Kasmani et al (2020, p. 93) note, ‘the Elsewhere is a figure predominantly tied to the study of religion’ but may also supersede ‘the sphere of the religious’. I am particularly inspired by their formulation of the ‘elsewhere’ as ‘a where in excess to what is present in any given time and place’ but ‘never completely removed from it’ ( ibid ., p. 92).…”

Savarna Citations of Desire: Queer Impossibilities of Inter-Caste Love

“…My invocation of ‘savarna citations of desire’ is a dalit-queer attempt to understand ‘queer elsewhere’. Heeding Kasmani et al ’s (2020) call to imagine ‘elsewhere’s’ potential to engage with the marginalised’s agentive capacity to radically create new worlds, I showcase what a dalit-queer reading of love is. Like the ‘elsewhere’, my invocation of ‘savarna citations of desire’ opens, bridges, moves and disrupts heteronormative and casteist imaginations of dalit love.…”