'WHAT'S A MORCHA DOING IN MY PARADE?'

<strong>CENTRE FOR WOMEN'S STUDIES, JNU</strong> a Panel Discussion on <strong>'WHAT'S A MORCHA DOING IN MY PARADE?'</strong> by <strong>Chayanika Shah and Shals Mahajan</strong> LABIA – A Queer Feminist LBT Collective, a Bombay based activist group, functioning since 1995, found participation in the Mumbai Pride March this January, not just impossible but also untenable. For a collective that has been part of the fabric of queer organising in the city for more than twenty years, and has through the decades of heavy HIV funding as well as intense NGOisation of the LGBT movement remained non-funded and voluntary, and was part of organising several of the public actions around queer issues overthe two decades of its existence, this was a strange and yet completely logical move. In a year that has seen so much protest around issues of caste, in campuses, against communal and right wing politics, and a growing resistance of movements joining hands across various identities, this step to stay away from what is the most visible queer event in the city, is somewhat incomprehensible. Yet, it is this very refusal to join hands with other queer groups that choose to march for queer pride, and yet do not see how a queer pride can raise issues of caste, class and patriarchy as intrinsic and essential issues, that tells the story of how queer organising has developed in the last two decades. How has the mainstream of queer organising been constructed and where are the margins? Which intersections have worked and which haven't? Which rights of which queer persons have been raised by which queer movements? How has the discourse around gender and sexuality changed, or not? What can queer movements be if they are truly radical and work on social change and not assimilatory politics? Our talk will focus on these and similar concerns. About the speakers: Shals Mahajan and Chayanika Shah are queer feminist activists and have been part of LABIA – Queer Feminist LBT Collective for the past two decades and have co-authored No Outlaws in the Gender Galaxy. Shals is genderqueer, a writer, and has worked on issues of gender, sexuality, caste and communalism as trainer, teacher and activist. Ze has studied literature and has conducted workshops on writing with university students, with people working in NGOs, with women returning to literacy, and queer persons. Ze has also published a children's book, Timmi in Tangles. Chayanika is a Physicist by training. She is a member of Forum Against Oppression of Women. She has campaigned, researched, taught and written on politics of population control, communalism, feminist studies of science, and gender and sexuality. Her other co-authored books are "Bharat ki Chaap" and "We and Our Fertility: The politics of technological intervention. <strong>15th October 2016</strong>