Biographical note:

Ivan John is a queer-identified person, an atheist, a pianist, and an educator, with affection for the Left ideology. He has been teaching Sociology at Sophia Junior College , Mumbai since 1993. He donated a collection of books, magazines, DVDs and newspaper clippings to QAMRA in 2021 and donated a book collection, consisting of books relating to gender and sexuality, in 2025.

Notes on the collection: 

This collection has been partially catalogued. It is arranged in four series, with magazines, books, newspaper clippings and other miscellaneous materials being kept separately.  The newspaper clippings span seven years, collected between 2005 and 2012 and the remaining materials are a result of a lifetime of collection. 

Collection summary:

The collection consists of various kinds of magazines he has collected over the years, including indie queer magazines meant for internal circulation, mainstream magazines that tackle ‘queerness’ as a subject, human rights magazines and more. He also collected reports from organisations like Sappho for Equality and Humsafar Trust, as well as individual research papers and more about homosexuality, gay marriage and religion. The newspaper clippings are the largest part of his collection and have to do with queer rights, gender and other human rights issues in India. The ‘Miscellaneous’ series includes many catalogues, brochures and DVDs of the Kashish Pride Film Festival that has been held in Mumbai since 2010. Ivan John’s book collection contains some memoirs, some biographies, a few fiction, and many that are academic in nature – largely relating to topics of gender and sexuality.