Chayanika Shah (she/her) is an author, physicist, feminist and queer rights activist. She has been with the women’s movement for several years and has been a member of LABIA, Stree Sangam, the Forum Against Oppression of Women, and Voices Against 377.
In this interview, Chayanika Shah weaves theory with practice, piecing together a trajectory of the queer feminist movement in India since the 1970s. She plots the timeline from the Mathura Rape case, to draft laws against sexual assault, to more recent verdicts of 2009, ‘13 and ‘18.
Both giving and taking critique, Shah speaks in particular of the dangers of assimilating marginalised identity rights within a heteronormative structure. Moving from personal laws on marriage and family, she emphasises that all struggles ultimately address the same questions but from different perspectives. The interview then turns into a discussion on her larger understanding of gender and her concerns for the trans community.
Date: 15th June, 2019
Interviewee(s): Chayanika Shah
Interviewer(s): T. Jayashree and Arvind Narrain
Camera: Avijit Mukul Kishore
Place of interview: Chayanika Shah’s residence, Bombay
Format: Video, Audio, Text
Original file type: .pdf, .mov, .mp3, .jpeg
Extent: 31 pages, 02.14.36s
Language: English
Rights holder: QAMRA
Rights: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Credit line: Courtesy of Queer Archive for Memory, Reflection, and Activism.
Physical location:
HD Info:
[Clip 1—Clip 2, 00:05:30] Personal and political trajectory since the ‘70s
Background and introduction to activist spaces. Surprising extent of social and political change in the past 40 years. Post ‘80s focus on health, population control and development. Early ‘90s rise of the right wing and shift in focus to caste, religion and sexuality.
[Clip 2, 00:05:30—00:24:55] Sexuality in the women’s movement
Gulf between Lesbian feminist struggles and the HIV/AIDs and Gay rights movement. Consequences of failing to include sex workers’ perspectives. Homophobia within the women’s collective. The story of LABIA, Borivali Station, and how it was formed.
[Clip 3—Clip 5, 00:11:25] Significance of Sec.377
The Mathura Rape Case and subsequent formation of the FORUM. Shift from rape to domestic violence, to child sexual abuse, to Section 377. Meeting at ICHR in 1995. Presence of the “Bombay Group” within Stree Sangam, and their three-fold agenda of decriminalisation, anti-discrimination and the right to intimacy.
[Clip 5, 00:11:25—00:34:53] “Pushing the envelope”, outside of the law
Sakshi’s 1995 draft on gender neutral sexual assault laws. Differences on age of consent and need for neutrality in custodial violence cases. Post 2009, lack of spaces for discussion. End of women’s conferences, specialisation of legal NGOs, Gujarat riots of 2002, Shiv Sena and the critique of family, and debates on Personal Laws. Attempt to navigate both spaces of LABIA and Stree Sangam, carrying concerns over from one to the other. Issue of “irretrievable breakdown of marriage”. Taking the issue
beyond women’s rights groups to human rights groups. ICHR helpline of 1998. Manohar and NBA.
[Clip 5, 00:34:53—end] “How much is this a change in our understanding of gender?”
Response to legal developments of 2001, 2009, 2013, and 2018. Privacy debate. ‘No Going Back’ campaign at Azad Maidan, Bombay. Danger of assimilating the marginalised back into a heteronormative structure. NALSA as a fluke that’s slipping out of our hands.
[Clip 6, 00:00:00—00:13:41] Margins in forming the centre
Feminism and the manner in which every struggle about structure ends up being understood as identitarian. Benefits for the Right Wing. Question of who can speak for whom and the need for multiple voices as long as no one claims to be a single, all-inclusive voice. Example of the VAMP Manifesto and how it informs feminists on labour, sex, consent, care work and marriage.
[Clip 6, 00:13:41—Clip 7] “Sex is a redundant category”
Reversing the question to ourselves – how do we know our gender? Assignment of gender, not sex, at birth. Delinking the body from both. Concerns for transmen and the serious absence of a critique of masculinity. Being perturbed by changes in power.
[Clip 8] What is not being looked at
Violence that trans women face in childhood. Stories of those who remained men. Reversing the question with caste as well. Critique of left scholarship. Discussion on power and ethics.
The audio file, transcript and original video footage of this interview are available on request. To access these please write to us at qamraarchive@nls.ac.in.
Cite as: TJAV01.033, Chayanika Shah, 2019, series I, T. Jayashree Video Collection, QAMRA Archival Project at NLSIU.