CHAMPIONS OF CHANGE

Presenting four individuals helping lead the charge for India’s LGBTQ+ community.

- SHWETA SHIWARE

Politics of Love

Curator, writer, and co-founder at Pink List India, Anish Gawande chooses the politics of love over hate, and says that it's time we involve queerness into this politics.

The closet that Anish Gawande built for himself when he was a teenager was a lot like the ones that other gay men of his age and ambition hid inside. "I wanted to work in politics so I spent years trying to reconcile my sexual orientation with aspirations for a career in public service," Gawande says, after a long pensive pause.

During his time at New York's Columbia University in 2015, he felt this duality of nervousness but readiness and he knew he had to put in the work. "I went to my campus therapist and said: 'I need your help to stay in the closet. She smiled at my 'unusual' request and offered to help." Her suggestion to relocate to a place where nobody knew him took Gawande to Paris to work at the Indian Embassy. "I kissed a boy for the first time at Queen [the now-shuttered popular queer nightclub in Paris]. It felt a little surreal, like I was in a Zoya Akhtar film!" he says excitedly.

Gawande finally came out in 2019, when he was 22. "I did toy with the option of keeping a lid on my private life and getting on with my political career. But I rejected [this option] on ethical grounds; if I'm going to [enter] politics, it's going to be as an out gay man."

The potential consequences of his worlds crashing into each other were yet another reminder that sexuality and gender identity remain dark, disruptive forces for many young adults. Not because you don't accept yourself-"but because you start to believe that you can't pursue your dreams because of who you are".