Pride Walk and Rainbow Capitalism

This year Kolkata Rainbow Pride Walk was held on 11 December in which I participated. Actually it was for the third time that I participated in Pride Walk. And I cannot resist the temptation to express my views on it. The origin of pride marches can be traced back to June 28, 1969, in the US city of Manhattan when patrons of a gay club, Stonewall Inn, clashed with the police following a raid. The protests continued for a week and the event was dubbed 'Stonewall Riots'. A year later, the community carried out what's believed to be the first gay pride event, called the Christopher Street Liberation Day (CSLD) March. It was a sombre march, a far cry from what the event is today. The basic idea was to announce to the world that they existed. And there were strong voices against cultural stereotyping: the group protested outside Time magazine's office against an article terming homosexuality "shallow and unstable". Pride walks question everybody who doesn't agree with other people's way of living their lives. The pride marches do not just question stereotypes; they also celebrate all that is quirky, unacceptable and generally disconcerting. 

In educational spaces, hospitals, workplaces, residential units, queer people continue to face discrimination, physical and sexual harassment, sometimes violence leading to death. Here it is important to note that India’s rape laws have been amended to include any form of non-consensual sexual activity (in other words, any consensual sexual act is not rape). So, how does consensual sex other than peno-vaginal penetration continue to be criminalised under section 377? The central government has been openly homophobic and transphobic in its attitude towards India’s millions of queer people. The struggles of queer people are also implicated in, and in solidarity with, many other struggles and movements. Queer struggles rest on a vision of an anti-caste, queer-feminist, non-ableist, secular world – a world without military occupation and without the suppression of dissent.

Rainbow capitalism (also called pink capitalism or gay capitalism) is a term used to describe the incorporation of the LGBTIQ movement and sexual diversity to capitalism and the market economy. Specifically, the term refers to the targeted inclusion of the gay community, which has acquired sufficient purchasing power to generate a market focused specifically on them. Examples of such targeted inclusion are bars and nightclubs, LGBT tourism, or specialized culture consumption. As mainstream support for LGBTQ rights becomes increasingly more accepted and championed in our culture, it is clear that we still do not know how to express empathy to LGBTQ communities without decentring the real issues. Pride is dangerously “in” these days, but increasing support from national corporations tends to drown out marginalized voices. The co-opting of the rainbow flag by corporations and banks has made it easy to show support for LGBTQ rights—but perhaps deceptively easy. Many young Americans have grown of age in a world where pride and queer identity are something to be bought. When corporations support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, they are really capitalizing on another unnamed identity: consumer. Corporate sponsors hope that when LGBTQ persons and allies embrace a spectrum of sexuality, they will also embrace their identities as patrons of Netflix, T-Mobile, ebay or Whole Foods. The Guardian notes that many of San Francisco Pride’s biggest sponsors, like Facebook and Google, contribute to the growing income inequality in Silicon Valley, while members of the LGBTQ community struggle with homelessness in skyrocketing numbers. Members of the LGBTQ community have rallied against Wells Fargo’s sponsorship in particular, criticizing the bank’s history of investing in private prisons that incarcerate LGBTQ persons, especially queer and trans people of colour, at disproportionate rates.

            In India, in Delhi Pride Walk one can notice the obvious presence of English-speaking, highly educated, elite class people. But in Kolkata there is a remarkable presence of queer people belonging to working class. In KRPF, the masks that are used are mainly handmade. But in a way or other it helps market economy to make profit from this. In cities like Delhi, pride walk has turned into elite class propaganda forgetting its primary aim that is to eliminate all sorts of discriminations. From 2009 to 2013, there were investments in Indian pride walks by various big corporate. But after the 2013 Supreme Court verdict they shied away. Government follows a double standard. On the one hand it gives permission for pride walk; on the other it oppresses queer people in every sphere of life. Our society is a heteronormative, patriarchal, capitalist one the only aim of which is to make money in whichever way possible. This society needs constant supply of human labour the source of which is reproduction. The only kind of relationship that it endorses is that between legally married couple. So, it takes the queer people to be “other”. It does not care for the rights of those people, but in some way or other uses them for its own profit. Pride Walk is a protest against this, but one thing we should keep in mind that this protest should not beget other kinds of discriminations.