Criminal Love?: Queer Theory, Culture, and Politics in India

199 Pages·2017·5.296 MB·English

by  R Raj Rao

“India’s first and only gay Criminal Love? takes up the challenge of
theorist worth reading.” studying the wide gamut of lived reality
of the Indian queer against the backdrop
Hoshang Merchant,
Poet and Former Professor, of a set of theories. Written by a man
University of Hyderabad, India who has been openly gay for the last 40
years, this book picks up issues, concepts,
and theories within the realm of queer
“A courageous book that
studies and dissects them against the
does not shy away from
day-to-day experiences of Indian queers.
contested territory and
Digging deep into his own experiences
will challenge our ideas of
and those of the people with whom he
what it might mean to be
has come into contact, Rao highlights the
‘queer’.”
sites of transgression within a seemingly
Ingrid Hotz-Davies, monosexual society and analyzes all the
Professor, University of aspects of the struggle of being queer in
Tübingen, Germany
a repressive atmosphere.
R. Raj Rao is Professor and Head, Department of English,
Savitribai Phule Pune University, India. One of the best-known
faces of gay-rights activism in India, he has several fiction and
nonfiction works to his credit.

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ISBN 978-93-864-4649-7
9 789386 446497
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Advance Praise
R. Raj Rao has written on India’s gay life for thirty years with
wit, insight and incisiveness. He always factors in class and
caste. Here is the quintessential Raj Rao in a book which is the
climax of his work as India’s first and only gay theorist worth
—Hoshang Merchant,
reading.
Poet and Former Professor,
University of Hyderabad
Prof. Rao’s book brings together the major concerns of Queer
Theory with the often conflicted and conflictual sexual poli-
tics of his own native India, and in doing so he effortlessly
starts up a lively and politically astute conversation between
Western queer theory and literary practice and those practic-
ing and critiquing the sexual mores and sexuality-debates in
India. In equal measures knowledgeable and passionate about
both ends of the conversation, this is an important and valu-
able contribution to our understanding of the politics of sex
in a transcultural frame of reference where different voices,
including the author’s own, continually question and inflect
each other. It is also a courageous book that does not shy away
from contested territory and will challenge our ideas of what
—Ingrid Hotz-Davies,
it might mean to be ‘queer’ in India or elsewhere.
Professor, Universität Tübingen

Criminal
love
?

Criminal
love
?
Queer Theory, CulTure,
and PoliTiCs in india
r. raj rao
Copyright © R. Raj Rao, 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without
pFierrsmt pisusbiolinsh iend w inr i2ti0n1g7 f rboym the publisher.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Raj Rao, R. (Ramachandrapurapu), author.
Title: Criminal love?: queer theory, culture, and politics in India/R. Raj Rao.
Description: Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE, 2017. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017020155 | ISBN 9789386446497 (pbk.: alk. paper) |
ISBN 9789386446503 (epub 2.0) | ISBN 9789386446510 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Gays—India. | Gay rights—India. | Queer theory—India.
Classification: LCC HQ76.3.I4 R35 2017 | DDC 306.76/60954—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017020155
ISBN:
SAGE Team:
978-93-864-4649-7 (PB)
Rajesh Dey, Guneet Kaur Gulati, Shaonli Deb and Ritu Chopra
For Dibyajyoti Sarma