i can't believe i'm writing this, but @emeraldmercury, here we go.
disclaimer: nsfw, prolly. idk. this is academic interpretation of history. i do not intend to hurt the sentiments of any individual, community, caste, gender, sect, or religion.
im currently reading Same-Sex Love in India by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai, which informs the following texts.
first things first, no, hindu and associated folds do have popular native texts talking about same-sex desire, gender variance, and non-normative sexuality. in fact, we talk extensively about the lgbtqia+ community.
ancient india/subcontinent was not uniformly chill about homosexuality, but it also was not uniformly hostile in the modern sense. different texts, traditions, regions, and communities acknowledged, accepted, punished, represented, or moralised these things in different ways.
the Manusmriti, one of the most cited texts within the hindu legal tradition, distinguishes between consensual sex between two women, and one woman sexually assaulting another. the latter is punished more severely (obv), but the former is still punished.
in the Arthashastra and in Mahabharata, ayoni (non-vaginal sex) is punishable by the 'first fine', the lowest category of fine. interestingly, male same-sex acts are often treated more harshly than female same-sex acts.
The Skanda Purana declares that those who have homosexual sex or prakirna maithunah (different varieties of sex) become impotent
(side note: some of these texts can certainly be attributed to shifting historical conditions and evolving power structures. but it is practice, not abstraction, that transforms the material conditions of the world. as we see today, what matters is not simply what a civilization or its texts claim to uphold, but how that authority is interpreted, distorted, and enacted in practice. It is that distortion, and, by extension, the power structures that enable and sustain it, that must be confronted.)
however, alongside these moral-legal codes, we also have Shikhandi's sex change, Kamasutra's "the third nature" and "external appearance make no difference to the internal desire", Hari-Hara (Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva, not Goddess Shivā) as parents of Ayyapa, gender-fluid and cross-gender motifs, folk tales like "Dohri Joon or Dohri Zindagi or Double Life" erotic temple art such as Khajuraho, and iconographic complexity such as Nataraja (a masculine iconography) in tribhanga (a very popular feminine dance pose).
also, many stories within the fold changed forms, emphasis, and moral framing as they travelled across regions and communities.
the point i am borrowing from this section: not that precolonial india was a queer utopia, but that there was a diversity of acknowledgement, acceptance, punishment, perception, and representation.
The Argument of "Islamic Import"
yes, classical Islamic jurisprudence did prohibit same-sex sexual acts. but that does not mean muslim societies were uniformly or consistently anti-gay in the modern sense, just as ancient indian culture was not uniform in its acceptance.
the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughals, and wider Indo-Persian culture(s) had a much more complicated relationship with same-sex desire. homoerotic poetry, praise of male beauty, intimate male bonds, gender variance, and courtly expressions of same-sex longing appear across the literary and historical record.
there is, of course, the example of Alauddin Khalji and Malik Kafur. Malik Kafur, also known as Malik Na'ib and Hazar-Dinari (a name that is often seen as a symbolic compliment, no consensus over the 1000 gold coins trade being an actual thing that happened). altho, later scholars have read the relationship between Alauddin and Kafur in different ways (political, emotional, homoerotic, or some combination of these). so i would not treat it as a simple "proof" of sexuality, but it is absolutely part of the record through which same-sex intimacy and power are discussed in medieval Indo-Muslim history.
(side note: "But Baruni..." Baruni also hated rationalists. He hated everything and everyone. He was Hater™️)
for the Mughals, Babur (the founder) himself is often read by historians and queer scholars through a homoerotic lens because of passages in the Baburnama (Autobiography), where he writes intensely about his attraction to a young man named Baburi.
may none be as i, humbled and wretched and love sick;
no beloved as thou art to me, cruel and careless
nor power to go was mine, nor power to stay;
i was just what you made me, o thief of my heart
translation by Wheeler M. Thackston from original Turki
anyway, away from the risk of flattening historical dynamics to modern standards, the text does give us a striking example of same-sex desire being recorded by a major Muslim ruler.
we also have works such as Mutribi Samarqandi’s The Fair and the Dark Boys, from the later Mughal world, where male beauty and same-sex longing appear very openly in literary form.
a hindu boy stole my wretched heart
he stole its tranquility and its calmness
my reason, my judgement, my endurance, my patience
all of these he stole with his laugh
as translated by Saleem Kidwai from orginal Persian
indo-muslim cultures have many, many similar poems and records. they are not marginal accidents.
that said, islamic legal discourse did condemn same-sex acts, and under famously conservative Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri or Rulings of Alamgir (regal title of Aurangzeb translating to "Conqueror of the World" or "Lord of the Universe") contributed to a more formalised legal framework. but even here, doctrine, court practice, literary culture, and social life did not always align neatly (re: timelines of literature, paintings, iconographies. you can work out literary timelines from the images provided).
additionally, and perhaps, most importantly, laws are not the whole of culture, as seen in the case of ancient india/subcontinent, mediaeval india/subcontinent, modern india/subcontinent, contemporary india/subcontinent. yk, inclusive of all known history.
for mediaeval india too, much like the ancient, the key idea is diversity of acknowledgement, acceptance, perception, punishment, and representation.
the legal, oppressively rigid, and institutional form of anti-lgbtqia+ repression in india is much more modern. the criminalisation of "unnatural offences" through now-repealed Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (1860) was a British colonial intervention, shaped by victorian sexual morality.
i confess, i remain tepid about some calls for cultural reclamation in india. yes, as a postcolonial society, we need it. but if we still refuse to shed the eurocentric lens in how we perceive and select our own history, and if we reduce medieval muslim culture or ancient hindu culture or christian colonialism to binary caricatures, then we are not reclaiming history. we are only replacing one simplification with another.
culture is not a monolith. please do not treat it as one.
