Cancelled, Silenced, Censored: The Quiet War on Queer Art in India

On April 26, Samaaj—a contemporary dance piece exploring same-sex desire—was set to take the stage at Jawahar Kala Kendra (JKK) in Jaipur. It never did.

Just hours before showtime, the government-run cultural centre withdrew its permission for the performance, citing objections raised by a cultural organisation with ideological differences. The performance, they claimed, was “against Indian culture.”

The abrupt cancellation has sent shockwaves across India’s arts community. But for queer artists—directors, performers, musicians and dancers—this is more than a symbolic setback. It represents a growing pattern of censorship and intimidation pushing LGBTQIA+ expression from public spaces.

The director, producer and choreographer of Samaaj, Jainil Mehta, recalls the moment with clarity: “I think I just handled the situation well, where I just had to make sure that we've come all the way to Jaipur, so let's figure out what to do. Because in Jaipur, what happened is that the theatre was cancelled. Of course, at that point, I need to make sure that we perform and we come back. There was no time actually to even process the theatre getting cancelled. We just had to figure out what's next.”

Despite the Jaipur setback, Samaaj went on to perform to a full house in Bengaluru. “I don't know if it is because of the whole cancellation or because Bangalore is just a lovely place for people to come and watch. I don't know what the reason was but we did have a house full show after the Jaipur cancellation.” Mehta notes.

Still, the incident marked a broader, more troubling trend. “Now we are really trying to ask the theatres as to what's what's like because you know the thing is theatres, I mean not just this theatre but there are a couple of other theatres well renowned ones that have also denied us post this cancellation also.”. The barriers aren't just logistical; they are layered. “There are two kinds of hindrances. One is as an art piece itself. And second it being LGBTQ art.”

Filmmaker Onir whose work has long centred queer lives in Indian cinema, speaks plainly, “There is a society in place which is trying to intimidate queer artists from creating content and expressing themselves. And if anyone tells you otherwise, they are fooling themselves.”

Living With Fear

Across India, queer artists describe a shrinking space for performance where the risk of reprisal looms constantly. Onir continues, “The only way we as queer artists survive is to live in constant fear, which is not acceptable. That fear has become the norm. And it is not okay.”

This extends beyond major institutions. Even small-scale events in independent venues face regular threats of closure. A queer singer, Soubhagya Soni*, performing in Mumbai bars under a pseudonym shares, “There’s always a moment right before I go up where I wonder—will someone film this and send it to the wrong person? Will they call the police? Will I become the next headline for the wrong reason?” They add, “So I change lyrics, tone things down. I hate it. But I also want to keep performing.”

Such concerns are well-founded. Numerous grassroots queer performances—particularly in Hindi, Marathi and Tamil—have faced online threats or last-minute venue cancellations. The silence from authorities only deepens the anxiety.

Onir adds, “You are constantly asked not to say something that might offend a certain group, but it’s only a certain group that gets to say what they want. They are never called out. They are never arrested. They are never booked for hate speech. But an artist will be immediately booked for hurting someone’s sentiments.”

Policing Performance

What makes the Samaaj incident especially troubling is that it targeted not a provocative protest piece, but a conceptual dance show—rooted in interpretation rather than confrontation. Yet this alone was perceived as threatening.

Jainil Mehta explains, “For example, in our play, we do have a lot of touch and partner work between the two men. So if the censorship comes from a place where you can't have such intimate scenes as two men, then there is an issue. But if it's coming because it's too close for a 12-year-old, then that's when we need to censor it and put it 18+, 16+, 21+.”

Vikram Phukan, a Guwahati-based theatre practitioner and artistic director of Theatre Jil Jil Ramamani, situates this within the wider ecosystem of queer theatre in India. “So, because the theatre world is a little cut away from the—even though it's public, it's not public like a cinema, right? Now, obviously, this incident happened at the centre that you talked about, but a lot of plays in the last 15 years or so—there have been, I think, at least—because I did one research project once, and we had identified more than 100 plays that had queer themes that were performing, right? So it's like the audiences are getting sensitised.”

Yet audience support does not guarantee institutional safety. As Phukan notes, disruptions often stem from outside actors with political motives, “The audiences aren’t the ones who are raising this trouble. It’s sometimes outside forces who came to know that a production is happening, they might have a problem, right?”

A drag performer, Pramil Sharma*, based in Delhi who often performs in fringe theatre spaces underlines this, “It’s not the people watching who are the threat—it’s the people who aren’t watching but think they know what we’re doing. They turn up with slogans, complaints, or even threats to the venue manager. That’s who we fear.” She recalls one incident in which she was asked to modify her costume at the last minute, “They said, just wear a saree without a blouse and keep the makeup ‘minimal’. Like, what is even minimal drag? I still performed—but I didn’t feel like myself.”

Institutional Roadblocks

Even when state institutions don’t cancel performances outright, they can obstruct behind the scenes—particularly through bureaucratic hurdles and archaic censorship systems.

Phukan recounts a revealing episode in Maharashtra, where theatre scripts must be approved by a state censor board, “I can give you one example when it comes to censorship, right? There is—in Maharashtra, you have to apply for a censor certificate of your scripts, right? You have to supply the censor board the script, they’ll go to the script and they send it back to you. So usually what I feel the practice is that most people sanitise their scripts and then they send them.”

“So, if you have any gullies or if you have any cuss words, they remove it so that the censor board—it just becomes like a perfunctory thing that they go through a script, give a red stamp or whatever stamp you call it, and say that you can now perform it and give you the censor certificate.”

Yet even the mere mention of queerness can trigger rejection. “I had particularly applied for a project which is about, let’s say, queer men, but it didn’t have any content which is sexual in nature. They would just happen to be queer men who are living their lives, right? So, there’s one page—there’s some pages where it’s mentioned that someone is gay. That also they have circled with red marks, right?”

The board’s objections, Phukan observes, are not about lewdness or disruption—but about identity itself. “They have a fundamental problem even with the word ‘gay’, right? So, which I found surprising because the situations are very ordinary situations in that particular layer.” Ultimately, he and his team sidestepped the process, “It was not something that we wanted to bother with because we were anyway performing those plays outside Bombay, outside Maharashtra. So, we just left the processes as that.”

Quiet Resistance

In an increasingly precarious landscape, many queer artists are finding alternative ways to sustain themselves—both creatively and emotionally.

Soubhagya says the key lies in community, “Sometimes it feels like we’re building something in secret—karaoke nights, open mics, tiny showcases. But those are our lifelines. It’s a scene, even if it’s underground.”

Pramil echoes this, “It’s not about getting into the big auditoriums anymore. It’s about finding people who’ll fight for you to be on stage, even if it’s in someone’s backyard.”

Onir remains undeterred by institutional setbacks. “I will continue telling my stories. I don’t want to die in fear.”

Jainil Mehta, too, refuses to self-censor. “I trust my play so much. And we have written 16+, because of the intimacy that's there between the two men. But it's not vulgar at all. It's not offensive and it's not obscene. And that I can give in writing for sure. I don't think so I would tweak anything or curtail to what other people say. Yeah, absolutely not. I wouldn't step back in any way.”

For him, Samaaj is no longer just a production—it’s a rebellion. “We've filed a legal notice against the theatre for denying us after we rented the space and all of that. It's going to be a long battle that Samaaj, and I, are going to fight.”

Disclaimer: To protect the privacy of individuals, some names have been changed.