Queer Language India: How English Dominance Erases Regional LGBTQIA+ Expression

In the bustling corridors of Indian universities and urban LGBTQIA+ spaces, conversations about identity, desire, and belonging increasingly unfold in English. Yet this linguistic dominance masks a profound loss—the erosion of centuries-old vernacular LGBTQIA+ expression that once flourished in regional languages across the subcontinent. From the 11th-century Sanskrit terms swayamvara sakha and swayamvara sakhi to the playful Urdu vocabulary of 18th-century poetry, India's linguistic heritage reveals a rich tapestry of non-heteronormative expression that predates Western queer theory by centuries.

This English colonisation of queerness in contemporary India represents more than mere translation difficulties. It reflects deeper power dynamics that privilege English-educated elites whilst marginalising vernacular speakers, creating hierarchies within LGBTQIA+ communities themselves. As activism, academia, and discourse consolidate around English terminology, we risk not only losing linguistic diversity but also excluding vast populations whose experiences of gender and sexuality find no space in imported frameworks. The challenge of developing authentic queer language India requires urgent attention to preserve both cultural heritage and contemporary inclusion.

The Historical Richness of Vernacular Queer Expression

Regional languages have long possessed sophisticated vocabularies for non-normative gender and sexual expression, challenging the notion that queerness arrived in India through Western influence. This rich tradition of vernacular LGBTQIA+ expression demonstrates how regional language gender identity concepts have evolved organically within Indian cultural contexts. Professor Ruth Vanita, author of Same-Sex Love in India, documents this extensively: "In my book Same-Sex Love in India (2000), I wrote about several terms I discovered in Indian literature, such as swayamvara sakha and swayamvara sakhi, used for a self-chosen same-sex companion in the 11th-century Sanskrit book, Kathasaritsagara."

These historical precedents extend beyond Sanskrit into regional traditions. Vanita notes that her research into "18th-century Urdu poetry and prose" revealed terms such as dogana, zanakhi, guiyan for a woman's intimate female companion, and chapti for sex between women, chapatbaaz for a woman inclined to such sex." Such specificity suggests not merely awareness but cultural integration of diverse sexual practices.

Contemporary vernacular literature continues this tradition of bold expression. Saikat Majumdar, Professor of English and Creative Writing at Ashoka University, observes how regional languages venture into territories that English-language queer writing might consider too risky: "The most defining difference between queer writing in English and the regional vernaculars is that the latter quite easily ventures into spaces that English-language work, being liberal in spirit, would find politically too risky to enter." This fearlessness in Indian queer literature reflects deeper cultural authenticity.

Majumdar cites Entering the Maze: The Queer Fiction of Krishnagopal Mallick as exemplifying this fearless approach: "It's quite fascinating as it is a no-holds-barred autobiographical projection of gay identity in mid-20th century Calcutta that would be considered quite politically incorrect today." This willingness to embrace complexity and contradiction, rather than conforming to contemporary political orthodoxies, demonstrates vernacular literature's capacity for authentic self-expression.

The Flattening Effect of English Dominance

The wholesale adoption of English terminology has created what writer Kinshuk Gupta, managing editor at Usawa Literary Review, describes as "a flattening of nuance, existence, and ways of being." This linguistic imperialism operates through seemingly progressive channels—universities, activist organisations, and cultural institutions—yet reproduces colonial hierarchies of knowledge and expression.

Gupta illustrates this through his analysis of hyperlocal subcultures: "How do we even begin to understand other hyperlocal subcultures like dhakka start or susu ranis? Which labels do we assign them? Where would they fit in the neat boxes of gay, transgender, non-binary? They don't. They exist in their own playful, provocative, community-specific spaces that resist categorisation."

This resistance to categorisation represents more than linguistic preference; it embodies entirely different approaches to identity formation. Vernacular expressions often prioritise fluidity over fixed categories, community specificity over universal labels, and lived experience over theoretical frameworks. The insistence on translating these into English equivalents strips away their cultural resonance and political power.

Vanita argues that this translation imperative reflects broader ideological colonisation: "The use of the term 'queer' itself indicates a wholesale importation of identities and ideas from the West. If we do not agree with whatever political positions certain activists have decided are 'queer' then we are excluded." This exclusion operates not merely through language but through the entire conceptual apparatus that accompanies English terminology.

Structural Barriers and Elite Gatekeeping

The dominance of English in LGBTQIA+ discourse creates multiple layers of exclusion that intersect with class, caste, and educational privilege. This linguistic exclusion extends systematically through employment, social networks, and community resources. Gupta observes how supposedly inclusive initiatives reproduce these hierarchies: "I see many job descriptions for queer people, but the salaries being offered are abysmal. Only queer people who are fluent in English and are well-groomed get a chance in bigger firms." Even organisations claiming to prioritise marginalised voices maintain "the unspoken assumption that these queer people will belong to the upper set, know their English well."

The academic sphere, supposedly committed to critical analysis, perpetuates these exclusions. Vanita identifies how "a small set of elite activists and humanities and social science academics at elite universities" import Western theoretical frameworks wholesale, recycling "whatever the flavour of the year is—queer failure or queer death or queer citizenship" through Indian institutions "with most of the meaning and originality wrung out of them."

Sharma emphasises how caste and class intersections compound these exclusions: "Class is a very big issue in all these spaces. Because who gets to speak from the community perspective depends on—It's a humongous thing in our community." This dynamic ensures that upper-caste, upper-class voices dominate advocacy with profound implications for policy priorities and resource allocation.

Reclaiming Vernacular Queerness

Despite these structural challenges, efforts to reclaim vernacular queer expression continue across languages and regions. These initiatives face both linguistic and cultural obstacles, as languages themselves must evolve to accommodate contemporary realities whilst maintaining authentic connections to their roots.

Gupta's experience writing Hindi queer fiction illustrates these challenges: "It was incredibly difficult to find words in Hindi to explain what my characters were going through. Hindi is a gendered language. For example, the pronoun they would often be translated as ve in Hindi, which is used for non-living things, or as napunsakling (neuter gender) in Sanskrit."

Rather than simply translating English terms, Gupta advocates for community-driven linguistic innovation: "Why can't we all sit together and decide on some grammatical convention for ourselves? Even if you do a good translation of the words in Hindi, what do you really get if those words do not sit easily on the colloquial tongue?" This approach requires sustained collective effort rather than top-down linguistic prescriptions.

The potential for reclamation exists within vernacular traditions themselves. Gupta points to the term meetha: "A lot of people would find it insulting. For me, it never felt that way. Meetha means being sweetened—a man softening into a more feminine form. Isn't that exactly what happened with the word queer? That word too was once used as an insult and was later reclaimed. Why can't we reclaim our own words?"

Such reclamation efforts must acknowledge the lived experiences of vernacular speakers. Vanita documents numerous cases of women in rural areas expressing same-sex love without any identity terminology: "The hundreds of mostly female, non-English speaking, low-income couples all over the country, who, since the 1980s have gotten married by Hindu rites or committed joint suicide, did not use any identity terms, and certainly not 'queer.' These women speak about love, an unfashionable term."

This emphasis on love rather than identity categories suggests alternative frameworks for understanding non-heteronormative relationships—frameworks rooted in emotional connection rather than political positioning, in lived experience rather than theoretical abstraction.

The future of queer language India depends on recognising that linguistic colonisation of Indian queerness represents a profound loss of cultural heritage and contemporary possibility. By privileging English terminology and Western theoretical frameworks, we not only exclude vernacular speakers from LGBTQIA+ discourse but also impoverish the conceptual resources available for understanding gender and sexuality. The path forward requires sustained commitment to developing vernacular vocabularies that honour both traditional wisdom and contemporary realities, ensuring that India's rich linguistic diversity remains central to its queer future.