Two Decades After ‘The Boyfriend’, Pioneer of Indian Queer Fiction, R Raj Rao, Warns Against a Forgetful Queer Future

In 2003, when Penguin India released The Boyfriend, R Raj Rao's debut work of fiction, a tragi-comic love story set in the chaotic heart of Mumbai, it became one of India's first openly gay novels, creating ripples in a literary landscape that had long avoided such explicit terrain. "Ironically enough, Penguin felt that they were doing something new and they marketed it quite well," Rao recalls as we sit down with him after his spotlight talk at the Rainbow Lit Fest 2025 at Gulmohar Club in Delhi, "They were proud of the fact that they were pushing the envelope and doing something which was the need of the hour."

Born in 1955 in Bombay, Rao had already established himself as a poet and short story writer before venturing into the novel form. His poetry collection 'BOMGaY' served as the basis for Riyad Vinci Wadia's 1996 film Bomgay, widely regarded as India's first gay film. Yet writing The Boyfriend was, as he describes it, "like a journey in a desert, you don't know where you're going." 

The book opens with protagonist Yudi cruising in Churchgate station, a detail that captures the reality of queer life in pre-Section 377 decriminalisation India. Rao is unapologetic about this: "When we began, it was not so much about a movement and politics; it was about having sex. I don't want to rule that out because the bottom line is that queer people can't pretend that it's only about rights and issues, it's not about sex."

Form Over Content in The Writer's Craft

For Rao, now an emeritus professor at the University of Pune with over 25 books to his name, the conversation around queer literature has often missed the point. "When you talk about gay writing, the outside world thinks that it's only about issues, it's only propaganda, it's only content," he observes with evident frustration. "They forget that writing is about form. If you're writing a novel, you have to think of the narrative technique, the characterisation, the dialogue, the setting, the point of view, these are aspects of form."

His resistance to being pigeonholed as merely a "gay writer" is palpable, though nuanced. "I don't feel boxed in that sense," he clarifies, "but I do feel boxed when, not here, because this is a full-fledged queer lit fest, but in other festivals where, of course, if there's a queer panel, then they call me there." Yet he's pragmatic about it, "For me writing is political, and one's identity is political—personal and political merge."

The Amnesia of Queer Indian Progress

What clearly troubles Rao most is what he calls the "amnesia" of the younger queer generation. "We get the feeling that the younger generation thinks that it all began with them, it all began with 2018, it all began with the decriminalisation," he says, referencing the landmark Supreme Court judgement that finally struck down Section 377. "But that's a myopic view."

The comparison with other movements is stark. "You think of the Dalit movement, everybody knows Ambedkar's work. With feminism again, starting with Western feminism, how it came to India, they know. But in our movement in India, because it was not that prominent, it's not known." He recounts his informal test at queer literature festivals, "If you take a mic and go around and ask these people who are sitting here, who is the first Indian gay writer, I don't think many people would know the answer to that."

Rao founded the Queer Studies Circle at Pune University following The Boyfriend's success and, after years of institutional resistance, established one of India's first LGBTQIA+ literature courses in 2007. "The Board of Studies refused to let us start the course, saying that 'Indian students do not need it,'" he recalls. "Finally, we clubbed it with Dalit literature and started it under the genre of Alternative Literature." Yet even this academic presence hasn't solved the problem of historical consciousness within the community.

Fighting Complacency in the Digital Age

The legal victories—the Delhi High Court judgement in 2009, and the final decriminalisation in 2018—have undoubtedly changed the landscape. "Two things have made it very easy now for the 21st century," Rao acknowledges. "One is the law, and the other is the internet, dating sites, cruising." But he's quick to add a caveat, "There's a lot more to be done. Marriage equality was lost, other kinds of rights that LGBTQIA+ people have wanted, and even representation."

His book Criminal Love? documents personal experiences of gay bashing and police harassment—realities he fears are being forgotten. "The current generation should know that they are not going through this. They are lucky, but it was not always like that." The violence of the past, he insists, must be remembered. "Police harassment, police setting people up, police acting as agent provocateurs, these things are specific to the LGBTQIA+ community."

At nearly 70, after a career spanning four decades, Rao's message is clear: "One has to quietly write. If you're invited, you can go, but don't expect too much out of it. Your focus is on your writing." He finds solace in the knowledge that "long after we are dead and gone, there is something called posterity. And that posterity might discover one's work." It's a patient, almost defiant vision, the radical utopian refusing to surrender to either silence or applause.