🗓️ Date published : 09/12/2022
<aside> ➡️ Click here for Part-I
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<aside> ➡️ In this second part of the conversation, Parmesh talks about addressing casteism in Indian corporate spaces, possibilities of bottom-up change in corporations, queer futures and takes questions from the audience.
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Image via Platform
Nilanjan Dey: Ok, so I want to pick up on two threads you have already spoken about :you mentioned there was this challenge of bringing in the question of caste in corporate spaces, and how when you bring in the concept of queerness with caste, they don’t acknowledge it, right? It’s not just a question of those in the employee class but also the working class, what about those that have been working in the plants, or factories? In practice what have been the challenges, and what will it take to finally forefront the question of caste and ensure more inclusivity in the workplace?
Parmesh Shahani: So again, I have done a bit of jugaad, if they don’t want to talk about it this way, we do a film festival or we do a panel to talk about Queerness to talk about caste. They don’t want to talk about religion, but at their leadership conference I will call Dr Ruha Shadab who heads Led By foundation, an organisation which has done incredible work but which also published a study on discrimination against Muslim women in the workplace. They think that they are listening to someone talk about women in the workplace but before they know it they are talking about Muslims in the workplace, and you can’t ask the speaker to leave. So, there are ways of going around stuff, for that you have to negotiate all these negotiations. One is how you create a space where you can interject what you want. Second, is structurally how you create learning programs for people to understand their own privilege, question their own biases . I think that works at a senior leadership level. What I have found is, that whether its colleges, whether its institutions, India works in hierarchy, boss says karna hai, everyone does, principal says we’re going to do this, it happens. Sadly, in India companies are also mostly family owned, a large number of them are. Family members say this is what is going to happen. As a way out, I would say focus on where you can put the pressure, you can’t put pressure everywhere. Figure out who matters in the organisation, I’ve done that. In organizations I’ve worked, there would invariably be allies among the higher-ups. ,, I would request them to write this emails to everyone, so we would write emails on International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, and send them. Typically, such allies would take a tough stance:  if people had problems with such gestures of solidarity they would be shrugged off. People were also like boss ne keh diya now we have to. So, it’s Jugaad resistance and being very very chalu but just enough to not get fired.
Nilanjan Dey: What about corporations where there isn’t will at the leadership level, is there a possibility of bottom- up change?
Parmesh Shahani: There is a possibility of top down, bottom-up, side se, everything, because corporations listen to the Economic Times, they listen to the Mint, they listen when work surveys say you are not inclusive because you don’t have this. So, figure out what matters to other people. Prestige matters to some, so then tell them that according to FICCI, CIAM who’re their partners that if you’re not LGBTQ inclusive then you are not prestigious. And now every CIAM, FICCI conference, come what may there is a queer panel, and we tell them what? You’re from this company? tsk tsk We have heard very bad things. So, figure out what people’s drivers are, you have to be very psychological, and very manipulative. And trust me, you’d know this, we’ve been manipulating our parents also. I’ve used whatever, the prestige angle, the money angle. I think companies are changing, and I think state governments are also changing, which is quite exciting, because now we have competition between states. We have Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Chattisgarh which are competing for foreign investment, competing for talent, with an understanding that if we move up the curve in terms of how we treat women, sexual minorities, we can do better. There’s enough data out there which says if at the state level you create a more inclusive environment then you attract talent, you attract investment. For them to get it, figure out what button to press. That we have to do.
Nilanjan Dey: So, I have one last question, then we’ll go to the audience, I just wanted to hear a little bit about what your views are on the huge amount of focus that the legal movement has gotten within the movement Do you think there are parts of the movement that have become skewed because of this whole focus on law, and what are the kinds of Queer futures that you think we need to invest in?
Parmesh Shahani: I don’t think the legal movement got much traction.I mean it did get some publicity around the time of the verdict and so on. Besides that  I don’t think the general public really knows Even Ayushmann Khurrana, who has played a gay character, in an interview after that he actually said now that 377 is gone now gay marriage can happen. Ayushmann, no! Who tutored you on set? And he played very well, he acted very well and even he doesn’t know, so where is the hope?! I don’t think the general public would know a lot. I think the law has gotten attention around the verdict but I don’t think people have understood what it means. The general public still think haan 377 gaya now everything is ok for you. I have to say no baba, there is no anti-discrimination, there is no marriage equality. So I don’t think the law has translated into people really understanding. That’s number one. Number two is I don’t think that people who need to uphold the law have understood. I don’t think the police or offices have been sensitised. I don’t think that any office you go to as a trans person, you are treated with respect. Even if it’s a simple Ration Card changing form. Law happened, some judgement came, but discrimination is still going on in every place but no one has invested to counter it. At least private companies have invested in sensitisation, but we deal a lot with the government in our lives, whether it’s the public sector corporations, or just various authorities and that level of sensitivity just hasn’t come. And that is why I actually think that the future is federal, to answer your question about the future. I think it is federal. I think a lot more work now has to be done within states, not at the national level. And we need to take experiments that work within one state to other states. For example. Grace Banu, a Dalit trans engineer in Tamil Nadu, started something called Sandeep Nagar which is an agricultural daily cooperative run by trans women giving the labour, the Tamil Nadu government has given the land, and private companies are giving cows, animal feed, etc. It is a dairy farm. Public private partnership And thus a win, win! Corporations are happy because they can look for talent, they can get them and at some point they can start selling it to them. Government is happy because they are upskilling. Trans people are happy because they have jobs and they’re selling the milk for profits. Why is not every state saying we need to take this and why is not every progressive state saying we need to take this and scale this up. Why is this not becoming the next Amul of India. There is amazing work coming out of Manipur which is my favourite queer organisation, Raipur and Chattisgarh have great pride parades and doing incredible work. There is such good stuff happening in non-urban areas that we don’t think of in popular imagination. We only think of Delhi and Bombay. We don’t realise there is a lot happening outside of these regions, whether in homes, families, on Instagram, there’s a lot of stuff happening, Trans people getting awards from the president of the country and using the awards ceremony to create such a wonderful gesture of inclusion. The out and proud Dutee Chand carrying both the India flag and the Pride flag, for instance. The futures are going to be federal, are going to be multiple, in homes, schools, colleges etc. and it’s going to be led by young people who didn’t have voices earlier but are most certainly speaking in multiple voices.
Nilanjan Dey: That’s exciting! So, I’m going to open this up for the Q & A.