Gay Today: World

India's First Gay Newsmagazine
Going On-Line

By Jack Nichols

"There are lots of things happening here," says India's gay activist pioneer, Ashok Row Kavi, "and our magazine, Bombay Dost, (Bombay Friend) goes on-line this week."

"Until it does go on-line," says the activist, "you can go to www.humsafar.org and look up the things we do."

These sites mark the proud emergence of India's fledgling gay movement publication onto the Internet.

(Later this week) Bombay Dost: www.Bombay-Dost.com

Both Ashok Row Kavi, (See GayToday's Interview by Perry Brass) and Bombay Dost, which he edits, have represented same-sex love and affection in this nation of a billion people (see GayToday's Environment/ Technology) for nearly a decade.

When he first appeared on the scene speaking for India's gay movement in the early 1990s, Newsweek magazine profiled the activist. An Indian government spokesperson denied in that article that homosexuals exist in India.

Bombay Dost is the only gay magazine published in India. According to Perry Brass it is "now published on an irregular, quarterly schedule." But, he says, " Despite its irregularity, Bombay Dost is influential."

Prior to the emergence of the Indian publication onto the Internet, it had, explains Brass, "a print run of 3 to 4,000 copies, each copy is passed around by gay men constantly, so that 20 to 25 people see each one.

"Therefore, it reaches a readership of roughly 100,000 people. This would make the paper compare easily to The Advocate in the U.S., but in India, with its huge population, something easily lost."

Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
India's Pioneer: Ashok Row Kavi

India: Officials Recertify 'Fire' --Lesbian-Themed Film

India's Lesbians Organize

Related Sites:
Bombay Dost

The Humsafar Trust

GayToday does not endorse related sites.

"Ashok," writes Perry Brass, "believes the Indian gay movement—and Indian gay consciousness on a whole—can be compared to America in the 50s and early 60s. There is no 'official' construction of gay identity.

"Most people simply deny that gay men and lesbians exist. Homosexuality is illegal, a holdover from the British raj days; it is forbidden by Section 377 of the Indian penal code which condemns 'sex against the Order of Nature.' "