Abstract: This talk will put forth homopopulism as a popular relationality in shifting contexts of inclusion/exclusion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) identified persons. A new layer of queer politics is visible in contemporary India. Hinged between older colonial discourses, current neoliberal systems, and promises by state actors to include LGBTQ concerns, sexuality is explicitly and implicitly mobilized to create, claim, and resist the present social. I argue that homopopulism, along with homonationalism and homocapitalism, offers a useful reference point to understand how a complex democracy, consisting of right-wing, left-liberal, and centrist state practices, uses populist discourses and methods to gradually mobilize LGBTQ identities for thin-centred ideologies without necessarily having to create a recognizable population group with affirmative action policies and anti-discriminatory guarantees, as facilitating conditions for a liveable life.

Speaker: Dr Niharika Banerjea, Professor, Jindal Global Law School, O. P. Jindal Global University