ABSTRACT
This paper critically analyses how queer and trans communities and organisations in recent years have voiced their support for other disenfranchised groups through activism. Based on participant observation in activist circles and intensive discussions in Pride marches across different parts of India, this chapter demonstrates a fundamental queer dialectics in contemporary India, practised by exercising agency and redefining queer existence via Hindu nationalistic ideals or developing resistance to them through collaborative justice. Reflections in the chapter are drawn from long and sustained friendships and collaborations built and nurtured with gender non-conforming community members who are furthering collaborative social action and strengthening democracy at a time when India’s rank in the Democracy Index (2020) slipped to 53rd.
