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Rabia Javed

An exploration of the changing dimensions of Indigenous concept of Queer in Faiqa Mansab’s

This House of Clay and Water

Introduction:

Indigenous refers to ‘native, local’, something that originates from a particular place. In this particular

research the locality which would be explored is Lahore, the city of Pakistan. The context is of South

Asia. The writer of the novel

Literature Review:

Contemporary Literature outlays an understanding of Queer that has surfaced,

transformed and manipulated over time. Queer has always been a part of human identity and has

existed within and outside anthology. The idea and taboo of it is still persisting within many

countries that connotates the subject of it still as ‘pervasive’. Turning the pages of history of the

third world would take us to the times where Mughal regimes of South Asia celebrated the

transgender communities by appointing them as high court officials’. Chief eunuchs in Mughal

courts served as army generals, harem guards and advisors to the emperors. Such genders and

non-normative strata used to reach high statuses; and accumulate affluence within the status-co.

Later, the manifestation of the colonial project singlehandedly managed to erase and stigmatize
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the queer narratives in many other cultures, from the face of the world. There are two tiers given

in the light of this concept; where one is born queer but as Judith Butler puts it that “Gender is

performative” (527); conforming to the idea that individual performance is highly influenced by

practices of heteronormativity, which are dominantly adopted and enforced within the society, at

large.

Sara Ahmed, a British Australian scholar whose area of study includes the intersection of

feminist theory, lesbian feminism, queer theory, critical race theory and post-colonialism,

focuses on the lived experience of queer rather than its sheer phenomenology, within her

writings. In her book “Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others”, published in 2006,

the writer deconstructs queer as to be wonky, twisted or bent concept. In a nutshell, it is

something that stands apart from the normative and ‘straight’. The social space excludes the ones

not conforming to the ideals of heteronormativity. She concludes it as one of the reasons for

queer factions inhabiting within different isolated spaces, at the margins. The writer further

theorizes her theoretical framework in the essay “Multiculturism and The Promise of

Happiness”, where she argues on certain ideas and objects; like how the construct of, marriage,

family, and heterosexual intimacy, is perceived as a “happy objects” that withholds the promise

of future happiness as per dictated by the society. These abstract objects, the writer deconstructs,

exist even in “the absence of happiness by filling a certain gap; we anticipate that the object will

cause happiness, such that it becomes a prop that sustains the fantasy that happiness is what

would follow if only we could have ‘it’” (Ahmed 32). Her research precisely revolves around

those individuals and groups that are figured as abnormal or divergent, because they are already

perceived as unhappy. They are the ones who essentially try to seek the happy in the unexpected
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objects, generally considered to be the taboos of society. By circling her study around figures

such as the “feminist killjoy, unhappy queer, and melancholic migrant,” she deploys the

necessity of dissociating our sham conception of happiness from what is unquestionably “good”

and interrogates the “‘unhappy archives’” whereupon each figure embodies as a way of

illuminating alternative modes of living (Ahmed 17). The existence of a certain narrative could

not deviate itself from its anti-narrative which is grounded into it. Likewise the enforcement of

the ideals of conformed happiness are celebrated due to the existence of objects connotated with

unhappiness directed towards the ills of society without a discourse generated onto it.

Adrienne Rich in her essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”

analyzes the notion of ‘compulsive heterosexuality’ within the nomenclature. She draws her

primary argument around the family structure and how it imposes the replication of conformed

choices onto the children which in return shape their future choices, taking them to go down, the

same ladder and hence experience alike emotions substantiating heterosexuality and

heteronormative family setups. She traces this notion as a schema through which male power

also manifests it-self in all forms with patriarchal societies where a women becomes its explicit

victim leading to the unsatisfying and oppressive components of her life. The crux of her

argument lies within these lines:

“Biologically men have only one innate orientation, a sexual one that draws them to

women, while women have two innate orienta-tions, sexual toward men and reproductive

toward their young” (Rich 12)

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Gopinath Gayatri in her essay, “Queer diasporas: Gender, sexuality and migration in

contemporary South Asian Literature and Cultural Production,” makes a highlighting

contribution into the absolute notion of misunderstanding of the non-heterosexual identities. She

analyzes the concept in the confines of social, political, economical and historical aspect. She

interconnects all of these binaries and analyzes the interrogation of fixed understanding of non-

heterosexuality in light of diasporas, globalised family structures and postcolonial contexts. She

further elaborates onto the mediation of these linkages and their manifestation fuelled by the

prevalent power structures within the discourses which are extremely gendered and manipulative

in nature. The core of her argument revolves around Queer diasporas in context of South Asia.

The writer breaks the taboo of non-existence of queer female desire by rejecting the sham

nationalist agendas disassociating themselves from the possibility of intersection between

‘SouthAsian-ness’, referring to homosexuality. Her research is a significant contribution towards

the de-whitening of the Queer theory from the Western cannon and gives an outlook onto the

South Asian queer disaporas adding into the multiplicity and richness of the sub-altern.

Sexuality is political and has its roots within the social material constructs which are led

by power structures. Rubin in her essay, “Thinking sex: Notes for a radical theory of the politics

of sexuality” published in 2002, maintains a diversity of interest in sexuality while never loosing

focus on the overarching dichotomy of power and its constructs; she talks about the history of

sadomasochism, lesbianism and the emergence of gay rights in the light of the existing social

theories. According to Rubin, sexuality has its own underlying politics, inequities and modes of

oppression due to which it results. The basic argument that she runs within her essay is that

sexuality is political just like the gender. The system in power since the dawn of time has
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restricted the term sexuality into a delusional manner and has traversed it likely. The legislative

restructuring in terms of laws made in the nineteenth century has effected and controlled the

threads of it, that fall in their favor. She gives a historical analysis onto how the nineteenth

century morality is still enforced and internalized by the masses at large. Rubin gives a detailed

critique on to the idea of ‘sexual essentialism’ that is ascribed by many theorists who believe that

sexuality is asocial, unchanging and has nothing to do with the human’s upbringing, culture and

circumstances. The contemporary queer theories and movements are the result of a great

repression, she qualifies. The idea of morality is more indebted into a person’s sexual orientation

rather than the negation of basic human values. By not denouncing the violent acts on the

‘Otherised’ communities, the system legitimizes its unjust acts and sets a prerogative of its valid

continuation. She further gives a comparison onto how sexuality is organized in large power

structures and has pros related to it, which reward a few while suppresses the other, at large. The

writer focuses on the value of empirical research and the centrality of sexuality in the basic and

indigenous understanding of our society.

Mrinalini Sinha in her article “Nationalism and Respectable sexuality in India” puts light

on the ‘respectable’ and ‘perverse ‘sexualities; interconnecting it with the bourgeois spirited

nationalism in context of South Asia. She inter-relates the concept of heterosexuality and

nationalism as the mutually dominative structure. The state-run narrative and the tools that

legitimize a certain ideology are scrutinized by Sinha. She highlights on the late nineteenth and

early twentieth century discourses between the elite bourgeois nationalists and the colonial

officials. According to her, this narrative reciprocated towards the rootedness of heterosexual

family structures within the colonized India. There were proper legislations within that era such
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as the Age of Consent Act (1891) and the Child Marriage Restraint Act (1929), which reinforced

the pre-existing confined spaces of the defined sexuality within its spheres. The writer makes a

significant addition onto the idea where there were blurred lines drawn between “homosexuality”

and “sexual perversion”. She emphasizes onto the need of communicating that relevant

knowledge at large and educating masses, how not to misconstrue both the terms as it is done by

the most. A new discourse of sexuality even though not verbalized but it has played a vital role

into the representation of the nation as a modern community to the outside world.

The above mentioned researchers, in coherence, have the same underlying argument as

given by Michele Foucault in his “The History of sexuality”, in terms of the dichotomy between

power and knowledge that he creates. Foucault concedes to the idea of regulation of sexual

behavior through structural means but rejects the idea that sexuality was not talked about or was

ever repressed. Rather, he argues on it giving it the title “the repressive hypothesis” claiming that

the repression exerted through legislations by the means of state regulated professions like

doctors, psychiatrists, educationists was not about restricting the discourse but generating

excessive dialogue on it. The idea that sexual orientations and its cons were addressed through

religious Catholic scholars and state institutions in terms of controlling populations and masses;

teaching the populous about normative relationships makes it the most talked about subject in its

retrospect. According to Foucault, sexuality is not ‘natural’ but is constructed through discourse.

He considers it a reason, to how from laws and morals, sexuality has now become a matter of

identity hinting upon the “birth of homosexuality” and its increasing affirmation. His basic

argument lies within his construct of power and knowledge where he defines discourse as,
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“Discourses are not once and for all subservient to power or raised up against it, any

more than silences are. We must make allowance for the complex and unstable process whereby

discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling

block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and

produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes

it possible to thwart it.” (357)

Hence, it becomes clear that Modernity inherently does not lie in the essence of accepting

subjectivity within sexuality but rather embracing the idea that it has existed through all these

times and yet negated by certain power structures to maintain their hegemonic hierarchy, by

having full control over people’s thoughts and how they perceive sexuality. The idea of what

essentially is ‘respectable’ sexuality still remains under hegemonic influences and vice versa.

Many studies have explored the aspects of queer theory prevailing within the status-co.

Researchers have studied how the manifestation of heteronormativity is rooted within the state

apparatuses and hence gives birth to transgression within the society which negates the existence

of the non-normative. However, there has not been given much attention to the relationship of

Queer as an indigenous idea in the context of South-Asia and Muslim countries, in particular.

Not much insight has been given onto the formation of a queer identity in oppressive state

structure and the dimensions it seek in its making or adherence. The lived experience of

homosexuality in the confines of contemporary third world aura is what the present study

dispels.
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Through this research, I will present qualitative analysis of the selected text in reference

to the contemporary nodes. In this regard, the exploration of the indigenous queer ideals within

the third world South Asian context in reference to the social, economical and political pressures

within Faiqa Mansab’s novel, who is a Pakistani writer and pens down the non-heterosexual

character within a conservative setting in her first fictional novel, would be a constructive

approach towards the limited agency of writers opening up and talking about the queer existence.

To further explore these ideals the research would undertake Marxist Theory in lieu with the

Queer Theory with reference to its indigenous rootedness in the context of South Asia.
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Works Cited

Ahmed, Sara. “Killing Joy: Feminism and the History of Happiness.” Signs, vol. 35, no. 3, 2010,

pp. 571–594. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/648513.

Alice Rossi, "Children and Work in the Lives of Women" (paper delivered at the University of

Arizona, Tucson, February 1976).

Crossman, Ashley. "Overview of The History of Sexuality." ThoughtCo, Apr. 7, 2019,

thoughtco.com/history-of-sexuality-3026762.

Em. “Being queer was not always a crime in Pakistan,” DAWN, 29 September 2014,

https://www.dawn.com/news/1135082.

Gopinath, Gayatri. “Queer diasporas: Gender, sexuality and migration in contemporary South

Asian Literature and Cultural Production,” Columbia University Press, 1998.

< https://search.proquest.com/docview/304431352?accountid=135034.>
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Huffer, Lynne. “Foucault and Queer Theory.” After Foucault: Culture, Theory, and Criticism in

the 21st Century, edited by Lisa Downing, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,

2018, pp. 93–106. After Series.

Malik, Angeline. “Kitni Girhain Baqi Hain (Chewing Gum) Episode 13 .” Video dailymotion,

Friends Korner, 29 January. 2017, https://dai.ly/x59zxs2.

Myketiak, Chrystie. Asian Journal of Social Science, vol. 37, no. 6, 2009, pp. 953–954. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/23655063.

Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs, vol. 5, no. 4, 1980,

pp. 631–660. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3173834.

Rubin, G. (2002). Thinking sex: Notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality. In K.

Plummer (Ed.), Sexualities: Critical concepts in sociology (pp. 188–241). London:

Routledge. Google Scholar.

Sinha, Mrinalini. "Nationalism and respectable sexuality in India." Genders 21 (1995): 30.
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