The possibilities and limits of intersectionality

Inspired by the Combahee River Collective Statement and the pioneering essays of Prof. Kimberlé Crenshaw, this talk suggests some tentative ways to imagine a practice of intersectionality in India. Using Dr. Ambedkar’s remarkable insight into the relation between caste and sexuality, this talk will do a critical reading of Navtej Johar and NALSA judgments by the Supreme Court of India that recognised the equal rights of LGB and T persons. Instead of understanding intersectionality as a catch all solution to political problems, the talk suggests that intersectionality sometimes leaves us with an aporia.