Transforming landscape of the sexual minorities in India: historical constraints of current status (2009-2019)

To study the cultural norms prescribed in certain society, the following question is often used in surveys: “Could you mention a group that you would not like as neighbors?” The percentage of respondents who mentioned any LGBT representatives shows societal attitude towards queer culture. The overall percentage in all three studies exceeds 80% among developing economies (Inglehart & Baker 2000). Throughout the period of 1990 - 2014 the question over acceptance of homosexuality in Indian society was also investigated by mean of indirect question inquiry. In 1991, the overwhelming majority, 91% of respondents mentioned gay people, while in 2014 unmarried couples and another religion people took a lead. See Figure 1.

Figure 1 A group that you would not like as neighbors.

Source: World Values Survey, Inglehart, Haerpfer 2014

The statistical graph presented above was compiled by the World Values Survey research group as part of the 6^th Wave study. 7^th Wave covers the period of 2015-2019, and the report on this study is to be published in early 2020. However, the report was yet not published, probably due to the limiting nature of the pandemic that unfolded in the spring of 2020. For more recent data we consider the statistics provided by the joint research group of Centre for Regional Political Economy (CRPE) at Azim Premji University and Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in 2019. See Figure 2.

Figure 2 Sexual relationship between two men or two women should be accepted in society (by gender).

Source: Lokniti CSDS and Azim Premji University (2019)

The dynamics seems to be positive. However, the curious point about this rather classical concept in the framework of modernization theory for our study is that despite all attempts to treat India and England equally in the question of queer problems in society, we should not forget about other materialistic factors that affect the perception of queer culture in the system of values. Classical approaches to modernization theory imply that the internal economic difficulties in the country hinder its development in the political liberal sense, which necessarily implies changes in the cultural system of values of society (Rokeach 1973). Despite the fact that India based on the theory of international society, which we apply next, is included in the global communication, some obstacles prevent its modernization in the cultural sphere.

The second point of view on economic and cultural interdependence in modernization discourse shows that the cultural values of Indian society are simply assimilated within its modernity. Ronald Inglehart and Wayne E. Baker came to this conclusion in their study. A comparison of economic indicators and cultural and social priorities in society shows that together with industrial and post-industrial stage of economic development there is a shift in the system of cultural norms, namely the transition to the so-called post-industrial values: tolerance, democracy, political expression. However, values seem to be path dependent. Economic development tends to push societies in a common direction but rather than converging they seem to move on parallel trajectories shaped by their cultural heritages. Economic development contributes to the transition of society to more modern cultural values and norms. However, the fact that a particular society was shaped under special circumstances, such as Hindu based, affects the path of modern cultural development of this society (Inglehart & Baker 2000: 49).

This approach raises the question of what is a traditional culture for India, which influences the way of modernization of modern Indian society. Do early Hindu traditions that recognize the third gender have such a strong influence on the modern manifesto of sexual minorities in India? Queer researchers mostly give a definite answer, insisting on a direct continuation of the tradition from ancient times to the present of Indian culture (Sinnott 2010). However, what the modern system of cultural values of India looks like is not only the direct evolvement of its own ancient traditions into newer ones, but also the influence of external factors, and in particular the cultural and ethical heritage we study, left by Britain during the colonial period. Thus, we argue that not only traditional influences, such as Hinduism, but also the legacy of moral and ethical norms that British colonizers have left behind, play a role in shaping the Indian model of modernization.

Important fact is that Indian sociologists themselves do not treat India as a country of some unambiguous path of development within the framework of the theory of modernization. Yogendra Singh, a notable Indian sociologist, points that “resilience has been a strong hallmark of the dynamics of Indian society” (Singh 2012: 151). In modern Indian sociological circles, the idea of India as a country of multiple modernities has gained currency. There at least two different motives of modernization are woven together. Indian sociologists point out the uniformity and parallelism of the structural transformation of the country and changes in culture, values and norms.

The question of what is meant by the traditional values of Indian culture is not solved yet, as the memory lane about colonial experience, Indian sense of identity and its traditions did deeply impact upon the discourse of modernization. Western discourses on modernization theory argue that Indian society has not yet made the transition to advanced cultural values, because it is hampered by the slowness of this transition in the economic sphere. Obviously, from this point of view it is difficult to talk about any British heritage, as there is no claim of the negative impact of British colonial regime on the Indian economy (Alatas 2010). Nevertheless, close contact with the West in the 19th century influenced the normative foundation and strategy of modernization in India.

Despite the fact that since gaining independence in 1947, the general trend in political and social governmental directions has been the recognition of Indian identity with all its diversity, India has not moved on to liberal human rights (Singh 2000). The reason for this in the framework modernization theory according to Indian scientists is the crisis of identity during the colonial period. The experience of being colonized by British left an ineffaceable impression on the Indian culture and consciousness and led to a set of paradoxical aftermath in its modern path. The age of colonial rule in a very fundamental way shaped the present of India (Chaudhuri 2012: 284). Researches on colonization played a key role in rethinking of concepts such as `national culture' and `tradition'. In an attempt to strengthen their own identity and make recognizable, not catching-up with the West, path to modernization of society, the question of acceptance of sexual behavior freedom was perceived in Indian society in a negative light, anti-manifesting what characterized the last few decades of sexual revolution in the West.

In the post-colonial modernity of Indian society, marked by a variety of religious traditions, queer question was doubly acute (Singh 2010). The position of sexual minorities was at the intersection of `tradition' and `modernity', as based on the rhetoric of Indian sociology homosexuals and transgenders are both inscribed in ancient religious tradition of Hindu culture and borrowing Western values. The process of determining the place of queer culture in Indian society was complicated by the fact that the very concept of `tradition' began to be questioned. As mentioned above, concerns about harmful to traditional Indian culture colonial regime are a very frequent subject of debates in the Indian scientific community (Pieterse 2010). The issue of determining homogeneous identity is also a point of controversy (Bhambra 2007). India was marked by a diversity of religious, linguistic and ethnic traditions, and not all encouraged different sexual practices. Therefore, the debate about key cultural concept for the creation of a purely Indian system of cultural values, with a certain attitude to LGBT, remains open.

The position of Indian scientists in the framework of the modernization theory is kind of nationalistic. It emphasizes the cultural stratification of Indian society, where ancient traditions stand side by side with the most modern Western standards of cultural norms. Criticism to the concept of `ancient Indian tradition' we have already expressed. There is a question: how the concept of the ancient tradition of Indian society which is positioned as a counterweight to Western norms is defined? Even more important question that we address is why queer culture by Indian theorists is beyond the `traditional' culture of India? Why homosexual practices and gender change within Hinduism are considered as an attempt of the West to impose its value system? The theory of international society which we will examine next answers these questions.

3.2 GLOBAL SOCIETY AND QUEER CULTURE

The theory of modernization, several approaches of which we have considered earlier, inclines us to the conclusion that a certain lag in India's economic development and, consequently, the inability to throw economic forces at strengthening the internal welfare of the state is the reason for the late transition to a system of more modern liberal values. Based on the theory of modernization, Indian society has long been unprepared for abrupt social innovations, preoccupied with more pressing problems of economic instability in the country. We have to draw this conclusion because the Western concept of queer values necessarily includes a social component of inclusiveness. At the same time, the Indian approach to the modernization theory tries to create a picture of harmonious coexistence of selected `true Indian' traditions and modern social values.

The rotation of cultural values and their mutual influence in the West and East can be considered in the key of the theory of global society. This theory has developed within the discipline of international relations and considers culture and the system of cultural values as a certain component of the country's portrait in a global society. Global society as such is an open space now, excluding only some self-isolated countries. However, until about the beginning of the 20th century, before the transfer of colonial possessions, Asian countries were almost not included in the dialogue at the level of global society. So, based on this theory, India entered the global society much earlier than other countries in non-Western regions. This is because England during the colonial period invested its resources in India figuratively, among which was also the representation of the British system of social and cultural norms and values. Based on the theory of the global community, the 19th century became the key for the development of modern cultural norms in India. In addition, the 19th century also became no less important for England, where just at this time the transition from the puritanical Victorian system of values to a more modern one began. Thus, the 19^th century is a turning point in history, influencing what are England and India now.

In frames of global society theory we consider queer culture as socio-cultural phenomenon, namely LGBT community fight for compliance of equal constitutional rights. Sexual minorities existed in both England and India before the 20^th century. However, only in the 20^th century it evolved into a social and partly sociopolitical movement. Thus, in pre-colonial India homosexuality organically fit into social and religious life of the country as we mentioned previously. At the same time in England homosexual behavior was considered deviant, and therefore that there was a social norm and respectfully law of public censure. The 19^th century was a turning point for changing the system of social norms and values. India became the British “heir” and adopted the cultural norm of social and political rejection of sexual minorities. Britain has moved in another direction where human rights have become the basis of the individual life of every citizen. The social norm of censure of queer sexuality turned into queer culture, which began to fit into the system of values of society in a line with gender, political, and religious human rights. Following we are going to consider sexual rights, namely the conscious political and social equality of sexual minorities, in the framework of the theory of global society.

Global society theory grew out of the English school of international relations in the mid-20th century. The theory development was led by Martin Wight, a former historian. Despite the fact that it was E. H. Carr who introduced some sort of ordered analysis of international politics in his classic “The Twenty Years' Crisis” (1939), those lectures became a starting point for international society theory (Porter 2007: 783). The work we are particularly interested in is “Systems of States” (1977), which was compiled by his younger colleagues from his writings. It was a comparative study of various historical systems, while the Western one was considered the leading one. Among other things, Wight stresses the importance of a common culture for the cohesion and working of an international system.

Following Wight's investigations, the complex relationship between culture and international society attracted attention of many scholars, primarily within the English school. We are going to focus on theoretical assumptions about international society assumed by another British researcher, Barry B. Buzan. In some related writings he focused on Wight's statement from “Systems of State”: `We must assume that a state-system will not come into being without a degree of cultural unity among its members' (Wight 1997). What is so important in the theory of international society and specifically in its development by Buzan is the place given to India on the world modernization arena.

“World society is associated with a political system in which states are not the predominant actors, although this does not mean they disappear; where political activity is principally focused upon individuals, rather than institutionalized collectives; and where normative progress is understood in universal terms.” (Williams, 2005, p. 20) Based on a liberal assumption that history is linear and change is possible Buzan (2004) claimed that a new era in international relations began in the second half of the 20^th century. In this new era, human rights have become central to the value system. Buzan also argued about the unity and interdependence of the world through trade and culture, which unite international society.

Before beginning the research on the theoretical and historical background of a global society theory, it is important to note how the theory claiming to be within the discipline of international relations relates to our study on queer problem in modern India. The idea of international society implies not only inter-state communication at the diplomatic level; international society is a broad notion that describes global connectivity on its different steps, such as political, economic, social, etc. The theory primarily studies the interaction of different cultures. The difficulty is the fact that Wight and together with him Buzan “use the term 'common culture' so loosely that it is unclear whether they had in mind a deep, historic sense of culture, or the more superficial agreed rules that compose a contractual society” (James 1993: 277).

To understand how much in our research we can rely on the models proposed by M. Wight and B. Buzan for the functioning of culture in international society, at first we should define the particular concept of culture applied. There is a galore of definitions of notion the culture in different scientific fields. Culture can be understood as a set of ideas, customs, social behavior, traditions and certain behavioral stereotypes of a particular society, also as mythological and religious knowledge that form a perceptional picture of a particular ethnic group. The concept of civilization is close to such concepts of culture, denoting the institutions of language, art, religion, literature. The word is perhaps most frequently used to refer to the practices and patterns that distinguish one society or group from others.

In terms of international relations, in addition to this classical understanding of culture in anthropology and history of society, the concept of culture is applied as a system of political and social values that society of the state and its ruling elites share (Buzan 2010: 18). For instance, Buzan lists imperial, barbaric cultures or West and non-West as an example of 19^th century European perception, the nationalist culture that woke up after the end of the colonial era in the Third World, as well as, what is crucial for our research, the culture of individualism and human rights, applied to Western countries nowadays. Since the theory of international society engaged indeed in interpretation of world cultures in attempt to overview how to fit them into a united system of values, the problem of queer minorities, which our study is devoted to, suits this framework. The culture of individualistic sexual human rights in India, both preexisted and integrated during colonial rule, is an illustrative example of what is called the values of the global society and at the same time paradoxically the point of the multi-level conflict within Indian society and beyond it.

There are two main accounts in the international society theory, states' development within it and different cultures evolvement in frames of these states: Vanguardist and Syncretist (Mayall 2000-a: 62). As two accounts of the story of international society expansion, both of them respond to the emergence of a culture of social minorities in the Third World, our topic of interest. Vanguardist account emphasizes the key role of Europe in international society. From this point of view, the expansion of global society is considered as a one-sided process of spreading cultural values from West to East. The Syncretist account emphasizes the interaction of different cultures and world society as a result of this interaction and mixing of different cultures. The account insists that not all values were introduced by Europe and many of them on the contrary were borrowed from colonized cultures. In terms of second account, India presents a delightful tangle of paradoxes to research.

The expansion of the international society as articulated by the English school is, arguably, the standard accepted model in international relations. However, in recent decades, this theory has been criticized in terms of its excessive West-centricity. The model of development of the world society implies the predominant role of one civilizational core throughout the second Millennium of A.D. history. Buzan in his writings emphasizes that such a monocentric model of the global society development is much closer “to most historical accounts of what actually happened” (Buzan 2010: 3). It is worth noting, however, that there is also another model of global society history perception, which implies the presence of several cores of civilization that interact with each other to varying degrees. From this point of view, it is much more difficult to talk about the development of a global society with the unity of norms and institutions, which the theory of the international society of the English school considers valid until the end of the colonial era.

Two noted approaches used in English School theory of world society are applicable to our research to a certain extent, as both of them describes the aspect of transmission of cultural values between the interacting cultures of the West and the East.

In Vanguardist terms, the expansion of global society is a process originating from the West. According to the approach, the entire colonial era came to its peak in the 19^th century, when all civilizational centers were connected to the West in particular way. Some international systems literally repeated the image of Europe, such as the United States and Australia, some were directly subordinate to Europe, as Asian and African colonies, and the rest developed rapidly, catching up with Western countries in an effort to avoid the fate of the colonies, like China or Japan. The main characteristic of the rise of the European system was not only the active interaction of countries at both political and economic levels, but also the implementation of the Western system of values in non-Western countries. In Vanguardist terms the West presented the so-called "standard of civilization" in the international society (Buzan 2010: 4).

The Vanguardist account describes the unilateral influence of Western ideas and norms on the non-Western world. This approach perfectly answers the question of the unambiguity of the British influence on the 19^th century Indian culture. The Vanguardist account concerns about Western and non-Western differences in power, cultures, and imposing the `standard of civilization' on oriental societies. Thus, with this approach, we can study the issue of British influence on Indian social culture unilaterally. The account gives a clear characterization from the power perspective: the subordinate Indian culture has adopted and absorbed the British norms, in this case the norms concerning sexual minorities.

Scientists in the framework of the theory of international society distinguish three phases of its development: history before the 15^th century, from the 15^th century to the Second World War and contemporary history following the decolonization after the Second World War (Bull & Watson 1985). Vanguardist approach deals more with formation and functioning of international society in its second phase of development as this period is fairly considered a peak. During this phase European took political and economic control and ruled over non-European cultures in order to shield the global society from the influence of local cultures and spread the Western "standard of civilization" in all countries of international society (Gong 1984). From here we can conclude that India as the largest Asian colony of the British Empire in terms of Vanguardist approach has experienced a huge influence of British culture. India adopted homophobic approach of British law of Victorian Puritan period and abandoned what we consider to be inherent in it as a tradition.

The Vanguardist story for the third phase follows the instability hypothesis. It assumes that an international society without a resemblance of hierarchical order implying the dominance of one system of values will be unstable. Furthermore, in the post-colonial world when the European `standard of civilization' is no longer accepted as the only applicable the European system of values itself is under the dangerous influence of different external cultures (Buzan 2004: 212). After the end of the colonial ruling the international society became weaker as many politically weak and economically underdeveloped countries started to act independently. The "standard of civilization" has been neglected as Europe ceases to be a dominant in the cultural value system.

The main conclusion of the Vanguardist approach to the third phase of global society expansion is that since states within this society are in constant tension in the post-colonial era non-Western countries compete and threaten the dominance of the West. Theorists of the English School argue that now the former colonies operate the system of values which was introduced by the West during the second phase. Those features of culture that were inherent in the European countries of the second phase, is now inherent in the East, namely: non-alignment, development, and racism (O'Neil & Vincent 1990: 284). S. Thomas presciently argued that religion had become part of the revolt against the West (Thomas 2000: 817). The culture of state control over sexual life of citizens seems to us a relic of the 19^th century. However, introduced from the outside in the same 19^th century it only begins to function independently in recent decades in country such as India.

In the third phase, military conquest is no longer the main driving force according to Vanguardist approach. In the third phase of global society expansion the West is concentrating on guiding its internal system of values to weaker subjects. This applies not only to already colonized countries but also to the rest parts of international society. During the third phase the West used a milder form of coercion, including the presentation and imposition of its own value system, to induce countries to cooperate at the diplomatic and economic levels (Buzan 2010: 6). However, in Vanguardist account the key feature of the third phase is not only the promoting Western values as universal but also defending it in attempt to protect Western culture by bringing the rest of the world as much in line with it as possible (Nye 1990: 166). In Vanguardist terms the introduction of a new “standard of civilization” is necessary for the functioning of international society. It is obvious that the West has already outgrown the old system of values and today developed countries operate a completely different system, which is headed by such concepts as democracy and human rights. From this point of view the old Western values now promoted by the East are in opposition to the new Western values.

The culture of sexual freedom if we consider its existence in ancient India according to results of the first chapter was replaced by a culture of strict state control over social values during colonial era. This state control culture according to Vanguardist account has become the current Indian value system. In terms of this approach India in any case is the heir of Britain in both positive and pessimistic perspectives. India regardless of its prior cultural basis adopted British “standard of civilization” during the second phase of international society development. India has carried this legacy to the modern world with its already changed system of values. From the point of view of Vanguardists India protects this imposed but already integrated culture, which includes control over the sexual life of society, attempts to make society homogeneous, excluding the possibility of any minorities, especially sexual. How then rather widespread queer culture in the Indian community can be considered? According to Vanguardist account this is the new “standard of civilization” with new values which the West is trying to impose by using its soft power.

As to this point should be clear, the Vanguardist account emphasizes the problem of interaction between culture and international society. Culture including the social system of values was an important factor in the alignment of non-Western societies into line with Western legal, economic, diplomatic and moral practices. The cultural flexibility demonstrated by non-Western societies in their acceptance of the Western "standard of civilization" has endangered West culture itself. The idea of bilateral flexibility of Western and Eastern societies opens the doors to the Syncretist account of the expansion of international society (Buzan 2010: 10).

The Syncretist account puts more emphasis on the interaction of cultures and functioning of global society. The Syncretist account takes a more flexible and versatile view on the process of cultural transition. The approach argues that the movement and mutual adoption of ideas between civilizational centers is a common practice in world history. The culture of society reflects not only the result of its own development but also the results of cultural exchange with other societies. Despite the fact that the Syncretist account also does not imply a polycentric model of the formation of a global society, where the center of distribution is not only Europe, but it tends to this idea (Wight 1977: 34). The syncretic approach considers all players in a global society to be unique, wealthy and influential. This implies that just as much as Western culture has affected the non-Western world, so much the reverse influence took place.

The Syncretist account sees Europe as the center of global society for the reason that it had a temporal handicap in creating a global system. However, when the Western world entered the territory of the non-Western world it did not meet a vacuum but got acquainted with the already established system of Asian societies with a huge and sophisticated Asian value systems (Little 2004: 50). From this point of view, modernity is also not a purely European invention (Christian & McNeill 2004: 351). Many researchers have been scrupulously studying scrupulously European borrowings from India, China and the Islamic world. This process is commonly referred to as “oriental globalization” (Hobson 2004: 2). Based on this approach the West has not presented its "standard of civilization" to the cultural vacuum of non-Western societies but has merely guided some of its values that could get along with the existing system of local cultures (Bull & Watson 1985: 1).

The two approaches differ significantly in their version of the history of international society expansion in its first phase. However, the history of the second phase, namely the 19^th century, which in both approaches is recognized as the peak of the West's dominance converges in some features. The Syncretist approach does not argue that in the 19^th century the East borrowed from the West much more than gave to it. However, the Syncretists emphasize that the 19^th century was a turning point for the Europe itself. Already strong enough and powerful West has set its “standard of civilization” to the East, as well as forced him to accept their administrative norms and social practices. The issue is that during the 19^th century, according to the Syncretist approach, the West began to move from one system of values (nationalism, the primacy of morality, the homogeneity of society) to another. The West incorporated such key concepts as individualism, capitalist social order, democracy (Mayall 1990: 46).

This part of the development of society in the key Syncretists approach Buzan calls partially similar to Vanguardist (Buzan 2010: 14). The important factor is that the methods of the study of international society within international relations is close to modern sociology and the theory of modernization. The Syncretist approach considers the history of East-West interaction in the 19^th century as a platform for the formation of new social norms within the framework of modernity transition (Buzan & Albert 2010: 3). The transformation that took place in the European community itself also affected the East. Researchers of the global society expansion find the 19th century, the heyday of the colonial era, a key period that formed the modern international society (North 2009, Rosenberg 1994).

According to terminology of North in the 19^th century Western countries were in the process of transition from natural states to open access orders. Natural states are characterized, in addition to the aspects of the merger of politics and economics, as those that use violence in the social sphere to control over personal relationships between people. In the 19^th century European powers set their system of values on other countries of global society thereby accelerating their modernization (North 2009: 72). The natural state example is almost any modern countries of the East including India. Leading Western countries in the 19^th century moved to a new stage of development the so-called form of open access orders. Open access orders feature in the process of controlling violence, which is centralized and becomes impersonal, i.e. rule-governed. People get the rights and access to the management of the state economy through the credit system and the creation of public organizations (North 2009: 37).

In this perspective, the 19^th century becomes a major milestone in the world system transformation. Western and non-Western countries are rapidly developed and reshaped their internal social structure, but in different direction. Created power gap between the West and East was based on the fact that open access orders rapidly became substantially richer and more powerful than the rest of the world. However, a much more important factor for our study lies in the socio-political structure of states and the system of cultural values. Between the 19^th and 20^th centuries the West passed through the process of transformation from natural states to democratic open access (Buzan & Little 2013: 251). As soon as the process of decolonization took place the tension between open access orders of the Western core and the mainly natural states of the East explodes resulting in a confrontation between two socio-political systems with completely different systems of cultural values (Wight 1991: 61).

The process of Syncretism operating largely one-way during the peak of the West's power in the making of a monocentric international society had very uneven results. Those institutions that were compatible with natural states (mainly the Westphalian ones - sovereignty, non-intervention, territoriality, diplomacy, some aspects of international law but also the main nineteenth-century one, nationalism) were easily and deeply absorbed by most of the non-West. Thus, the East opposes itself to the West but not on the basis of the question of strength and protection of its own interests, as Vanguardism proves, but because it is at a different stage of development. Regardless of the normative arguments the supporting conditions for human rights and democracy are simply not yet available in much of the East countries, as Mayall argues (Mayall 2000-b).

To sum up, the Syncretist view is that culture and international society are both malleable. The Syncretist account suggests that for two reasons there is less cultural difference between the West and the rest of the world than the Vanguardist account supposes. India in the 19^th century absorbing the features of the British Empire began the transition to a natural state with a British system of values. Now India is in its phase of historical development on the line similar to Britain of the 19^th century. This means that the culture of social norms inherent in modern India, based on the Synchronist approach, echoes the thirst for homogeneity, which was inherent in the British19^th century social culture.

The theory of international society helps us to consider more comprehensive overview on the issue of queer culture in India during and after the colonial period. This problem first came in the form of the British social norm of state control over the private sexual life of citizens, and this principle was introduced into Indian society during British colonial rule; both approaches to the study of global society agree in the point. After the Second World War, based on the Vanguardist approach to the study of international society, the West's `standard of civilization' suffered a crisis as the global society began to function in different systems of values without a single language of communication. Based on the Synchronist account, the principle of state perception of sexual heterogeneity of society began to evolve in England during the same colonial period. At the end of colonial era the following result appeared. India after almost a century of British “mentoring” adopts completely the 19^th century British system of values. England itself by the middle of the 20^th century was already an advanced state of a completely different Western sense, where the principle of individual human rights perception is at the head of the table.

Queer culture and its acceptance as an element in the value system of a particular society has come a long way through the history of India. In accordance to the results of the first chapter, which aimed to show the predominance of positive and tolerant attitude to queer in traditional Indian culture, the early Hinduism prescribes the absence of any sharply negative impulses towards queer. And there also was a lack of some from the ruling elite during the long period of Islamic dominance. So, we have already found out about the pivotal character of the British period in the history of India. By the time British social norms were introduced Indian society was already well prepared to adopt another kind of restriction. The caste system that existed in India implied strict control over society. Many generations of Hindus were raised in a society with very strict social differentiation and a rigid system of attitudes that limited actions within a particular caste. With the help of the theory of disgust, we have already briefly considered the process of forming a social approach to the Untouchable caste. Further, the British class in India began to make changes in the system of administrative control, i.e., the legislative system, and in the system of social values. The British compared Puritan morality of the Victorian period and Indian cultural norms, finding the last one obviously too loose. Many laws were introduced in this way, including the Indian penal Code of 1861. Further, the ideas and norms of appropriate social behavior, including sexual purity, quickly spread among the Indian population. India has integrated the British "standard of civilization" into its system of social values. In order to conform to the higher British class, the Indian elite began to imitate the British Puritan moral code. Hindu traditions including the art of pleasure were gradually discarded in favor of conforming to civilized British values.

Thus, the theory of international society explains the process of the value system transition from the traditional to the more enlightened in India, and the process of Britain's transition from one coordinate system of social regulation to another, updated. What happens next? The fact of the abolition of the constitutional ban on homosexual activity seems to indicate that India is finally entering the stage of development that the Synchronist approach in the framework of the international society theory calls the latest stage of development of the state where the basis of state activity is the control over violence (North 2009). Our next step is to define the role of queer culture in modern Indian society through the prism of cultural trauma theory within the sociology of culture.

3.3 CULTURAL TRAUMA

With the help of two previously used theories, we have considered the way of forming the system of cultural values of Indian society. According to the theory of modernization from the mouth of Indian researchers, India today is a fusion of several modernities, where modern liberal values, as well as ancient Indian national values, merge. The theory of global society has shown us how the system of cultural values rotated in India and England from the 19th century to the present day. Based on this theory, India can truly be called the British heir, since it adopted the cultural norms Of the British Empire of the 19th century, which Britain itself had already abandoned in the 20th century. Now we would like to turn directly to the current state of sexual minorities in modern India and the process of forming attitudes towards them. A third theory, the theory of cultural trauma, will help us with this. Within the framework of this branch sociological theory we review the social function that queer culture plays in Indian society, and whether it is social role or sociopolitical one. Through the prism of the theory of cultural trauma which developed within the sociology of culture we prove that homosexual behavior in Indian society is politicized in a sense, since the point of conflict in society is the opposition between the Indian identity and the West one. LGBT culture has not gained open acceptance among the majority of Indian society because it falls within the cultural gap between the desired and actual cultural norms and values.

Modern sociology is looking for a major reference point in the development of modern society and there is a huge area to explore on the interjection with other sciences. As a result of disciplines interaction, the ideas of dual, binary nature of social reality gain more and more attention. For applying to our research, we have chosen the cultural turn which marked the beginning of the formation of the sociology of culture. Sociology of culture is a branch of sociology that studies the laws of the development and functioning of culture in society, its formation, dissemination and assimilation of ideas, ideas themselves, cultural norms, values, and patterns of behavior.

The place of origin of cultural sociology is the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CES, founded in 1964), University of Birmingham in England (Adams 2004). Since 1968, Stewart Hall, who headed the Birmingham center, studied cultures as a system of meanings embodied in social practices. The dispute about the independence of culture and interest in power formations promoted by culture are the main issues dealt with by the sociology of culture. In the sociological context culture is understood as a way of life, thoughts, actions, a certain system of values and norms characteristic of a given society, a person, and these are those aspects of society that are under our study.

The sociology of culture after its inception on the British Isles has also spread gradually among American culturologists and sociologists. They were divided into two main approaches to study the culture as a component of social life: pragmatist and structuralist/semiotic. The fundamental works within the framework of pragmatist theory are under authorship of Ann Svidler, who, building on Max Weber, developed her own `tool-kit' approach to culture. Culture is a guide action strategy (Matthias 2015). Similarly to this conception of culture as a resource, works inspired by French sociologist Bourdieu treat culture as a means in struggles for power.

A key research course in the second structuralist/semiotic approach to cultural sociology is the “strong program in cultural sociology” by Jeffrey Alexander. The strong program presented a critical analysis of the approach to culture as a variable category of social life. This approach views culture as an important constituent of all social relations. Culture in a strong program is considered as an autonomous phenomenon. Another important scientific discovery by the strong program was the creation of the theory of collective memory or cultural trauma.

Here we analyze India and it's attitude LGBT acceptance issue through the prism of the theory of cultural trauma. The authors of the theory of collective memory were led by Jeffrey Alexander at the Center for advanced research in behavioral Sciences called “Values and Social Process” at Yale University. They reviewed the voluminous literature in the disciplines of the humanities on trauma, in the first place the enormous contribution made by psychological scholarship. Upon both these dimensions, humanitarian and psychological, they built a study of social phenomena with new distinctively sociological approach.

The phenomenon of cultural trauma occurs when members of a particular group identify themselves as victims of certain events that have changed their group identity and consciousness. The concept of trauma of the individual and the collective is familiar to us from ordinary language, this concept has first not scientific understanding. This kind of rooting any concept in ordinary life gives food for creation of concepts in the sociology of science. The definition of trauma is also common among other sciences, primarily in psychology. The main difference that allows trauma to be integrated into a sociological framework is the fact that the trauma is not something naturally existing; it is something constructed by society (Alexander 2001). Within the framework of collective memory theory, the main objects of study is culture, meaning cultural and social norms, traditions, values, and the change that this group/ethnic/national culture brings as a result of traumatic events.

Since the concept of trauma originates from psychology, theorists of cultural trauma explain the intersection of this concept in psychology and sociology of culture. In psychological science the concept of trauma examines from two approaches: there are `enlightenment' and `psychoanalytic' versions of the notion. The enlightenment understanding suggests that trauma is a natural response of the psyche to forced external changes. The name of this approach expresses its essence: the psyche resists the pressure of circumstances, look for ways to solve the problem, and will come to a progressive solution. For instance, Arthur Neal in his “National Trauma and Collective Memory” explains the Civil war, the Great depression, and the Second World War as an impetus for the development of American society (Neal 1998: 5). Despite the psychological understanding of the trauma concept in the book, the method that Neal used in his study is more emphasizes the collectivity rather than the individual. The author follows the path-breaking sociological model developed by Kai Ericsson. Neal blurred the line between individual and collective trauma by studying the impact of traumatic events on the nation through the prism of individual perception.

The second approach to the concept of trauma in psychological science, psychoanalytic one, involves an exclusively individualistic perception of the concept. The approach examines the role of unconscious emotional fears that a person exposes after a traumatic event. The psychoanalytic approach argues that the trauma is created by the human psyche itself. Instead of rationally considering the problem an individual is influenced by memories and fears based on them, and it represses the experience of trauma itself. The presence of “brothers in trauma” creates a sense of solidarity that reinforces psychological changes of the individual (Caruth 1995).

In many aspects trauma in its psychological and sociological understandings are the similar concept. However, researchers in the framework of the theory of collective memory criticize both psychological approaches, arguing that collective trauma is a category created by society. Trauma is a socially mediated attribution. Trauma may occur at the time of the unfolding of events or in the so-called post-traumatic period, as a post-hoc reconstruction. «Sometimes, in fact, events that are deeply traumatizing may not actually have occurred at all; such imagined events, however, can be as traumatizing as events that have actually occurred» (Alexander 2001: 8). Traumatic status is attributed to real or imagined the situation not because this situation is harmful, but because it is believed to have harmful character to collective identity. Thus, culture and its embodiment in the system of values are key parts of the collective identity. The violent change of identity under the oppression of any external factors, makes a group of people, in the case of our study the Indian nation, feel as victims of circumstances. By isolating their own culture, traumatized groups of people build a new identity basing it on the opposition between themselves and others. In the case of our study, the social tradition of sexual minorities perceives within the category of alien.

Under the influence of cultural and social studies initiated by S. Hall in Britain and then in the United States sexual and other minorities started to express themselves (Adams 2004: 13). It was the turn to feminism, the analysis of hybrid identity, `Westernization', racial relations, multiculturalism, politics of cultural differences, and urban subcultures. Cultural studies merged with post-colonial studies, a set of studies of the problems faced by former colonial countries (Ritterman 2009). In the case of former colonies in the post-colonial world, the theory of cultural trauma views the rise of the nationalist movement as an attempt to restore harmed national identity. Similarly, we can consider the manifestation of the LGBT movement in the West. If we appeal to the theory of cultural trauma, it is due to the accumulation of collective traumatic memory movement has reached such a scale.

However, the case we research has the opposite character. Indian sexual minorities, harmoniously integrated into traditional Hindu culture, have become marginal social communities during the period of British Raj. Within the framework of the theory of collective memory it would be logical to assume that after India's independence they would finally fight for sexual freedom in Indian society. However, in the post-colonial period the Indian national identity was a much stronger player. In an attempt to create a new identity the state began to appeal to the cultural values that distinguish them from the West. It is worth mentioning once again that the traditional Indian identity itself is a hard-to-define concept, since Indian polygenic society absorbed the characteristics of many other cultures not only during the colonial period, but also during the Mongol conquest and so on.

Statistics showing the attitude of society to the `Western' queer culture is positive. However, as an argument, it is important for us not only to consider the growing tolerance among the Indian population, but also study the initial indicators. Between early 1990s and 2010s, the share of WVS Indian respondents felt drastically in almost 90% to 24% in belief that homosexuality is never justifiable (see Figure 2). In 1990, there was a surge in broadly opposed respondent's poised taupe number of them counting the 94%. Despite the nice foundation of Delhi High Court decriminalizing gay sex in 2009, the number of broadly supportive respondents kept growing. Though it was only 30% by 2014, that year the WVS placed India the 60^th towards the liberal top countries of distribution (Rukmini 2018).