Jump to content

Ashok Row Kavi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ashok Row Kavi
Born(1947-06-01)1 June 1947(age 77)
Bombay,British India(nowMumbai,India)
OccupationWriter andLGBT activist
NationalityIndian
Period20th century

Ashok Row Kaviis an Indian journalist andLGBT rightsactivist.[1]

Life

[edit]

He was born inMumbaion 1 June 1947. He graduated with honours inChemistryfrom theUniversity of Bombay.Later, he dropped out of engineering college. Due to his early difficulty in dealing with his homosexuality, he enrolled as a Hindu monk in theRamakrishna Missionand studied theology.[2]Encouraged by a senior monk, he left the monastery to freely explore and express his homosexuality.[3][4][5]He has also studied at theInternational Institute for Journalism.

Career

[edit]

In a journalism career spanning 18 years, he worked in various newspapers and magazines, including India's largest circulated newspaperMalayala Manorama(as Western India Bureau-Chief),Sunday MailandThe Daily.For six years he was also senior reporter covering Science and Technology inThe Indian Expressgroup of newspapers. His career as a journalist began in 1974 withThe Indian Expressand was the chief reporter withThe Free Press Journalfrom 1984 to 1989.

In 1971, he startedDebonair,with friend Anthony Van Braband and later in 1990, he foundedBombay Dost,India's first gay magazine.[6]He was a representative at the International AIDS Conference inAmsterdamand served as chairman of the Second International Congress on AIDS.

Although he retired from journalism in 1990, he has worked at providing a formal platform for homosexuals to become actively involved in public life and institutions through media, advocacy, co-operation and community-building. Row Kavi was the first person to openly talk about homosexuality and gay rights in India. His first coming out interview appeared inSavvymagazine in 1986. His mother, Shobha Row Kavi, also gave an interview to the same magazine; it was the first time that a mother spoke about her son's homosexuality to the Indian media.

Activism

[edit]

At the present, he is founder-chairperson of theHumsafar Trust,an LGBT rights and health services NGO, which also agitates for the legal emancipation of homosexuality in India. The trust's work comprises community work, outreach into the gay and MSM groups, advocacy on gender and sexuality issues concerning sexual minorities and research into sexuality and gender issues.[7]Besides running several intervention programmes (funded by national and international organisations and private donors) for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections in Mumbai and Goa, Row Kavi and the trust have been lobbying with policy making bodies as well as supporting similar upcoming groups across the country.[8][9]

In 1998, Row Kavi received a fellowship to design model questionnaires in the MSM sector at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS),University of California, San Francisco.Row Kavi has been a participant in various international and national fora, including the ICAAPs and the International HIV/AIDS Conferences, where he has made at least five oral presentations. As head of Humsafar, he has also organised the first 'Looking into the Next Millennium' conference of 32 MSM NGOs in Mumbai in May 2001 and co-organized the first ILGA-Asia conference in Mumbai in October 2002.

Row Kavi has been a regular contributor to newspapers, magazines and journals around the world, on homosexuality, gay rights and issues around HIV/AIDS. He is an active supporter of organisations like theGay Bombayan LGBT social organisation in Mumbai.

Row Kavi is also NGO representative, Executive Committee, Mumbai District AIDS Control Society (MDACS); member, Technical Resource Group, Targeted Interventions,National AIDS Control Organisation(NACO); visiting faculty at Mumbai's Tata Institute of Social Sciences, the department of Clinical Psychology of the University of Mumbai, Nirmala Niketan, and the International Institute of Population Studies.

Row Kavi has been listed among India's Seven Most Influential Gay & Lesbian individuals byPink Pagesmagazine.[10]

In September 2017India Timeslisted Kavi as one of the 11 Human Rights Activists Whose Life Mission Is To Provide Others with a Dignified Life.[11]

He is also known for his support for the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP and India's present Prime Minister Narendra Modi.[12]

Controversy

[edit]

In 1995 on the Nikki Tonight show hosted byNikki Bedi,Row Kavi related a story about how he had, in his youth, had a letter published in a magazine in which he describedMahatma Gandhias a "bastardbania".The STAR TV show was widely criticised and considered irresponsible for broadcasting the story and it resulted in the cancellation of the show. Nikki Bedi and Row Kavi would soon make a public apology as well.[13]

References

[edit]
  1. ^Gupta, Ridhima Gupta (24 September 2018)."'Don't Need To Dissociate Myself From My Religion To Be A Gay,' One Of India's First Gay Rights Activists ".thelogicalindian.Retrieved17 November2020.
  2. ^"Ashok Row Kavi | Ashoka | Everyone a Changemaker".ashoka.org.Retrieved17 November2020.
  3. ^Ruth Vanita;Saleem Kidwai,eds. (2001). "Modern Indian Materials".Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History.Palgrave Macmillan. p. 216.
  4. ^Tyagananda;Vrajaprana (2010).Interpreting Ramakrishna:Kali's Child Revisited.Motilal Banarsidass.p. 54.
  5. ^Interview with Ashok Row Kavi fromIndiatimesArchived19 December 2007 at theWayback Machinefrom 6 February 2004, where he says, "The interesting thing is that I came out as a gay man in theRamakrishna Missionwhere I was studying to be a monk and my counselor there, Swami Harshananda, thought it was no big deal. In fact, he drove me out saying – this is not a place you can hide your homosexuality, go and fight for what you think is right. "[1]Archived19 December 2007 at theWayback Machine
  6. ^"India's answer to 'Brokeback Mountain' to hit cinemas".The Guardian.25 April 2010.Retrieved28 August2010.
  7. ^Nandita Singh (21 July 2018)."India's first and oldest gay rights activist is also on the extreme right of RSS".ThePrint.Retrieved17 November2020.
  8. ^"Ashok Row Kavi: The Real Maha Maharani".4 June 2000.Retrieved17 November2020.
  9. ^TREAT Asia Report (March 2008)."An Interview with Ashok Row Kavi—Coming Out in India".amFAR.org.Archived fromthe originalon 25 July 2014.Retrieved26 November2014.
  10. ^http://pink-pages.co.in/profiles/indias-most-influential-gays-and-lesbians-ashok-row-kavi/
  11. ^Anjali Bisaria (7 September 2017)."11 Human Rights Activists Whose Life Mission Is To Provide Others with a Dignified Life/".The Times of India.
  12. ^Singh, Nandita and Nikhil Rampal (21 July 2018)."India's first and oldest gay rights activist is also on the extreme right of RSS".ThePrint.Retrieved6 December2019.
  13. ^"Gandhi Meets Primetime: Globalization and Nationalism in Indian Television", By Shanti Kumar, p. 156
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ashok_Row_Kavi&oldid=1248384286"