The pre-colonial era of India and Sri Lanka was not a utopian society. There were widespread social, political and economic issues within the two communities. However, when it comes to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and women’s rights both India and Sri Lanka were far ahead of most Western societies prior to enslavement by the West. It does not mean that these social issues never existed in South Asia. Homophobia was found in communities across the world. The difference is that homophobia was not widely accepted nor allowed in India and Sri Lanka before the arrival of Europeans.

Discrimination Prior to Colonialism

The major discriminatory factor that impacted India before the European missionary invasion was casteism. Casteism is the prejudice or antagonism directed against someone of a different caste. The caste is determined by which family you born into rather than you own actions.

This issue is still a major social problem in both precolonial and modern India. Eventually this issue has spilled into neighboring countries such as Sri Lanka.

The casteism has nothing or very little to do with gender and sexual identity. South Asian casteism in India and Sri Lanka discriminated along the lines of communities and families. It divided families and pitted friends against each other. Before Europeans arrived, philosophers like Buddha (founder of Buddhism) have fought against casteism. The problem has been acknowledged and addressed by Buddha and few other philosophers. However, just like homophobia in the West, casteism was, and is, very hard to eliminate from wider Indian population. Buddhism however had better luck with dissolving casteism to a significant end in Sri Lanka by making Sri Lankan royals at that time seek the benefits of absconding the ancient barbaric South Asian ideology. This is one of the reasons why Buddhism spread to Sri Lanka because at the time the Sri Lankan royals agreed to give up on the caste-based discrimination.

..the ideology of legal marriage between a man and a women is an Abrahamic religious concept..

In Sri Lanka and the most parts of India, they did not have the legal marriage before colonization. Most relationships in Sri Lanka for examples were similar to Canadian Common Law relationships where two adults decide to live together in a conjugal relationship form a family. There were no official “marriages” or ceremonies. It is unfortunate that this mindset has changed within the modern Sri Lankan Buddhist communities with the introduction of both Kandy legal system and the Western legal systems in 15 to 18 century. The most ironic part of this issue of formal marriage is that in modern day Western societies promotes Common Law type relationships, which existed long before Europeans arrived in Sri Lanka, while modern day Sri Lankans look at Common Law relationships without a legal marriage as unethical. I should highlight the fact, this ancient Buddhist and Hindu Sri Lankan Common Law system as opposed to European introduced legal marriage concept did not discriminate to LGBTQ+ communities. This is because the ideology of legal marriage between a man and a women is an Abrahamic religious concept.

LGBTQ+ and Women Representation prior to European Invasion

Queer and trans identities have existed for over 5000 years in the Indian sub-continent. Trans individuals played key roles in courts, kingships/royalties and religious practices for over 3000 years.

Few Indian temples even had statues and paintings of lesbian gay sex. There are paintings of multiple women having a sex orgy in a temple dated back to 3000 years for example.

The Indian origin Kama Sutra, the sex guide book, have an entire chapter dedicated to same sex acts. The Kama Sutra was written in 400 BCE (which is 400 years before Christianity).

All Indian and Sri Lankan native languages have no gender specifications or pronouns. The idea of having “he” and “she” was later introduced to languages like Sinhala (Sri Lanka) as an adaptation from English language. The English, French and Dutch language inherently discriminate based on gender assignments to individuals. Linguistics styles and rules used in even ancient Indian languages such as Pali and Sanskrit are also gender-neutral.

There are gods and religious figures with both male and female sexual organs in Indian religions. The Buddhism recognize the “third gender”, which is neither male nor female.

The natural human activities such as breastfeeding in public or even urinating in public by women are not sexualized in ancient Indian and Sri Lankan culture. In most cases, a women would be able to walk across a major city completely naked and she would not be harmed.

The idea of modesty found in original South Asian religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism is based on personal understanding rather than group mentality. For example, a woman and a man wear cloth to be civilized and not as a form of oppression.

In Sri Lanka, most women had more human rights than any know European civilization at the time of colonization (15-17 century BCE). While ancient Greek women did have land rights and other rights, the Christian and Catholic women of 15-17 century BCE did not have most human rights enjoyed by the Sri Lankan women. For example, the right to leave (no marriages so no such thing as divorces those days) their abusive husband is an example of freedoms enjoyed by Sri Lankan women during pre-colonial periods.

Colonial White Supremist Ideologies

Arrival of the Abrahamic religions, specifically Christianity and Catholicism, is the key driving force behind homophobia and sexism. The European colonialism started around the 14th Century with the arrival of the Portuguese (India), then the Dutch and later the British. With the colonization, they forced down the ideologies such as “White Supremacy” and Abrahamic religions. From pure philosophical stand point, the Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism are based on human psychology and/or behaviors as opposed to almighty gods found in Abrahamic religions. Hence when the East met the West, it created multiple conflicts.

There were several methods used by the Europeans to indoctrinate their barbaric religious ideologies. First, they treated those who refused to convert to their religion as sub-human or lower than humans. Then they plant the seed of demonizing sexual and gender variance (LGBTQ+ and women) exist among our communities by linking LGBTQ+ individuals to witchcraft. Europeans also labeled all sexual activities that they do not approve as barbaric.

They also linked anti-feminism to Indian culture. Even though there were pockets of anti-feminism within pre-colonial South Asia, it was not widespread. In fact, the European Christian and Catholic women were treated much poorly than that of Indian and Sri Lankan Hindu and Buddhist women. Even majority of the upper class (caste system for Europeans usually described in European literature as class system to downplay and whitewash their uncivilized barbaric history) European women had very limited power and option. Most women, for example, were not allowed to practice “mathematics” or “science” while most Buddhist women even helped engineer temples and infrastructure.

Another issue is painting South Asian men as women abusers or sexual predators by the European communities. When surveyed, majority of modern-day European women have negative view on South Asian men. The modern subtle propaganda has etched the idea that South Asian men are poor lovers, women abusers and anti-feminist. The irony is the anti-feminist ideologies were introduced to South Asia by Abrahamic religions such as Christianity, Catholicism and Islam.

Modern day Indian and Sri Lankan Communities

In South Asia, keeping harmony among various faiths and ideologies are given priority over protecting human rights of LGBTQ+ communities and women.

The anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-feminist ideology in modern day Indian and Sri Lankan Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh communities are a widespread issue. It transcends the geographical boundaries of South Asia. It is rooted in the hearts of Indian and Sri Lankan communities both within Asia and aboard.

The colonialism has created multiple cultural genocide (“cleansing”) over hundreds of years. Even after the European religious missionaries left Asia, they managed to push their agenda regardless of the religious affiliation. It is very difficult to remove the discriminatory seed that has been planted by the Christian and Catholic missionaries. The powerful Western societies have whitewashed the history, down-played their role in human rights violations and re-written some parts of the Indian and Sri Lankan history.

People are afraid to speak up in our communities due to the fear of offending others. We have a large number of Indian and Sri Lankan Christian and Catholic community. In addition, we also have South Asian Islamic communities. Even our modern-day Buddhist and Hindu leaders would rather erase the dark history than to openly talk about it. Keeping harmony among various faiths and ideologies are given priority over protecting human rights of LGBTQ+ communities and women.

Modern day Buddhists and Hindus must go out of their way to learn the true respect our ancient ancestors had for LGBTQ+ communities and women. It would take multi-generation of enlightened individuals to reverse the human rights violation of Indian and Sri Lankan LGBTQ+ and female communities.

Whataboutism and Blaming the West

The term whataboutism is a term used by the West to discourage anyone from speaking out against their internal social, cultural and economic issues. If you were to compare anything negative in Eastern societies against anything positive in the West, it is consider logical. However, if you were to to compare anything positive in Eastern societies against anything negative in the West, it is pulled down as whataboutism. I am certain someone will respond to this post using this Western propaganda term, whataboutism. The counter point I provide for such attacks is Buddhist and Aristotle logics. We need good to see evil and evil to see good for example. We need to compare what had happened before European arrived in order to compare what had happened after Europeans arrived.

I will write an extensive post on how Western propaganda is used to manipulate Eastern societies. Based on both logical systems, you need two states of an issue to compare. By comparing “developed West” against “developing East”, it provides the dichotomy needed for analytics. For now, remember this is an illogical argument against this post.

Where is your evidence and research data?

You can do your own research but I will update this page with some references for you. I am sick and tired of providing evidence after evidence to prove atrocities committed by Europeans, it does not really matter at the end. At the end most idiots will believe the popular opinion.

Here is an excellent video on LGBTQ+ rights in South Asia before Europeans arrived: