Writer and academic Madhavi Menon, in the second part of this two-part interview, talks about desire as a vehicle of social transformation. She argues that since desire is often linked with what is taboo and culturally forbidden, it can help break barriers of caste, class and gender. By disrupting established social practice, it can challenge ruling ideas of purity and pollution. Desire can also enable identification across different kinds of marginalisation, and thus create a ground for a transformative politics that goes beyond identity.
Read More:
Madhavi Menon: History, Mythology and India’s Syncretic Past
The Politics of Performance: Theatre, Film and the Cultural Left