Come Together

IIT Bombay’s queer resource group Saathi is repping the LGBTQ experience and fostering a sense of community

- Cara Netto

Growing up queer can be hard. There are few resources one can tap into, and virtually no safe spaces outside of monthly events held by a few equal rights organisations. And then there’s college, which can feel like navigating a minefield of peer pressure and ridicule as a walking talking cocktail of conflicted hormones for anyone who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ).

That’s pretty much how Harishchandra Ramadas, a former student at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay felt. Which is why, after years of wrestling with his sexuality, he set up Saathi, IIT Bombay’s LGBTQ resource group, along with Devesh Radhakrishnan and Nivvedan S, just before they graduated in 2011.

“As I began coming out to my friends, and later to the public, the overwhelmingly positive responses I got made me realise that the primary obstacle to LGBTQ acceptance in India is a simple lack of exposure. I wanted to utilise my position of privilege as the only openly gay person to the fullest and make IITB more welcoming for other LGBTQ students,” he says.