Siddharth Dube

A revelatory memoir about sex, oppression, and the universal struggle for justice. From his time as a child in 1960s India, Siddharth Dube knew that he was different. Reckoning with his femininity and sexuality—and his intellect—would send him on a lifelong journey of discovery: from Harvard classrooms to unsafe cruising sites; from ivory-tower think-tanks to shantytowns; from halls of power at the UN and World Bank to jail cells where sexual outcasts are brutalized. Coming of age in the earliest days of AIDS, Dube was at the frontlines when that disease made rights for gay men and for sex workers a matter of basic survival, pushing to decriminalize same-sex relations and sex work in India, both similarly outlawed under laws dating back to British colonial rule. He became a trenchant critic of the United States’ imposition of its cruel anti-prostitution policies on developing countries—an effort legitimized by leading American feminists and would-be do-gooders—warning that this was a 21st century replay of the moralistic Victorian-era campaigns that had spawned endless persecution of countless women, men, and trans individuals the world over. Profound, ferocious, and luminously written, An Indefinite Sentence is both a personal and political journey, weaving Dube’s own quest for love and self-respect with unforgettable portrayals of the struggles of some of the world’s most oppressed people, those reviled and cast out for their sexuality. Informed by a lifetime of scholarship and introspection, it is essential reading on the global debates over sexuality, gender expression, and of securing human rights and social justice in a world distorted by inequality and right-wing ascendancy.

A Personal History of Outlawed Love and Sex

An Indefinite Sentence

Craig Calhoun

Saidiya Hartman

Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Michael Herzfeld

Walter D. Mignolo

Jean Comaroff

Ajay Skaria

Sandra Greene

Milind Wakankar

A special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly

Enduring Enchantments

'An extraordinary book that triumphs on many levels, personal and social ... Above all, it is a sensual and passionate story about the search for love, the "endless flowing river in the cave of man", that animates all our lives.' - Sudhir Kakar'This searing memoir of a gay man from a country that criminalizes homosexuality is intertwined with a first-hand account of the struggle for basic human rights by gays as well as by women sex workers, two groups similarly outlawed in India. Dube unsparingly exposes a complex web of hypocrisy, corruption and brutality in this work of grave, vital importance.' - Kiran Desai At the age of ten, Siddharth Dube finds himself entranced by an androgynous striptease dancer and begins to see something of himself in her visceral beauty. He's only just starting to understand some of his life's defining preoccupations. For Siddharth is gay, and it's dangerous to be gay in India. As Siddharth confronts personal traumas to eventually emerge as a staunch fighter for the outcast, his journey spans privilege as well as bigotry and persecution - from elite Doon School and Harvard to unsafe streets where lonely men seek each other out for sex and love, from the halls of power at the World Bank and the UN to jail cells where sex workers suffer horrifically at the whim of misguided officials. In a book that is deeply personal yet public-spirited, Siddharth writes with passion and insight about his own search for love and self-respect, and of the struggles of the oppressed and hated in a time of global right-wing ascendancy. Like that dancer Siddharth glimpsed as a young child, No One Else is beautiful, singular and unforgettable, a tour de force that celebrates love and sensuality, dignity and freedom, and holds to account those who would deny anyone these priceless human joys.

No One Else

True experiences and life stories of over three generations of the Dalit family of Ram Dass Pasi in the State of Uttar Pradesh, India.

The Memoirs of an Impoverished Indian Family, 1947-97

Words Like Freedom

Siddharth Dube

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