Saleem Kidwai
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Saleem Kidwai (7 August 1951 – 30 August 2021) was a medieval historian, gay rights activist, and translator. Kidwai was a professor of history at
Ramjas College Ramjas College is a college of the University of Delhi located in North Campus of the university in New Delhi, India.The college admits both undergraduates and post-graduates, and awards degrees under the purview of the University of Delhi. R ...
,
University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) ...
until 1993 and thereafter an independent scholar.


Early life and education

Saleem Kidwai was born 7 August 1951, in
Lucknow Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and division ...
,
Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. His family and relatives owned extensive amounts of land in the area. He knew he was gay when he was in his late teens. When he was 17 years old, he moved to the city of
Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
, in part because he knew that living in a small town would significantly constrain his ability to live openly as a gay man. He enrolled in and received his
bachelor's A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ye ...
and
master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.
s in history from Delhi University, and began teaching there in 1973. In 1976, he enrolled in a doctoral program at
McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...
in
Montréal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...
,
Québec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. In October 1977, Montréal police raided two gay bars, Truxx and Le Mystique, in a military-style raid. They arrested 146 men in what was the largest mass arrest since the domestic terrorist kidnappings of the
October Crisis The October Crisis (french: Crise d'Octobre) refers to a chain of events that started in October 1970 when members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped the provincial Labour Minister Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James C ...
in 1970. Kidwai was among those arrested, forced to submit to
venereal disease Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral se ...
tests, and charged with criminal activity. Deeply traumatized by the incident, he quit his doctoral program and returned to teaching at Delhi University. (Although the province of Quebec amended its Human Rights Charter to include homosexuality as a protected class, the criminal charges against Kidwai were not dropped until 1982.)


Academic career

He was one of the first academics to speak publicly as a member of the LGBT community and published with
Ruth Vanita Ruth Vanita is an Indian academic, activist and author who specialises in British and Indian literary history with a focus on gender and sexuality studies. She also teaches and writes on Hindu philosophy. Early life and education Vanita earne ...
as co-editor of ''Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History'', a pioneering work documenting and exploring the indigenous roots of same-sex desire in South Asia. His other academic areas of interest included cultural history, the history of sexuality and the history of the courtesan singers (
tawaif A ''tawaif'' was a highly successful entertainer who catered to the nobility of the Indian subcontinent, particularly during the Mughal Empire, Mughal era. The tawaifs excelled in and contributed to music, dance (mujra), theatre, and the Urdu l ...
s). Kidwai translated singer
Malika Pukhraj Malika Pukhraj ( Punjabi, ur, ملكہ پکھراج ) (1912 – 2004) was a highly popular Ghazal and folk singer of Pakistan. She was generally known as "Malika", meaning "The Queen", publicly. She was extremely popular for her rendition ...
's autobiography, "Song Sung True." His other translations include The Mirror of Wonders, a collection of short stories of Syed Rafiq Hussain, the first Urdu writer to write in the ‘animal stories’ genre. He was the only translator to have translated the novels of the well-known Urdu writer Quratulain Hyder who transcreated her own novels. Kidwai has translated two remaining novels of hers – 'Chandni Begum' and 'Safina-e-Gham-e-Dil' as "Ship of Sorrows". He was working on her last remaining untranslated novel 'Gardish-e-Rang-e-Chaman' as well as a well known Urdu history of Lucknow by Mirza Jafar Hussain before his death.


Death

Saleem Kidwai suffered
cardiac arrest Cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating. It is a medical emergency that, without immediate medical intervention, will result in sudden cardiac death within minutes. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and possib ...
on 30 August 2021, and died in a hospital in Lucknow.


Publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kidwai, Saleem 1951 births 2021 deaths People from Lucknow Delhi University faculty 21st-century Indian Muslims Indian LGBT writers Indian LGBT rights activists LGBT Muslims Gay writers 21st-century Indian historians 20th-century Indian historians Indian translators