Rumi Harish

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will create a theatre performance based on anecdotes and personal experiences of crisis intervention for gender and sexual minority communities, across police stations in Bangalore. Rumi Harish will be the Coordinator for this project. 

Rumi Harish is a musician and a gender-rights activist based in Bangalore. He has worked as a consultant on several studies involving various marginalised communities, particularly sexual and gender minority groups.  He has worked as a translator and a trainer on issues around gender, caste and sexuality and has worked with organisations / collectives such as Sangama, Samvada, Hengasara Hakkina Sangha, Samuha, LesBit and others that have worked consistently on rights of sexual and gender minorities. Rumi is also an artist. As a composer, singer and lyricist, Rumi has worked across musical genres, and has helped create modules for community radio. He has wide experience as a theatre artist and is now expanding his creative expression into the visual arts as well. Given his experience, he is best placed to be the Coordinator of the Foundation Project of IFA. 

Rumi identifies as a trans-man and queer person. For over 20 years, he has worked on crisis intervention and documentation of experiences of transgender and queer communities. Crisis intervention has typically involved negotiating with the police in support of the queer, transgender and sex workers, challenging illegal cases, freeing the victims from fabricated cases and enabling them to live independent lives with dignity and so on. This work has taken Rumi to police stations all over Bangalore. Discrimination, violence, stigma, humiliation, conspiracies, homophobia and humour have been part of the many stories that Rumi has experienced and been witness to. In the columns that he has been writing, Rumi has also recounted these experiences through stories and poems.  

In this project, Rumi will choose from his experiences in six to eight police stations across Bangalore to create a theatre performance. These stories would mostly be from the years between 1999 and 2018. Interestingly, these years also encompass the NALSA judgement of 2014 (which led to the recognition of transgender people as the 'third gender' by the Supreme Court of India) and the Navtej Johar judgement of 2018 (which decriminalised homosexuality in India). The stories also are testimony to Rumi’s own forced gender negotiations, his own dysphoria and the struggle to communicate in his asserted gender.  

As part of this project, Rumi will transform these stories into a theatre script in English, Kannada and other south Indian languages where relevant. Specific locations in Bangalore are important to these stories. However, in the performance, Rumi will keep the identities of locations confidential and dwell on navigating these areas that have played a role in this work and strangers who have helped in different ways. An installations as part of the performance will be inspired from the stories and spirit of the specific police stations. Rumi’s own paintings will be part of these installations as well. In the larger context, the performance will trace Bangalore’s dualistic behaviour as a city – the many ways in which it embraces and repulses communities. 

Rumi will seek the support of two collaborators – Sunil Mohan and Shilok Mukkati to transform the script into a theatrical piece. Sunil has been a gender-rights activist and is now the managing trustee of Raahi, an organisation working with sexual minorities. Shilok is a queer poet, writer, dancer and theatre maker who has engaged with issues of gender and sexuality in creative ways. 

The outcomes of the project will be the theatre performance. Rumi hopes to perform this in spaces like Bangalore International Centre or Alliance Francaise de Bangalore. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA along with the final reports will be still and video recordings of the performance and a copy of the script. 

This project suitably addresses the broad framework of IFA's Project 560 programme and the Arts Projects (Research/Practice) in particular.  In the recent years, IFA has implemented projects that have brought to the fore, stories from the queer communities within Bangalore, in their own voices. As a project that records the city’s dynamics with the queer communities, as seen through the eyes of an queer individual’s experiences, this project would not only be a significant form of documentation but would also serve as a guide for future generations that would take on crisis intervention work. 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from BNP Paribas India Foundation.