Walking between the narrow bylanes of Old Delhi, Iqbal Ali leads queer heritage walks to revisit and rewrite the city’s heritage through a queer lens, and what Indian history owes queer persons.
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Weekends in old Delhi are filled with heritage walk participants and curious onlookers. Even in Delhi's unforgiving weather, these walks offer a glimpse into the city’s past, when its tombs and forts were embedded with jewels which faded with years of colonisation. Cultural explorers walk through the old city’s crowded bylanes, in places where canals from the Yamuna river once existed. In the middle of the swarms of people, rickshaws and markets, 32-year-old Iqbal Ali leads heritage walks with a twist – to revisit Delhi’s queer history.
Heritage walks in Delhi usually promise a gastronomical adventure through Shahjahanabad, or a poetic odyssey near the tomb of Mirza Ghalib but Iqbal’s heritage walks focus on Delhi’s much neglected queer history. It lasts three hours, with a chai break.
Limited to groups of nearly 25, Iqbal, who uses they/them pronouns, takes the audience through picturesque gullies of old Delhi and monuments one might find on post stamps. Behind every destination is a story of a queer past, of prominent queer figures from the mediaeval era. They remind us that queer history has always been a part of this city – living, breathing, woven into daily life.
The first stop is Sunehri Masjid, a mosque constructed in the mid-18th century by Javed Khan, a khwaja sirah (a transgender person). The walk also goes to the tomb of Razia Sultan, who became the subcontinent’s first female ruler, now reimagined as a sapphic icon; or to the shrine of Sarmad Khashani, a Sufi mystic who was beheaded by Aurangzeb – Iqbal lovingly calls him a ‘queer martyr’ and finally, culminating at Mohalla Qabristan, where a Hijra Gharana (a household of trans persons) exists.
Started in 2021, the concept gained popularity online. Iqbal’s intimate group tours are usually a menagerie consisting of foreign tourists (who pay four times the ticket price), university students (who pay less than half of the ticket price), curious journalists (on a weekend assignment), and Iqbal’s companions from old Delhi.
Iqbal usually leads the walks in a simple kurta and a cigarette in hand. Their soft, commanding voice raises over the traffic noise to ask the participants to stay close to each other. After all, it’s easy to get lost in the lanes of old Delhi. I joined one of Iqbal's queer heritage walks recently.
I had my own queer café in Mehrauli till January 2018. After that I worked as a chef in a vegan restaurant until the pandemic hit. I have been leading heritage walk tours since 2015 but as time passed, I realised there are pieces of queer history that have been erased. As a heritage conservationist, it became important to me to talk about queer people within the city’s geography. After all, we [queer people] have always been here.
In recent years, I’ve witnessed the political and cultural landscape around old Delhi evolving with more religious polarisation. All of this directly affects queer history. I see the queer community’s history evolving in nature, but never static. I don’t have any formal training in history – I am a college dropout. I ventured into reading history, and queer narratives on my own. Many stories are passed down by way of oral history and tradition. I saw how narratives from marginalised communities, especially the queer community, are sidelined in history and the work of historians. My walks are an attempt to change that.
I was born to a Hindu father and Sikh mother. My father was murdered when I was in elementary school and I was brought up by my mother in Old Delhi. Growing up, I was bullied in school for my femininity. I wrote a love poem for a boy when I was in the eighth grade, and was abused for it when the class found out. I very rarely got along with boys or befriended them. But the few I managed to befriend have remained longtime friends. I didn’t know the word for my attraction to men, or why I wrote the love poem for a boy. But I used to spend my time fawning over posters and images of actors and models on page 3 of the Delhi Times.
I grew up with a very fluid understanding of religion and religious practice. My maternal grandparents were orthodox Sikhs. My maternal grandfather used to remind my brother and I about our Hindu Brahmin connection. Just before the COVID-19 lockdown, I found refuge in Islam. Growing up in a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood, our neighbours would bring us iftaari during Ramzan. My understanding of Islam gained depth only when I started studying it on my own, just like my relationship with queer history. I started to observe fasts during Ramzan, and offer namaz.
When I told my queer Muslim friends about what I was doing, they said,“What the f**k is wrong with you?” They reminded me of the violence they’ve faced for being Muslim and queer. I connected with queer Muslim scholars who live abroad over Facebook. Through them, I realised that my acceptance of Islam is a personal connection between me and God – Allah – and no one else. But I always maintain that my queerness comes before my faith.
Their reaction has been supportive. It was important to me to include hijras in the walks, or host walks just for them, as this is a part of their shared history too. There are pieces of queer history across Delhi, like in Mehrauli, Hauz Khas, and Shahjahanabad.
Absolutely. I think I connected more closely to old Delhi’s queer community during my prep for my walks. There are certain queer heritage walks that I host, such as the one on active gay cruising spots in old Delhi, which are open only to people from the queer community. I remember that once when I went to the gay cruising spot in old Delhi, a friend who is a sex worker said, “I earn from selling my body, you earn from angrez (white foreign nationals) clients through bakchodi (bullshit) with your lips.” That’s a unique kind of compliment I’m not going to get to hear anywhere else in the world!
Most of the friends and neighbours who join me for the heritage walks are young Muslim men and many are childhood friends. This is my way of sensitising them to the queer community and exposing them to people from different backgrounds. They also get a chance to let the audience know about their own neighbourhoods. They held misconceptions or were simply curious about the queer community. Coming along with me for these walks gives them that room to reflect and question their queerphobic beliefs and foster a greater sense of acceptance for the queer community. I’ve definitely seen a shift in their attitudes towards the queer community after coming for my heritage walks. They are excited to meet new strangers every weekend.
I’ve grown more confident. I think I can engage in queer discourse more actively. I’m also at a point in my own journey where I will begin my [gender] transition, and with it, my relationship with my body will evolve. I currently deal with a lot of gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia. I feel closer and more connected to the queer community through these heritage walks. It’s similar to how I felt when I ran a queer café in Mehrauli. I’ve grown closer to my faith. Sometimes, I spot someone at my mosque, maybe the local bookseller, and between us there is an unspoken sense of recognition and acceptance of my queerness.
Just the same way I came out as queer as a teenager, I came out as Muslim a few years ago. They accepted my queerness more than a decade ago, but not my shift to Islam. I think my family’s acceptance of my queerness instilled a deeper sense of confidence and faith in me – I never carried my sexuality like it was a burden waiting to be suppressed. Several friends have pointed out that my assertion, my public display of my religious practice, comes from my family accepting my queerness. It’s been a rocky road at home, with its own ups and downs. My mother thinks I’m not being very serious about my career, and there’s an atmosphere of hostility at home during Ramzan. I have had sehri and iftar with friends, with their families, but breaking your fast at home is another experience. It’s not all bad – sometimes my mother has shown kindness by weaving a cloth wrap for the Quran. It’s definitely lonely and isolating. But I have to prepare for more battles with my family, I’m yet to come out to them as trans. I don’t know, I’ve left everything to Allah.
I owe most of my confidence and badassness to my trans siblings from old Delhi: the hijras and sex workers. They’ve always reminded me to speak up boldly instead of swallowing my own words. If we’re ever in public and they catch me mumbling, they demand, “speak up! Who are you afraid of?” We live in a country where cis women feel scared to step out, and queer people face so much of violence. I don’t think we can move forward until we collectivise in groups. Doing queer heritage walks is our own way of assertion, to occupy public spaces we’ve been shooed away from. In the scientific sense, I always think of queerness as an element that encompasses everything and creates new entities out of everything it touches.
This is a very good question. The queer heritage walking experience has started to inspire other cities too. Mumbai organised a mix of theatre and art practise and named it a queer heritage walk, inspired by our tours. There was a similar experience curated in Kashmir by the only LGBTQAI+ organisation there called Sonzal Trust. It makes me so happy that this has started to happen. Once more people get on this, I would like to reach out to more queer individuals who love history to help me curate these walks in their own cities.
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Weekends in old Delhi are filled with heritage walk participants and curious onlookers. Even in Delhi's unforgiving weather, these walks offer a glimpse into the city’s past, when its tombs and forts were embedded with jewels which faded with years of colonisation. Cultural explorers walk through the old city’s crowded bylanes, in places where canals from the Yamuna river once existed. In the middle of the swarms of people, rickshaws and markets, 32-year-old Iqbal Ali leads heritage walks with a twist – to revisit Delhi’s queer history.
Heritage walks in Delhi usually promise a gastronomical adventure through Shahjahanabad, or a poetic odyssey near the tomb of Mirza Ghalib but Iqbal’s heritage walks focus on Delhi’s much neglected queer history. It lasts three hours, with a chai break.
Limited to groups of nearly 25, Iqbal, who uses they/them pronouns, takes the audience through picturesque gullies of old Delhi and monuments one might find on post stamps. Behind every destination is a story of a queer past, of prominent queer figures from the mediaeval era. They remind us that queer history has always been a part of this city – living, breathing, woven into daily life.
The first stop is Sunehri Masjid, a mosque constructed in the mid-18th century by Javed Khan, a khwaja sirah (a transgender person). The walk also goes to the tomb of Razia Sultan, who became the subcontinent’s first female ruler, now reimagined as a sapphic icon; or to the shrine of Sarmad Khashani, a Sufi mystic who was beheaded by Aurangzeb – Iqbal lovingly calls him a ‘queer martyr’ and finally, culminating at Mohalla Qabristan, where a Hijra Gharana (a household of trans persons) exists.
Started in 2021, the concept gained popularity online. Iqbal’s intimate group tours are usually a menagerie consisting of foreign tourists (who pay four times the ticket price), university students (who pay less than half of the ticket price), curious journalists (on a weekend assignment), and Iqbal’s companions from old Delhi.
Iqbal usually leads the walks in a simple kurta and a cigarette in hand. Their soft, commanding voice raises over the traffic noise to ask the participants to stay close to each other. After all, it’s easy to get lost in the lanes of old Delhi. I joined one of Iqbal's queer heritage walks recently.
I had my own queer café in Mehrauli till January 2018. After that I worked as a chef in a vegan restaurant until the pandemic hit. I have been leading heritage walk tours since 2015 but as time passed, I realised there are pieces of queer history that have been erased. As a heritage conservationist, it became important to me to talk about queer people within the city’s geography. After all, we [queer people] have always been here.
In recent years, I’ve witnessed the political and cultural landscape around old Delhi evolving with more religious polarisation. All of this directly affects queer history. I see the queer community’s history evolving in nature, but never static. I don’t have any formal training in history – I am a college dropout. I ventured into reading history, and queer narratives on my own. Many stories are passed down by way of oral history and tradition. I saw how narratives from marginalised communities, especially the queer community, are sidelined in history and the work of historians. My walks are an attempt to change that.
I was born to a Hindu father and Sikh mother. My father was murdered when I was in elementary school and I was brought up by my mother in Old Delhi. Growing up, I was bullied in school for my femininity. I wrote a love poem for a boy when I was in the eighth grade, and was abused for it when the class found out. I very rarely got along with boys or befriended them. But the few I managed to befriend have remained longtime friends. I didn’t know the word for my attraction to men, or why I wrote the love poem for a boy. But I used to spend my time fawning over posters and images of actors and models on page 3 of the Delhi Times.
I grew up with a very fluid understanding of religion and religious practice. My maternal grandparents were orthodox Sikhs. My maternal grandfather used to remind my brother and I about our Hindu Brahmin connection. Just before the COVID-19 lockdown, I found refuge in Islam. Growing up in a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood, our neighbours would bring us iftaari during Ramzan. My understanding of Islam gained depth only when I started studying it on my own, just like my relationship with queer history. I started to observe fasts during Ramzan, and offer namaz.
When I told my queer Muslim friends about what I was doing, they said,“What the f**k is wrong with you?” They reminded me of the violence they’ve faced for being Muslim and queer. I connected with queer Muslim scholars who live abroad over Facebook. Through them, I realised that my acceptance of Islam is a personal connection between me and God – Allah – and no one else. But I always maintain that my queerness comes before my faith.
Their reaction has been supportive. It was important to me to include hijras in the walks, or host walks just for them, as this is a part of their shared history too. There are pieces of queer history across Delhi, like in Mehrauli, Hauz Khas, and Shahjahanabad.
Absolutely. I think I connected more closely to old Delhi’s queer community during my prep for my walks. There are certain queer heritage walks that I host, such as the one on active gay cruising spots in old Delhi, which are open only to people from the queer community. I remember that once when I went to the gay cruising spot in old Delhi, a friend who is a sex worker said, “I earn from selling my body, you earn from angrez (white foreign nationals) clients through bakchodi (bullshit) with your lips.” That’s a unique kind of compliment I’m not going to get to hear anywhere else in the world!
Most of the friends and neighbours who join me for the heritage walks are young Muslim men and many are childhood friends. This is my way of sensitising them to the queer community and exposing them to people from different backgrounds. They also get a chance to let the audience know about their own neighbourhoods. They held misconceptions or were simply curious about the queer community. Coming along with me for these walks gives them that room to reflect and question their queerphobic beliefs and foster a greater sense of acceptance for the queer community. I’ve definitely seen a shift in their attitudes towards the queer community after coming for my heritage walks. They are excited to meet new strangers every weekend.
I’ve grown more confident. I think I can engage in queer discourse more actively. I’m also at a point in my own journey where I will begin my [gender] transition, and with it, my relationship with my body will evolve. I currently deal with a lot of gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia. I feel closer and more connected to the queer community through these heritage walks. It’s similar to how I felt when I ran a queer café in Mehrauli. I’ve grown closer to my faith. Sometimes, I spot someone at my mosque, maybe the local bookseller, and between us there is an unspoken sense of recognition and acceptance of my queerness.
Just the same way I came out as queer as a teenager, I came out as Muslim a few years ago. They accepted my queerness more than a decade ago, but not my shift to Islam. I think my family’s acceptance of my queerness instilled a deeper sense of confidence and faith in me – I never carried my sexuality like it was a burden waiting to be suppressed. Several friends have pointed out that my assertion, my public display of my religious practice, comes from my family accepting my queerness. It’s been a rocky road at home, with its own ups and downs. My mother thinks I’m not being very serious about my career, and there’s an atmosphere of hostility at home during Ramzan. I have had sehri and iftar with friends, with their families, but breaking your fast at home is another experience. It’s not all bad – sometimes my mother has shown kindness by weaving a cloth wrap for the Quran. It’s definitely lonely and isolating. But I have to prepare for more battles with my family, I’m yet to come out to them as trans. I don’t know, I’ve left everything to Allah.
I owe most of my confidence and badassness to my trans siblings from old Delhi: the hijras and sex workers. They’ve always reminded me to speak up boldly instead of swallowing my own words. If we’re ever in public and they catch me mumbling, they demand, “speak up! Who are you afraid of?” We live in a country where cis women feel scared to step out, and queer people face so much of violence. I don’t think we can move forward until we collectivise in groups. Doing queer heritage walks is our own way of assertion, to occupy public spaces we’ve been shooed away from. In the scientific sense, I always think of queerness as an element that encompasses everything and creates new entities out of everything it touches.
This is a very good question. The queer heritage walking experience has started to inspire other cities too. Mumbai organised a mix of theatre and art practise and named it a queer heritage walk, inspired by our tours. There was a similar experience curated in Kashmir by the only LGBTQAI+ organisation there called Sonzal Trust. It makes me so happy that this has started to happen. Once more people get on this, I would like to reach out to more queer individuals who love history to help me curate these walks in their own cities.
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Jaishree Kumar (she/her) is an internationally-acclaimed writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker who covers gender, climate change, health, and more. Her work has been published in Thomson Reuters Foundation, VICE, Business Insider, Deutsche Welle and more. She divides her time between New Delhi and the Himalayas.
Dikstant Sehrawat (he/him) is a photographer based in New Delhi
Shruti Sunderraman (she/her) is a journalist, writer, editor and strategist who splits her time between Bombay and Bangalore. She has edits and bylines in culture, health, gender and science across several publications over the last 10 years.
