Over the Rainbow: India’s Queer Heroes

by Aditya Tiwari

In the last twenty-five years, India has seen great leaps in its LGBTQ+ movement. Today it is no longer a crime to be gay, a transgender person can stand for government positions, and there are an increasing number of high-achieving LGBTQ+ figures in worlds of cinema, arts, literature, sports and more.

In this groundbreaking anthology, award-winning poet-activist Aditya Tiwari picks nineteen of India’s queer heroes who have paved the way for the next generation to flourish – either through their activism or their courage in being open about their sexuality even when it was criminalized. This list includes activists like Anjali Gopalan or Ashok Row Kavi who pioneered working with HIV/AIDS victims, as well as Dalit and transgender activist Grace Banu who tirelessly campaigns for horizontal reservations for transgender persons. It also pays homage to well-known novelist Vikram Seth and restauranteur Ritu Dalmia who fought against Section 377 through the press and in courts.

As India moves to the next frontier in fighting for marriage equality for the LGBTQ+ community, the stories of these heroes and their extraordinary lives feel more powerful than ever.

Genres: Queer, LGBT, India

176 pages, Paperback

Published November 17, 2023

About the author

Aditya Tiwari is an Indian poet and gay rights activist.

Reviews

[Ashish Rastogi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of written portraits of the lives of some of the famous queer icons in India. From activists who have led from the front for queer rights to artists, writers and creatives who, in their unique defiance of social obstacles, have given the queer community hope and guidance.

The narration is simple, intriguing and informative.

[Sameer Gudhate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t open this book looking for courage.

I opened it expecting information.

What I found instead was a quiet lineage of bravery—lives lived when there were no safety nets, no hashtags, no reassuring headlines saying things will get better. Over The Rainbow: India’s Queer Heroes doesn’t rush at you with noise. It walks beside you, calmly, carrying stories that were never meant to be erased, only ignored.

Edited by Aditya Tiwari, this anthology brings together nineteen portraits of Indian queer pioneers—activists, artists, athletes, writers—people who didn’t wait for laws to change before they chose to exist honestly. Some fought in courts, some on streets, some simply by living openly at a time when even naming oneself could invite danger.

What makes this book quietly powerful is its intent. It isn’t trying to be definitive. It isn’t trying to impress. It is trying to introduce. And that choice matters. These chapters feel like hands being held out to younger readers, to allies, to anyone who grew up without mirrors that reflected their truth.

The writing is clean, accessible, and grounded. Tiwari resists the temptation to dramatize pain. He allows facts, context, and lived experience to carry the emotional weight. The prose doesn’t beg for sympathy—it earns respect. There’s a steady rhythm to the book, one life after another, each distinct, yet echoing a shared truth: progress is never accidental. It is paid for—often quietly, often painfully.

As I read, I became aware of how Indian this book is in its emotional texture. These are queer stories shaped by caste, class, family obligation, religious morality, and social surveillance. The book makes a crucial point without preaching it: India’s queer movement is not a carbon copy of the West. It has its own histories, its own languages of resistance, its own hierarchies of struggle.

One chapter that stayed with me was about Dutee Chand. Not because of medals or records, but because her body became public property—measured, scrutinized, regulated by institutions that claimed neutrality. The cruelty she endured was procedural, almost polite, which somehow made it worse. Yet the chapter never reduces her to trauma. It honours her agency, her resilience, her refusal to shrink.

There are many such moments—small but searing. Activists who worked with HIV/AIDS patients when fear was louder than compassion. Trans leaders who fought not for visibility, but for the right to live without constant humiliation. Artists who refused to hide even when hiding would have been safer. These stories don’t shout. They linger.

Structurally, the book works like a gallery. You move from portrait to portrait, sometimes wishing you could stay longer, sometimes feeling the weight accumulate. If there is a limitation, it’s that certain lives feel too brief on the page. Just when emotional depth builds, the chapter ends. But perhaps that’s the point. This book opens doors—it doesn’t pretend to be the final word.

Emotionally, my reading experience surprised me. I wasn’t overwhelmed. I wasn’t angry. I was… sobered. There’s a particular kind of quiet that comes when you realise how much comfort you’ve inherited from battles you never had to fight. This book left me with that quiet—the kind that demands better behaviour, not louder opinions.

What I appreciated deeply was the book’s insistence on representation—not as tokenism, but as survival. Tiwari writes about growing up in a small town where the idea of a queer person being “successful” didn’t exist. That line stayed with me. Visibility isn’t vanity. It’s permission.

This is not a book only for the LGBTQ+ community. It’s for parents who want to understand without being defensive. For educators who believe curricula should reflect lived realities. For readers who think allyship is a belief rather than a practice.

I closed Over The Rainbow: India’s Queer Heroes feeling humbled. These stories don’t ask to be celebrated. They ask to be remembered. To be carried forward. To be honoured not just in words, but in how we treat difference in our everyday lives.


Some books inform you.

Some books confront you.

This one does something rarer.

It quietly rearranges your moral furniture.

Read it—not to feel good,

but to feel awake.

[Amit · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book features Life and struggles of 20 odd queer heroes. The book made me appreciate the internal struggles and problems of sexual minorities in India. And despite those struggles, these heroes embraced their true identity and became torch bearers of queer rights. At a societal level, instead of mocking our queer friends, just for being a bit different than the majority, a little love and kindness would help.