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Saleem Kidwai was an Indian historian, independent scholar, translator and queer rights advocate whose work brought literary and historical records of same-sex love in India to a wider readership. His best-known contribution was co-editing, with Ruth Vanita, an anthology that spans centuries of writing while placing each text in historical context.
Who was Saleem Kidwai?
Born in 1951, Kidwai taught history at Ramjas College, University of Delhi, for twenty years, according to his publisher, Penguin Random House India. He later worked as an independent scholar, writing on medieval and modern India as well as translating literature. He died in Lucknow on 30 August 2021, aged 70. The Washington Post reported cardiac arrest as the cause, attributing that information to Vanita.
![Same - Sex Love in India - A Literary history [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2008] Ruth Vanita](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51gr+VMxosL._SL160_.jpg)
What did Saleem Kidwai write?
Same-Sex Love in India
Kidwai is best known for his collaboration with Ruth Vanita on Same-Sex Love in India. The original anthology, published around 2000, was titled Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History. Penguin Random House India’s edition, published in June 2022, is titled Same-Sex Love in India: A Literary History and credits Vanita and Kidwai as editors. The catalog lists the paperback at 479 pages, ISBN 9780143102069. Penguin Random House India’s book listing provides the edition details.
Penguin describes the anthology as drawing on more than 2,000 years of material, from the Mahabharata to the late twentieth century. It brings together excerpts from stories, poems, letters, biographies and histories in fifteen languages, with introductions that place changing depictions and debates in context. This breadth makes the collection a record of varied literary and historical material, not evidence that every text expressed modern sexual identities or that experience remained uniform across centuries.
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Why the anthology mattered
The book also entered public and legal discussion. Penguin says it was cited in the Delhi High Court’s 2009 judgment and the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision concerning Section 377. Journalists and commentators have described it as influential in queer scholarship and advocacy in India. Such citations document the work’s presence in those debates; they do not establish that the anthology alone brought about legal change.
Writer and scholar R. Raj Rao captured one response to Kidwai’s passing in a 2021 remembrance: “The death of historian Saleem Kidwai is an irreparable loss to queer scholarship in India.” That is Rao’s assessment of Kidwai’s contribution, rather than a measurement of consensus.
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Translation and wider literary work
Kidwai’s work extended beyond queer history. Penguin identifies him as the translator of Malka Pukhraj’s memoir Song Sung True and the short-story collection The Mirror of Wonders by Syed Rafiq Hussain. A remembrance by Parveen Talha also highlights his interest in Urdu literature and translation. Together, these works show a scholar engaged with literary history and language as well as the recovery and interpretation of records about same-sex love.
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