With yoga guru Baba Ramdev gearing up to hit the market with Patanjali jeans, the community is divided on buying his products over his homophobic views
Illustration/Uday Mohite
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Yoga guru Baba Ramdev is all set to launch Patanjali jeans in the market, and the social media has already spewed out a number of jokes on the man’s yet-to-come denim debut. A majority of the city’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community isn’t too excited with the man in saffron’s booming business. The reason: the cult figure has repeatedly said that homophobia is a disease, and on occasions, also went so far ahead as to claim that he can cure it.
Sushant Divgikar, who represented India at the Mr. Gay World 2014, says he loves Baba Ramdev’s products, (right) Ashok Row Kavi
No, thank you
“I avoid buying his products,” says Ashok Row Kavi, a pioneer of the gay rights movement. Kavi accedes, “His products are fabulous, definitely, but I am not going to buy them because of his homophobic stance. He has a right to sell anything in the market. In fact, I love Indian, swadeshi products of great quality, but he is encouraging hate of the community.”
Love for swadeshi is epitomised by gay prince Manvendra Gohil of Rajpipla (Gujarat), who is dressed in trademark churidar-kurta everywhere. “I love Indian, I wore churidar-kurta even in freezing Chicago for my interview with Oprah Winfrey,” he says. “Even though the Privy Purse has been abolished, we are still the custodians of Indian culture.”
Gohil says, “I do not buy Baba Ramdev’s products because I use my own organically-grown ones. But that apart, I don’t buy them as a matter of principle too. What if now he claims to have made something to turn the gay straight?”
The prince adds that as a true yogi, Baba Ramdev should accept the truth, which is a part of the eight-fold path of yoga. “He has to accept that homosexuality is natural and normal.”
Gohil recounts that once he went to a Patanjali store in Rajpipla with some American visitors.
“They were intrigued by the products and wanted to buy them. When I told them that this yogi thinks homosexuality is a disease, they were shocked and left without purchasing anything.” He also asks why a yoga guru, “who claims to have left the material world, is talking about sexuality or sex”. “How can you give opinions on a subject you have no knowledge on?” questions Gohil, saying Ramdev should instead sell condoms to promote safe sex.
Seconding the two, gay rights activist Pallav Patankar says, “If he launches jeans, it may go against the Indianness, which is Baba Ramdev’s identity. Also, I and many from the community won’t buy from a man who denies us our identity.”
‘Discard views, buy stuff’
However, singer-actor-performer Sushant Divgikar, who represented India at the Mr. Gay World 2014, thinks differently. This MA in Industrial Psychology from Mumbai University says, “I use Baba Ramdev’s products… I love his shampoo and his toothpaste called Dantkanti.”
When reminded that Ramdev has claimed that he can cure homosexuality, Divgikar laughs and says, “He has cured my bad hair days for sure.”
“One should just discount the nonsense he talks on homosexuality. Discard his views, like you would mine if I talk about something I have no expertise in, like aeronautical engineering, and keep looking gorgeous,” he smiles.
The message from a significant section of the community seems simple though: Retail therapy is okay, but no therapies to cure us, please.
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