Photos: Artist Sunil Gupta remembers historian & activist Saleem Kidwai

Noted historian and queer rights activist Saleem Kidwai, who recently turned 70, passed away Monday morning after suffering a heart attack in Lucknow. Kidwai, born in 1951, is the author of “Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History (2001)” which he co-authored with Ruth Vanita, a professor at the University of Montana. A copy of this book was given to the judges of the Constitution bench of the Supreme Court while it heard a clutch of petitions against Section 377, a colonial-era law that criminalised adult consensual same-sex relationships. Kidwai taught Indian medieval history for nearly 20 years at the University of Delhi’s Ramjas College and was associated with the gay rights movement, helping establish support spaces for the Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender (LGBT) community in the National Capital.