In 1990, a small, unregistered-looking publication began circulating through the back shelves of a handful of Mumbai newsstands, wrapped discreetly in brown paper and sold to customers who asked for it in hushed tones. It cost about 15 rupees — more than most mainstream glossies of the time — and it carried no address, no editorial masthead you could easily trace, because at the time, homosexuality was a criminal offence under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, and being associated with a "gay magazine" carried real legal and social risk. That publication was Bombay Dost, India's first registered LGBTQ magazine, and over the next three decades it would become one of the most important institutions in the history of India's queer rights movement.
An Idea Born Out of Necessity
Bombay Dost was founded by journalist and activist Ashok Row Kavi, along with Suhail Abbasi and Sridhar Rangayan. Row Kavi, who had already made headlines in 1986 by becoming one of the first Indians to publicly discuss his own homosexuality, envisioned the magazine as more than a newsletter — it was meant to be a "manual" for gay men navigating a hostile world, offering practical guidance on living openly and safely. The idea reportedly crystallised after Row Kavi attended an international AIDS conference, where he recognised the urgent need for a platform that could carry health information and community-building resources directly to India's largely invisible gay population.
The magazine's first issue ran to just 16 pages and an early print run of around 650 copies. Distribution was almost clandestine: street vendors kept copies tucked behind other titles, handing them over only when a customer specifically asked, then wrapping the purchase in brown paper before it left the stall. It was, in every sense, a magazine too taboo to be seen carrying.
A Lifeline Disguised as a Magazine
Despite — or perhaps because of — this secrecy, Bombay Dost struck a nerve. Its "Khush Khat" ("Happy Letters") column, where readers exchanged personal correspondence, reportedly drew as many as 3,000 letters a week at its peak, arriving from across India and from as far afield as Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Dubai. For many readers, some of whom had never spoken of their sexuality to another living person, the column was the first place they encountered proof that they were not alone.
The magazine mixed the practical and the playful. Alongside advice columns and increasingly urgent coverage of the HIV/AIDS crisis — a subject the mainstream Indian press was largely ignoring — it ran a gossip column called "Poison Pudi," offered analysis of Section 377 and the broader legal landscape, and eventually began featuring Bollywood stars on its cover, including Akshay Kumar in the 1990s and, later, Manoj Bajpayee (following his role in the 2016 biopic Aligarh) and Kalki Koechlin, who appeared on the cover of its 25th-anniversary issue in 2015.
The Saif Ali Khan Incident
Bombay Dost's cultural commentary occasionally s into real controversy. In 1995, Row Kavi wrote a review of the film Main Khiladi Tu Anari, describing the on-screen chemistry between Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan as so intense that the film effectively played out as a love story between the two men, rendering the female leads superfluous. He had also recommended the film for a gay and lesbian film festival in San Francisco. The review reportedly enraged Saif Ali Khan, and Row Kavi later alleged that the actor showed up at his home and physically assaulted him — an episode Row Kavi has recounted publicly on several occasions as an example of the hostility the magazine's frank commentary could provoke.
Shutdown, Revival, and Legacy
By 2002, chronic funding shortages, a shrinking volunteer base, and the practical difficulty of running a niche print publication caught up with Bombay Dost, and it ceased publication. It didn't disappear entirely — the community around it stayed connected through a Yahoo!-hosted mailing list and social gatherings — and in April 2009, just months after the Delhi High Court's landmark ruling reading down Section 377, the magazine relaunched under the tagline "bolder than ever." The Hindi edition was discontinued, but the magazine's ambitions had grown: later issues aimed to train young journalists and to engage more directly with policy debates.
Running alongside the magazine's history is that of the Humsafar Trust, the NGO Row Kavi and his co-founders established in 1994 to formalize the community and health-advocacy work the magazine had started. Today Humsafar Trust is one of India's oldest and most prominent LGBTQ rights and HIV/AIDS service organizations, and it continues to be closely tied to the magazine it grew out of.
By the time India's Supreme Court struck down Section 377 in 2018, decriminalizing homosexuality nationwide, Bombay Dost was widely regarded as a foundational institution of the movement that made that ruling possible — a publication that had, quite literally, given a generation of Indians the words and the community to imagine a different future.
References:
- "Bombay Dost." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org
- "Ashok Row Kavi." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org
- "How Bombay Dost Mobilised India's Gay Movement." Homegrown India. https://homegrown.co.in
- "India's First Gay Magazine, Bombay Dost." NewsGram. https://www.newsgram.com
- "Underground Ink: A Short History of India's Queer Magazines." PRINT Magazine. https://www.printmag.com
- "' Saif hit my mother and me too.'" Yahoo News. https://www.yahoo.com
- "India's First and Oldest Gay Rights Activist Is Also on the Extreme Right of RSS." ThePrint. https://theprint.in
- Bombay Dost Digital Archive. https://www.bombay-dost.com
- "6 Indian LGBTQ Magazines You Should Know." Homegrown. https://homegrown.co.in