How Keshav Suri helped shape India's queer movement

I first learned that Section 377 had been decriminalised on 6 September, 2018 through a Google News alert on my phone. It was a humid afternoon, and I was slumped on the half-broken benches of my English tuition class in Kolkata, reluctantly working through gerunds and conjunctions. The notification sent a surge of relief, joy, and exhilaration through me that I still struggle to describe. Having spent my childhood and adolescence under the shadow of this draconian law, I felt an unfamiliar sense of freedom in knowing that, within a year, I would come of age in a country where being queer was no longer a crime.

That evening, I watched every news update I could find, absorbing interviews and vox pops of queer people across India celebrating a future in which they could finally love and exist without fear of persecution. The following morning, The Telegraph carried a striking front-page photograph of hotelier and activist Keshav Suri kissing his husband, Cyril Feuillebois-Tsapis, on the steps of the Supreme Court. I did not know it then, but that single image would become one of the defining photographs of queer liberation in India.

Almost a decade later, that image is the first thing I encounter when I sit down to chat with Suri on Zoom from his New Delhi office. When I point it out, Suri—dressed in bright blue silk, looking every bit the bearded fairy godmother that he is—pauses before tilting his laptop towards the photograph. "We just felt so validated and liberated," he recalls. "Inside the courtroom, as the judges read their verdict, it was like one love letter after another. And after the verdict, Devdutt Pattanaik nudged me and said, 'Go on the steps right now and kiss Cyril.' We had no idea the picture would go viral."

Yet when speaking about everything leading up to that day, Suri repeatedly deflects attention away from himself. It is a habit, he admits, that colleagues, friends, therapists, and coaches have all pointed out. Perhaps that explains why he still calls himself an "accidental activist", despite spending nearly two decades reshaping inclusive leadership and queer rights in Indian hospitality and public life. From establishing Kitty Su, which helped shape India's drag subculture, to launching the Keshav Suri Foundation, which has provided professional, financial, and psychological support to marginalised communities, the self-imposed moniker obscures a larger truth: Suri’s instrumental position in engineering systems of queer visibility in contemporary India.

When Suri left India to study in England in the mid-2000s, advocacy was far from his mind. A student at the University of Warwick, King's College London, and later SOAS, he imagined building a life abroad while homosexuality remained criminalised at home. But after his father's sudden death, he returned to support his family and the business. While the return was unexpected, Suri was determined to do it on his own terms. "I didn't want to have a water-cooler conversation. I was very aware of my executive position at LaLIT Suri Hospitality," he recalls. "While I wanted everyone to judge me for my work, I also wanted to be very clear that, yes, I'm gay and I wanted to show up every day with that honesty."

In 2011, Suri launched Kitty Su, envisioning not another nightclub but a space where queer people could be visible, celebrated, and free. After the Supreme Court recriminalised homosexuality in 2013, campaigns such as No Going Back emerged from within its walls, where drag performances became political acts and community gatherings became spaces for mobilisation. When Kitty Su invited internationally renowned drag artist Violet Chachki to perform in 2016, India's drag scene was still in its infancy; annual ballroom events like Glorious Luna’s It Events were a far-off fever dream. Suri remembers scrambling to find local performers before discovering the likes of Rani KoHEnur and Maya the Drag Queen. Weeks of training with Chachki finally led to their stage debuts. "Violet told me, 'You have to continue this. You have to give them a space to hone their craft." And Suri more than kept his end of the promise.

Over the following years, Kitty Su became a launchpad for a generation of drag artists. Today, Indian queens perform internationally, build businesses, and command global audiences—an evolution Suri watches with pride. "They are these fabulous superstars, but before anything else, they will always be my drag daughters, and I will fight the world for them," he says with the nurturing pride of a mother. There is no false sense of ownership over these success stories; instead, Suri continues to speak about building infrastructures that can continue supporting the existence of such a refined drag subculture in India in the coming decades. 

When asked to reflect on what two decades of inclusive leadership have looked like, Suri’s answer is revealing. In true Aries fashion, he sidetracks when it comes to elaborating on major milestones and maintains a distant look in his eyes while listing the things that remain to be done. Every legal setback, every policy reversal, every new challenge, he insists, forces the movement as a whole to revisit conversations many assumed had already been settled ("sometimes it feels like you have to start repeating everything," he admits with half a sigh). But it is an experience that has transformed how he thinks about leadership. 

Earlier in his journey, Suri says he sometimes carried a "saviour complex", a thought process he has taken years to shed. "I don't think we need saviours. Where I am at now is actually being an enabler,” Suri says. That distinction lies at the heart of his work. Through employment programmes, scholarships, community grants and cultural platforms, Suri increasingly sees his role as creating the conditions for others to thrive. It is a philosophy reflected in the Keshav Suri Foundation, which has grown from mental health initiatives into scholarships, economic empowerment programmes and funding for grassroots LGBTQIA+ organisations across India.

At the LaLIT Group, Suri has also introduced medical and financial benefits for same-sex partners, gender-affirming healthcare for transgender employees, and more inclusive hiring practices. "Many years ago, a lesbian couple staying with us wrote to say it was the first time they had travelled with their adopted son without introducing each other as an aunt," he recalls. "It showed that our policies were actively making a difference."

Despite this progress, Suri is acutely aware that LGBTQIA+ rights globally are entering an uncertain phase. Funding for queer organisations is shrinking, right-wing backlash against diversity initiatives is intensifying, and legal victories remain fragile. Does he ever lose hope?

"Yes, there are tough and dark days," Suri admits. "I allow myself to grieve, but the next morning I wake up and remind myself of the importance of queer joy. At the end of the day, we need to go with the messaging of love. There can be no resistance without a community built on love."

Suri insists, my generation must not lose hope. It is a difficult ask, especially at a time when the fear of artificial intelligence, a looming recession, and a hundred wars stand largely spread across our social media feeds all day long. But it is Suri’s unwavering faith and belief in the power of change that newness can bring that makes me exit this interview with a smile. In 2026, this is what inclusive leadership truly looks like. 

All images: Keshav Suri 

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