Navtej Singh Johar (born 8 August 1959) is an Indian

Sangeet Natak Akademi award Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (IPA: Saṅgīta Nāṭaka Akādamī Puraskāra), also known as the Akademi Puraskar, is an award given by the Sangeet Natak Akademi Sangeet Natak Akademi (The National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama in Englis ...

-winning

Bharatnatyam Bharatanatyam () is a major form of Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu. It is one of the eight widely recognized Indian classical dance forms, and expresses South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas, particularly of ...

exponent and

choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...

. He is also an

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

activist.

Life and career

Johar is faculty at

Ashoka University Ashoka University is a philanthropy-driven private university located in the National Capital Region (NCR), India, focusing on a liberal education in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Sciences. The university is on a mission to buil ...

, Sonipat. He is trained in

Bharatanatyam Bharatanatyam () is a major form of Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu. It is one of the eight widely recognized Indian classical dance forms, and expresses South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas, particularly of S ...

Kalakshetra Kalakshetra Foundation, formerly simply Kalakshetra, is an arts and cultural academy dedicated to the preservation of traditional values in Indian art and crafts, especially in the field of Bharatanatyam dance and Gandharvaveda music. Based in ...

, a dance school of Rukmini Arundale at

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, and with

Leela Samson Leela Samson (born 6 May 1951) is a Bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer, instructor, writer and actress from India. As a soloist, she is known for her technical virtuosity and has taught Bharatanatyam at Shriram Bhartiya Kala Kendra in Delhi f ...

at the

Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra (SBKK) is an Indian cultural institution which runs a school for music, dance and performing arts in New Delhi. It was founded by Sumitra Charat Ram in 1952, and imparts training in Indian classical dance styl ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

. He also studied later at the Department of

Performance Studies Performance studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses performance as a lens and a tool to study the world. The term ''performance'' is broad, and can include artistic and aesthetic performances like concerts, theatrical events, ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. He has received numerous fellowships for his research such as Times of India Fellowship (1995), the Charles Wallace Fellowship (1999). Johar has collaborated with composers Stephen Rush, Shubha Mudgal and installation artist

Sheba Chhachhi Sheba Chhachhi is a photographer, women's rights activist, writer, film-maker and an installation artist. She is based in New Delhi and has exhibited her works widely in India and internationally. Issues centring on women and impact of urban t ...

among others. He has also acted in ''

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

'' by

Deepa Mehta Deepa Mehta, (; born 1 January 1950) is an Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, best known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire (1996 film), ''Fire'' (1996), ''Earth (1998 film), Earth'' (1998), and ''Water (2005 film), Water'' (2005 ...

and ''

Khamosh Pani ''Khamosh Pani'' (Punjabi: (Shahmukhi), ਖ਼ਾਮੋਸ਼ ਪਾਨੀ (Gurmukhi); ''Silent Waters'') is a 2003 Indo-Pakistani film about a widowed mother and her young son living in a Punjabi village as it undergoes radical changes durin ...

'' by

Sabiha Sumar Sabiha Sumar (born 29 September 1961) is a Pakistani filmmaker and producer. She is best known for her independent documentary films. Her first feature-length film was '' Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters)'', released in 2003. She is known for explo ...

. He is among the few male dancers of classical form in India and first

Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...

to have taken to the art form.

Activism

In June 2016, Johar and five others, all members of the

LGBT community The LGBT community (also known as the LGBTQ+ community, GLBT community, gay community, or queer community) is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay men, gay, bisexuality, bisexual, transgender, and other queer individuals united by a comm ...

themselves, filed a writ petition in the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

challenging

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code Section 377 of the British colonial penal code criminalized all sexual acts "against the order of nature". The law was used to prosecute people engaging in oral and anal sex along with homosexual activity. The penal code remains in many former col ...

. This resulted in the 2018 landmark judgment in ''

Navtej Singh Johar and others v. Union of India Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India Secretary Ministry of Law and Justice (2018) is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of India that decriminalised all consensual sex among adults, including homosexual sex. The court was asked to dete ...

'' in which the Supreme Court unanimously declared the law unconstitutional "in so far as it criminalizes consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johar, Navtej 1959 births Indian choreographers Punjabi people Bharatanatyam exponents Living people LGBT choreographers Indian LGBT people Indian LGBT rights activists 21st-century LGBT people Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award