How Tahil Sharma Navigates Double Consciousness as Hindu, Sikh, and Queer in America
To hold multiple identities at the same time can be challenging, especially when the two identities conflict or are not seen as equal within society.
Recently, I sat down with the Tahil Sharma, the Regional Coordinator for the United Religions Initiative and a Sacred Journeys Fellow with Interfaith America. As an interfaith leader, he has led several programs that bridge divides between religious communities. He graciously shared more about his personal experiences navigating America as Hindu, Sikh, and queer. We chat about the concepts of double consciousness, multiculturalism, and masculinity.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
SURAJ: Hi Tahil! Thank you for joining me today. I recently attended your session on navigating double consciousness and connected with it greatly. I would love to chat more about this topic.
TAHIL: Sure. I would love to.
SURAJ: To start, do you mind defining what double consciousness is?
TAHIL: I follow the W. E. B. Du Bois’ definition, which is the sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others. What is our sphere of identity and how do we honor the intersectionality related to it? How do we then adapt any part of that first sphere of identity for the sake of whiteness in the second sphere that we have?
SURAJ: How does this look for you on a personal level?
TAHIL: How I navigate life at home is very different in comparison to how I navigate the world outside. At home, there is a specific language that I speak, specific stuff that I do, and specific things that I have perspectives on. Out in the world, there are some things that I can’t think of in the same way, I can’t say the same way, I can’t do the same way. It’s important to acknowledge that there’s the entire part of us in this double consciousness that always has to bend over backwards to adapt to whiteness so whiteness can understand it and in some ways, affirm it because the original part of ourselves usually is not accepted in society.
SURAJ: What does that look like in your day-to-day life?
TAHIL: As someone who wears a constant religious article like my Kadas (bracelets), people have come up to me and asked me questions about it. I don’t have issues with that, but I’ve had people grab me by the arm or by the wrist to actually look at them without my permission. I’ve been constantly told that I still have to take it off at the airport, even though it is a religious article. In that sense, I have to bend over to whiteness or that discomfort of a society that is not used to me wearing something as simple as a steel band around my wrist because it is not the norm.
SURAJ: That sounds extremely frustrating.
TAHIL: In a way, I would same the same thing about my brown skin. Similar to the article, other folks who want to look at me and greet me, rather than just saying hello, they greet me by saying namaste or Sasrika. They want to tell me about the [Indian] doctor that they know. If we have the same last name, are we related? They want to talk to you about their favorite Indian restaurant or tell me how much they love Bollywood. They want to connect with a part of me that actually isn’t the entire part of me. They’re more focused on the external nature of what my identity is, but not actually looking inwards and thinking there’s a whole other part of this person that is not just the brown skin or the religious article around his wrist.
SURAJ: I see what you mean. This also happens with identities outside of religion, I feel.
TAHIL: Yeah, as someone who identifies as bisexual, bi erasure is real. That’s something that I have experienced within the queer space, straight allied space, and straight space.
SURAJ: What do you think it looks like for people to embrace another person’s full self?
TAHIL: It’s about asking questions about the entire person. We often overlook this idea that we want to build comfort first before we ask deeper questions. I understand where that comes from. But, what we’re prioritizing is misplaced because by looking at me externally and saying “Ah, there are the list of things that I can ask you about because you have brown skin” is not a qualifier for you to now have the invitation to go deeper in conversation with me. It’s telling me you are not actually trying to learn about the entire person that I am and you are instead putting assumptions on me in an attempt to connect with me. That’s not how that works.
SURAJ: I resonate with that.
TAHIL: Yeah, my brown skin doesn’t displace me and say that I was born 10,000 miles away. It says that I might come from a specific background, but all you really have to do is ask. Also, whenever we need to ask questions, we don’t need to fill in the blanks to answer those questions.
SURAJ: For sure. Especially when people may be misinformed or miseducated about a particular topic.
TAHIL: Yeah, going into a space hearing that you are Hindu and then asking, “oh isn’t it true that you all are polytheists? Isn’t it true that you think cows are sacred?” Why don’t you just ask me what my beliefs and worldview are so that you have a better understanding of how I identify?
SURAJ: Definitely. It almost seems easier to just walk into a conversation acknowledging that you may not know something, but you are willing to learn rather than coming in with all these assumptions to prove to yourself that you are not misinformed.
So you have mentioned multiple identities that you hold. In this conversation of double consciousness, I’m curious if you find internal conflicts between two or more identities that you hold?
TAHIL: I certainly felt that way. With how the world functions, my skepticism and curiosity probably increased tenfold. I was introduced to Hinduism and Sikhism at the same time and I had to tussle internally with the possibility [of identifying with both religions] and realizing that [my identity] is not a pie chart. I’m 100% a practitioner of both. We still live in this rigid idea of existing in a binary when in reality, a spectrum exists for everything.
SURAJ: I like the pie chart reference. You don’t have to be half Hindu and half Sikh. You are 100% both.
TAHIL: How people feel that they are affirmed, uplifted, or given a sense of dignity and purpose may not be guaranteed by a single tradition. You may not have been exposed to other traditions to affirm you that could be saying essentially the same thing. It’s also not to say that I come into a space with this dual religious background and cannot find value and wisdom in other religions.
SURAJ: Oh, that’s interesting. Can you share more?
TAHIL: I grew up in Los Angeles, a city with thousands of congregations for dozens of religions and denominations. It was almost impossible for me not to go to another house of worship that wasn’t my own. I took a lot of valuable insight from them. It didn’t mean I had to become that religion to learn.
SURAJ: How do you enter other religious spaces as someone who feels intimately connected to his faith traditions?
TAHIL: I think a big challenge that exists with how a lot of people understand the nature of interfaith literacy or interfaith appreciation is rigidness. [People think] a rigidness has to exist because it might blur the lines if you experience another tradition and find something valuable. That’s actually further from the truth. You can rediscover your own traditions and dig deeper into them when you realize there’s another tradition that’s making you think deeper about how you need to understand your purpose, beliefs, and conviction.
SURAJ: It really is beautiful what exposing yourself to other points of view can do. It expands your mind and strengthens your beliefs. It seems that the identities and beliefs you hold work together because appreciating other perspectives is a shared value among your belief systems. Would you agree? I imagine the double consciousness for people who hold conflicting beliefs must be challenging.
TAHIL: I would like to think so. You know, when we talk about this idea of double consciousness, there is a simplicity in saying that we are bending forward and backward for whiteness. When in reality, it’s this idea that exists among many traditions and cultures that have been impacted by colonialism or capitalism that actually tells us that the status quo exists for a reason, don’t break it. If we are breaking tradition, we are breaking history and breaking norms. People are not going to be comfortable with that from the get-go.
SURAJ: This assumes that we, as a society, are not already breaking norms.
TAHIL: Yes, this rigidity assumes that everything has been stagnant since the beginning of time. We know that for any civilization, culture, faith, religion, or institution that has come to be has never stayed the same. So why are we putting a roadblock in what could be a greater greatness for your community, your people, or your traditions?
SURAJ: So what does that look like for you? How do you break norms and uplift the parts of your identity that do not fit the “norm”?
TAHIL: That’s a good question. In terms of gender, I started wearing more heeled shoes than I did before. They’re not stilettos, but even these can be conceived as being more feminine. I wear this bisexual flag ring on my hand. That’s a very outward facing symbol. I don’t hold back from talking about the fact that I can be queer and religious.
SURAJ: That is great to hear!
TAHIL: How I navigate this in the outside world vs. how I navigate within my family is something that I have been slowly tackling in different ways because I have to play the role of a translator. The language I speak to my parents is not the language that I speak to my friends is not the language I speak to a crowd of people. I have to approach those things very differently.
SURAJ: I’m very interested in this because it speaks to the double consciousness that we as, Indian-Americans, face. We hold space for both identities and must continually serve as translators of concepts, thoughts, and language between communities. Sometimes we even translate English to English between Indian and American communities. How do you navigate this?
TAHIL: One example is my coming out. I came out to my parents. It was funny because my parents were the ones that introduced me to the first queer people I knew in my life. They were their coworkers and friends from different spaces. I remember my mom reacting and saying she wish I had told her earlier. It was something new for her and my father because we don’t have anyone in our family. It’s very new for us to see LGBTQ people who are South Asian.
I thought that was interesting because I now have learned that’s completely the opposite of what history tells us. LGBTQ history in the South Asian context is actually extremely old. It’s affirmed by multiple faith traditions. To hear my mom say that made me realize that my mom may not know her own history of the people who have coexisted with us the whole time. I think it is a disservice to how we understand queer history as not being part of the human history we see in textbooks.
SURAJ: So would you say your approach to reconciling your queer identity with your mom’s belief system to be through storytelling, particularly sharing stories from history that may have been forgotten?
TAHIL: To a certain extent, yes. I challenge my family by reminding them of the places where we stand when we talk about history, community, and identity. There is always going to be a way of translating things. We have ways, based on the stories that we tell, to be able to relay a message from one community to another.
SURAJ: Absolutely! One last question that I have for you is related to masculinity. A reason I started The Multicultural Man is to learn how men and masculine-identifying people navigate the world through their cultural lenses. Do you mind sharing some of your thoughts on this?
TAHIL: Yeah, I received a lot of the typical portrayals of masculinity in my life. I mentioned I grew up in Los Angeles. From a desi context, the Latino context, the white context, and black context, I received messages on what makes a man a man, which was being strong, not showing emotions, talking about cars, going to the LA Auto Show, enjoying sports, getting hurt was okay, and building a resilience out of a lot of raw emotions.
SURAJ: How did receiving those messages about masculinity make you feel?
TAHIL: I had to process all of those things differently. I had to understand that it was okay to cry. I had to understand that if I needed to express my frustrations, I need to express them clearly. Not come to a conclusion about a situation or use that energy to drive me towards something physical or something that I might regret doing. I don’t need to raise my voice to get a point across. I don’t need to put myself in a place where the question of who I am as a person solely rides on my gender, as a cisgender person. Getting to turn all of those things around is a big part of an approach to making masculinity a healthier experience.
SURAJ: That is amazing! That is not an easy task to accomplish.
TAHIL: It’s still being undone in me just as much as I would say in society. You’ve got to let yourself process things like a human being. We still think that men are supposed to be the rock of the family and that kind of objectification, almost literal, is why we continue to struggle with the idea of masculinity becoming toxic. Because eroding away at a rock only makes it weaker.
SURAJ: I love that analogy. Was that your experience growing up, where there was a man who was “supposed to” be the rock of the family?
TAHIL: I came from a household that turned things around for me because for the longest time, my mom was the main breadwinner. She was the strength. She was the rock of the household. She also had unhealthy approaches to processing emotions too. That’s how masculinity can impact a woman too.
SURAJ: It really demonstrates how expanding how we think about masculinity can improve the lives of all.
TAHIL: I think we have to if we want to approach it in a healthy way. We also need to be realistic that [masculinity and femininity are] not a set list of things. They are how we engender experiences or qualities. They are not really in nature those things.
SURAJ: Can you share a personal example of how this played out or plays out in your life?
TAHIL: If I ever went to a desi function, I would see the men sit in the living room and watch TV and talk politics. The women went to the kitchen and made food. The children went to whatever extra room to play games. That was the expectation. I was not that way. I would sit with the elders in both rooms and talk to them. If there was a bunch of stuff going on in the kitchen, I would ask if anyone needed any help. I would get a lot of confusing looks. The men would say, “why are you asking them if they need help?” and the women would say, “why are you asking us to help?”. And I’m thinking, “because you might need help…”
SURAJ: Ah yes, I am familiar with how these gender roles and norms play out in Desi contexts. It’s fascinating how wanting to help someone in need is ‘not allowed’ because of our gender. How do you navigate those spaces now?
TAHIL: In my own home, my mom, dad, and I all help in different ways. That’s just the way that it is because why would it be any other way? These other spaces that become engendered are made into social norms for our communities. Gender norms develop because these are the silos that we create. We affirm them by not challenging them in any way. It’s important that we challenge the status quo when we are in these spaces. Even just doing things slightly differently.
SURAJ: For sure. Then a ripple effect occurs. You changing the norm a bit liberates another person to follow suit, or change a norm in a different way. It can be as simple as me, a man, cleaning his plate after he is finished. Children watching may observe my behavior and note that all people can wash a dish; it is not a gendered task.
TAHIL: Absolutely!
SURAJ: Tahil, I want to thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I learned so much about a variety of topics from you.
TAHIL: Yeah, I’m glad you considered me for this conversation.
SURAJ: Of course!