Over a thousand miles away from Mumbai and its rainbow-and-glitter-drunk Pride parties, the reality of being queer in India’s less privileged regions looks entirely different. In Manipur, where ethnic violence has disrupted lives since May 2023, displacement and blockades have fractured the healthcare system. In Chhattisgarh, conventionalism isolates the LGBTQIA+ community from mainstream medical infrastructure.

In both regions, Pride is neither an annual festival nor a marketing gimmick. This is a gruelling act of mutual aid and survival. Away from the public eye, grassroots queer networks have become frontline providers of HIV healthcare. Cut off from global funding, especially from the Donald Trump-led US, they are sustaining vital support networks out of pure necessity, proving that solidarity is forged in the trenches of war itself.