http://flonnet.com/fl2021/stories/20031024002509800.htm

Volume 20 - Issue 21, October 11 - 24, 2003
India's National Magazine from the publishers of THE HINDU
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GENDER ISSUES

In a twilight world

SIDDHARTH NARRAIN

The eunuchs of India constitute a much-misunderstood community; they are
often denied humane treatment by the state machinery and are deprived of the
rights that other citizens enjoy.

"Ever since I can remember, I have always identified myself as a woman. I
lived in Namakkal, a small town in Tamil Nadu. When I was in the 10th
standard I realised that the only way for me to be comfortable was to join
the hijra community. It was then that my family found out that I frequently
met hijras who lived in the city. One day, when my father was away, my
brother, encouraged by my mother, started beating me with a cricket bat. I
locked myself in a room to escape from the beatings. My mother and brother
then tried to break into the room to beat me up further. Some of my
relatives intervened and brought me out of the room. I related my ordeal to
an uncle of mine who gave me Rs.50 and asked me to go home. Instead, I took
the money and went to live with a group of hijras in Erode."

* "My name is Sachin and I am 23 years old. As a child I always enjoyed
putting make-up like `vibhuti' or `kum kum' and my parents always saw me as
a girl. I am male but I only have female feelings. I used to help my mother
in all the housework like cooking, washing and cleaning. Over the years I
started assuming more of the domestic responsibilities at home. The
neighbours started teasing me. They would call out to me and ask: `Why don't
you go out and work like a man?' or `Why are you staying at home like a
girl?' But I liked being a girl. I felt shy about going out and working.
Relatives would also mock and scold me on this score. Every day I would go
out of the house to bring water. And as I walked back with the water I would
always be teased. I felt very ashamed. I even felt suicidal. How could I
live like that? But my parents never protested. They were helpless."

- From the Peoples Union of Civil Liberties (Karnataka) Report on Human
Rights Violations Against the Transgender Community, released in September
2003.

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HIJRAS in India have virtually no safe spaces, not even in their families,
where they are protected from prejudice and abuse. The recently released
PUCL(K) Report on Human Rights Violations Against the Transgender Community
has documented the kind of prejudice that hijras face in Bangalore. The
report shows that this prejudice is translated into violence, often of a
brutal nature, in public spaces, police stations, prisons and even in their
homes. The main factor behind the violence is that society is not able to
come to terms with the fact that hijras do not conform to the accepted
gender divisions. In addition to this, most hijras have a lower middle-class
background, which makes them susceptible to harassment by the police. The
discrimination based on their class and gender makes the hijra community one
of the most disempowered groups in Indian society.

However, the human rights movement in India has begun to take notice of the
concerns of the community only recently. Legal scholar Upendra Baxi, in the
foreword to the PUCL(K) report, says: "The dominant discourse on human
rights in India has yet to come to terms with the production/reproduction of
absolute human rightlessness of transgender communities.... At stake is the
human right to be different, the right to recognition of different pathways
of sexuality, a right to immunity from the oppressive and repressive
labelling of despised sexuality. Such a human right does not exist in
India."

Transgender communities have existed in most parts of the world with their
own local identities, customs and rituals. They are called baklas in the
Philippines, berdaches among American Indian tribes, serrers in Africa and
hijras, jogappas, jogtas, shiv-shaktis and aravanis in South Asia. The hijra
community in India, which has a recorded history of more than 4,000 years,
was considered to have special powers because of its third-gender status. It
was part of a well-established `eunuch culture' in many societies,
especially in West Asia, and its members held sanctioned positions in royal
courts.

Hijras trace their origins to myths in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Rama, while leaving for the forest upon being banished from the kingdom for
14 years, turns around to his followers and asks all the `men and women' to
return to the city. Among his followers the hijras alone do not feel bound
by this direction and decide to stay with him. Impressed with their
devotion, Rama sanctions them the power to confer blessings on people on
auspicious occasions like childbirth and marriage, and also at inaugural
functions. This set the stage for the custom of badhai in which hijras sing,
dance and confer blessings.

The legend in the Mahabharata is that Aravan, the son of Arjuna and
Nagakanya, offers to be sacrificed to Goddess Kali to ensure the victory of
the Pandavas in the Kurukshetra war. The only condition that he made was to
spend the last night of his life in matrimony. Since no woman was willing to
marry one who was doomed to be killed, Krishna assumes the form of a
beautiful woman called Mohini and marries him. The hijras of Tamil Nadu
consider Aravan their progenitor and call themselves aravanis.

The hijra community is divided into seven houses, each headed by a `nayak'
who appoints gurus or spiritual leaders to train their wards or `chelas' in
badhai and protect them. Hijras in South India do not have the same cultural
role as their counterparts in North India and most of them take up sex work
as a means of earning a living.

Kothi is a term used to describe male homosexuals who take on the female
role; they are largely from a non-English-speaking lower middle-class
background. Many kothis marry owing to family pressure but continue to have
same sex relationships. There is a symbolic relationship between kothis and
hijras, which has been strengthened because of the lack of other support
systems for kothis in cities and smaller towns.

For many hijras and kothis, sex work is the only option because no one is
willing to employ them because of their gender identity. Even as commercial
sex workers, hijras are the most vulnerable group as they are placed right
at the bottom of the hierarchy of sex workers. This results in their having
little bargaining power and being unable to ensure that their customers
practise safe sex. They are also at risk of violence both from customers and
the police.

According to the PUCL(K) report, violence is a widespread and everyday
reality for hijra and kothi sex workers in Bangalore. Owing to the
intolerance they face from their families, hijras and kothis often use
public spaces like parks and toilets to entertain sexual partners, lovers
and sometimes even clients. The lack of protection or privacy afforded by
their own accommodation, makes them vulnerable to violence, inflicted
largely by the police.

The harassment and surveillance by the police sometimes extends into the
privacy of their homes. The place with the most scope for abuse is the
police station where the police, on a regular basis, violate all canons of
civilised behaviour by physically, sexually and verbally abusing and
humiliating hijras and kothis.

Prisons are also places where anyone who is seen as not being `masculine
enough' is harassed and often physically and sexually abused. According to
the PUCL(K) report, the deeply sexual nature of the violence indicates that
the sexuality of the hijra becomes the target of prurient curiosity, which
could in its extreme form manifest itself as brutal violence. Sexual abuse
and violence, apart from being the most systematic tool for dehumanising an
individual, can be understood as a punishment for not conforming to the
gender roles laid down by society.

ACCORDING to the two main diagnostic systems used in the Indian medical
establishment, transsexualism is defined as a `gender identity disorder'.
The doctors usually prescribe a sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), which
currently resorts to hormone therapy and surgical reconstruction and may
include electrolysis, speech therapy and counselling. Surgical construction
could include the removal of male sex organs and the construction of female
ones. Since government hospitals and qualified private practitioners do not
usually perform SRS, many hijras go to quacks, thus placing themselves at
serious risk. Neither the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) nor the
Medical Council of India (MCI) have formulated any guidelines to be followed
in SRS. The attitude of the medical establishment has only reinforced the
low sense of self-worth that many hijras have at various moments in their
lives.
The media have also reinforced stereotypes about hijras. In December 2002,
Chandini, a hijra from Bangalore, died of severe burns in her home. The
hijra community alleged that her husband, who had a long-standing
relationship with her, had murdered her for money, and demanded that an
impartial probe be held. The police refused and stuck to their version that
it was a case of suicide. The local newspapers, including Police News,
portrayed the incident as an exciting romantic tryst between two strangers,
in which the unsuspecting man discovered the true sexual identity of the
wily hijra. Even a progressive and anti-establishment publication, in its
story, described hijras as a race apart, freaks of the underworld, half-man
half-woman, almost devilish in their customs and practices. This kind of
gender stereotyping was seen in many local English newspapers as well.

The systematic violence that hijras face is reinforced by institutions such
as the family, media and the medical establishment, and is given legitimacy
by the legal system. The violence that the hijra community faces from the
police can be traced to the 1897 amendment to the Criminal Tribes Act of
1871, which was subtitled "An Act for the Registration of Criminal Tribes
and Eunuchs". Under this law, the local government was required to keep a
register of the names and residences of all eunuchs who were "reasonably
suspected of kidnapping or castrating children or committing offences under
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code". The law also decreed eunuchs as
incapable of acting as a guardian, making a gift, drawing up a will or
adopting a son.

The law that is used most to threaten the hijra and kothi communities, as
well as the homosexual community in India, is Section 377 of the IPC, which
criminalises "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man,
woman or animal" even if it is voluntary. In effect, it criminalises certain
kinds of sexual acts that are perceived to be `unnatural'. The law, which
has its origin in colonial ideas of morality, in effect presumes that a
hijra or a homosexual person is engaging in `carnal intercourse against the
order of nature", thus making this entire lot of marginalised communities
vulnerable to police harassment and arrest.

The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA) of 1956 (amended in 1986), whose
stated objective is to criminalise brothel-keeping, trafficking, pimping and
soliciting, in reality targets the visible figure of the sex worker and
enables the police to arrest and intimidate the transgender sex-worker
population.

The hijra community is deprived of several rights under civil law because
Indian law recognises only two sexes. This means that hijras do not have the
right to vote, marry and own a ration card, a passport or a driving licence,
or claim employment and health benefits.

In north and central India, hijras, who have contested and won elections to
local and State bodies, are now facing legal challenges. In February 2003,
the Madhya Pradesh High Court struck down the election of Kamala Jaan as the
Mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Katni. The court's logic was that
since Kamala Jaan was not a woman, she could not contest the seat, which was
reserved for women. Lawyer Pratul Shandilya, who is arguing Kamala Jaan's
case, said: "I have already filed the Special Leave Petition (SLP) before
the Supreme Court, and the court has also granted leave in the petition."

The High Court verdict came despite a direction from the Election Commission
(E.C.) in September 1994 that hijras can be registered in the electoral
roles either as male or female depending on their statement at the time of
enrolment. This direction was given by the E.C. after Shabnam, a hijra
candidate from the Sihagpur Assembly constituency in Madhya Pradesh, wrote
to the Chief Election Commissioner enquiring about which category hijras
were classified under.

BUT around the world, countries are beginning to recognise the rights of
transgender people. In a landmark judgment (Christine Goodwin vs. the United
Kingdom, 2002) the European Court of Human Rights declared that the U.K.
government's failure to alter the birth certificates of transsexual people
or to allow them to marry in their new gender role was a breach of the
European Convention on Human Rights. It said that a test of biological
factors could no longer be used to deny recognition legally to the change of
gender that a transsexual had undergone. In New Zealand, in New Zealand
Attorney General vs. the Family Court at Otahuhu (1994), the court upheld
the principle that for purposes of marriage, transsexual people should be
legally recognised in their re-assigned sex.

In Victoria, Australia, the Equal Opportunity (Gender Identity and Sexual
Orientation) Bill, debated and amended in the State Assembly in 2000, has
laid down a comprehensive definition of gender identity by incorporating
various social and cultural factors that shape a person's gender and sexual
identity. The International Bill of Gender Rights, adopted in 1995, provides
for the right to define and express freely one's gender identity, and is
therefore a model for progressive legislative change.

OF late the Indian hijra community has begun to mobilise themselves through
the formation of a collective. Sangama, an organisation working with hijras,
kothis and sex workers in Bangalore, has played an important role by helping
them organise and fight for their rights. Its services include organising a
drop-in centre for hijras and kothis, conducting a series of public rallies
and marches, using legal assistance in case of police harassment, and
establishing links with other social movements. When the owners' association
of the apartment complex where the Sangama office was located objected to
hijras visiting the premises, the organisation sent letters to, among
others, the Chief Minister and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
The Chief Minister responded saying that he would ensure that the matter was
investigated. A letter from the NHRC to the police station concerned
resulted in the police assuring Sangama that the rights of all residents of
the building, including the employees and visitors to Sangama, would be
protected.

In December 2002, hijras, kothis and other sexual minorities in Bangalore
formed a collective called Vividha. Its charter of demands includes the
repeal of Section 377 and the ITPA. It has also demanded that hijras be
recognised as women, be given equal opportunities, with entitlement to
housing, employment benefits and rail travel concession.

In 2002, the hijra community in Bangalore organised `Hijra Habba', a
festival of sports and cultural events, which was covered extensively and
positively by the media. In 2003, the festival was staged again in
Bangalore's Town Hall and over 100 hijras participated in the meet. Kajol, a
hijra who addressed the packed hall on the occasion, said: "I was initially
told not to speak in front of the media because it would affect my family.
But I decided that it was important for me to speak and assert my identity."
She added that "hijras were part of a wider community of sexual minorities"
and singled out society's treatment of lesbians for whom there exist very
few spaces.

The organisations of the hijra community can be seen as constituting a
larger movement of sexual minority groups in India. They are challenging the
constitutional validity of Section 377 and are organising a campaign
questioning the government's stand that the law should remain. The
discrimination and violence that hijras face show that it is high time that
both the government and the human rights movement in the country begin to
take this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

END

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© 2003, Frontline.

. .
/\\//\ Gwendolyn Ann Smith * www.gwensmith.com
> () < Columnist, Bay Area Reporter & Philadelphia Gay News
\/()\/ Board Member, FTMI * Board Member, GEA
"I want this to be a harmony of voices" - Lauren D. Wilson