Friday, December 27, 2013

The other side of the story

It took just one quick stroke of a country-made ustra (razor) to change a life forever. Ram Kumar Negi was too drugged to struggle, but not enough to numb his pain. Forced down by Ranjeeta, a hijra (eunuch), and his hefty accomplices, and stripped naked, he watched terrorised as they severed his genitals with a sharp knife, leaving a gaping wound.

Negi's shrieks died in the stillness of the dingy basement 'surgery' in a village in Etah district of western Uttar Pradesh. In the usual course of events they would have yielded to a deeper silence. The outwardly raucous world of the hijras is cloaked in its own codes and secrets. For an unwilling initiate like Negi, the brutal reality of castration is usually enervating enough to snuff out any thought of justice or retribution. Not any longer.

In Delhi, which harbours 15,000 hijras, probably the largest number anywhere in the country, the fight back has begun. A determined group of men are filing criminal charges against their castrators and seeking help from local courts to bring the perpetrators of this brutal practice to book. Examples:
  • In March, 1993, Negi lodged criminal complaints in Jahangirpuri and Pitampura police stations in Delhi. When no action was taken, he approached the district court which ordered the police to carry out an inquiry.
  • Jagmohan Dhyani, 25, alias Jyoti, has filed a criminal complaint against Gharsan Khan whom he accuses of severing his genitals in 1987.
  • Kale Naik, 19, alias Baby, is approaching a Delhi court to get the police to inquire into his castration after the Nabi Karim police station in central Delhi refused to register a case.
Khairati Lal Bhola, a spokesman of the All India Hijra Kalyan Sabha, formed in 1984 to protect their rights, says: "While castrations had always been clandestinely forced on unwilling males, nobody else had the guts to retaliate like these people."

But the complainants have realised it is an uphill struggle. The police are unsympathetic. Braving the cynicism and ridicule of reluctant law-enforcers can often feel like a second assault.


Even the simple act of lodging an FIR is an ordeal. Ideally, the legal machinery should swing into motion once the victim files a complaint at the local police station.
The complaint, normally registered under Section 154 of the CrPC, would be followed up by an investigation and challan or charge-sheet under Section 173.

The case would then be tried by the concerned trial court. However, when Negi, Naik and Dhyani first approached the police, they refused to even register a case and did so only after the courts intervened.
"We don't like getting involved in the affairs of this community. They are not really part of our society, so why should we impose our laws on them?" argues a senior police official.

Worse, emasculation is not listed as a cognisable offence under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). "Though we don't possess sufficient data on this, it would normally fall under Section 326 or 365 of the IPC, which is "abduction and grievous injury with a sharp weapon", says L.C. Amarnathan, director, National Crime Records Bureau.

The bureau has no statistics as to how many cases of forcible emasculation may have occurred in the country. But R. Tiwari, Delhi's additional commissioner of police, crime, asserts: "I don't think there is any trend which shows a rise in forced castrations. There may be a few isolated cases, but nothing beyond that."
The local courts have been far more sympathetic. When the rebelling eunuchs complained of police inaction, the courts ordered the force to carry out investigations. But as Negi has realised, that hasn't been of too much help either. He alleges that the police did a cursory investigation and closed the case for "lack of evidence".

This is to some extent a genuine problem: conclusive evidence of coercion is certainly hard to come by. The hijra mafia which reportedly controls the castrations operates under a veil of secrecy and terror. Victims are threatened with death if they break the code of silence.

The Hijra Kalyan Sabha alleges that the hijra community operates through a countrywide network of hijra mandis, where a newly castrated eunuch is auctioned to the highest bidder.
"The auction is conducted with claps - a single clap denotes Rs 1,000. Understandably, the premium is highest on fair, clean-limbed boys who are likely to be high earners," explains Bhola.
However, the entire operation remains a secret as the hijra community is built on a pyramid structure at the apex of which are the elusive gurus, who are not only much older than the others in their ring but also exercise control over a particular ilaqa or territory for the purpose of extracting badhai (tips on joyous occasions).

According to Bhola, at least a thousand young men, many of them married and with families, are forcibly castrated each year. However, the Delhi Police reject such claims as highly exaggerated.

Dhyani talks of a hijra mafia operating in the Chakku Mohalla area of Dehra Dun where he fell into its hands. Its modus operandi is simple: lure fair, young Pahari boys into its company with temptations of good food, liquor or drugs and an easy life.
Like most victims of forcible castration, Dhyani himself acknowledges that his trouble began when he had voluntary contact with the hijra community. As an adolescent, he would loiter in the Mohalla in the company of local hijras.

In 1987, when he was 18, he says, he was kidnapped by them and brought to Delhi. He was then forced into peddling drugs and prostitution. And then one night, after being drugged, he was taken to a local 'doctor' who severed his genitals.

Negi, who was castrated a year ago. admits he used to have regular homosexual contact with hijras in his hometown of Hardwar before he was abducted and brought to Delhi.

Clean-faced and slender, Negi was renamed Rama and forced to dress as a woman, offer sex and pick pockets. When he tried to flee he was caught and tortured, and his legs scalded with flaming kerosene. And then one night, he was drugged and taken to Htah where another 'doctor' castrated him.
Police admit that it is difficult to arrest the 'doctors' who specialise in such castrations as they are usually in cahoots with the hijra mafia. One of the leading practitioners of this gruesome practice is said to be Kallo Haji. a resident of Vivek Vihar in east Delhi, who served a short sentence in 1987 on grounds of causing "grievous injury with a sharp weapon".

"He performs castrations only at the behest of the gurus and charges Rs 3,000 per case," alleges Bhola. But Haji vehemently denies this accusation and the local police maintain that he keeps to himself and does not cause trouble in the region.

Another alleged emasculator, against whom Dhyani has filed a criminal complaint for castrating him, is Gharsan Khan, 55. He is currently an undertrial in the Kakkad Dooma metropolitan court in Delhi, facing charges of murder following the death on the so-called operating table of one of the persons he was castrating.

Ombir Singh, assistant commissioner of police, Nand Nagri, says: "In the course of his first interrogation, Gharsan admitted to having performed at least a thousand castrations, out of which just one misfired and resulted in death." Khan now denies that he ever told the police so and maintains that he just rents out rickshaws for a living.

Probably one of the few occasions when a section of the hijra mafia was brought to book was in Ahmedabad in 1982. Hanif Vora, 23, a resident of Chhota Udaipur near Ahmedabad, who had been abducted and castrated in 1981, filed criminal complaints against his assailants in July 1982.
Twelve years ago, Mastubhai Maiik, along with his four accomplices, all hijras, were convicted and sentenced to five years' imprisonment each. But, Vora's friend Pratap Thakur dejectedly points out: That didn't get back his manhood."

Meanwhile, Negi undaunted by the police, recently closed his complaint for lack of evidence. "I won t let my castrators get away," he says, already contemplating a fresh legal appeal. Although he has not met with much success so far, he knows he has set an important example by striking back.
Kale Naik, too, is determined to get justice. "The Government punishes every crime. Why doesn't it take notice of something so inhuman as this?" he asks. But in the ceaseless bustle that envelops Kale's tiny tenement, the question hangs unanswered.

Source: 'http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/determined-group-of-forcibly-castrated-men-file-criminal-charges-against-their-abductors/1/293288.html'





Sunday, December 22, 2013

A Girl’s Girl


Transgender is an umbrella term that unites all those whose gender identity does not match their gender assignment at birth. The term does not represent drag queens or transvestites. It refers to people trapped in the wrong body. Bhoomi is an example of the reality we need not hide from.

 A stunning 6 feet tall, with long luscious hair and a brilliant smile, Bhoomi bounds down the Equal Ground stairs and welcomes us with open arms. A giggling girl at heart yet born in a male body, she tells us about her struggle to fit into society and lead a normal life.
Bhoomi was an only child who went to D.S. Senanayake College (an all boys school). She tells us that since she was little she always knew she was different – her childhood dream to be like Madhuri Dixit, to dress like her, act like her, dance like her. Uncertain whether she was meant to play with boys or girls, she always felt more comfortable with the girls. She recalls having a nice childhood but when she reached Grade 5, she realised her classmates were eternally excluding her from games and groups for classwork. Bhoomi has always had a high-pitched voice as her voice never cracked. Since she quite clearly sounded different to the other boys in her class, during concerts she was never allowed to sing on stage, only backstage with the
teachers. She tells us how her teachers loved her but also tried to encourage her to act more boy-like to fit in. This was not something she could control.
In grade 11, her crush of 5 years made fun of her in front of her whole class, laughing at her saying she didn’t have female parts. Thankfully also around this time Bhoomi met her best friend Moksha. She finally had someone in her life to talk about her feelings and how she was different because she felt like a girl but had been born to a boys body. “It was nice to finally have a best friend, someone who cared about me and loved me for who I was,” Bhoomi exclaims.
Once Bhoomi had finished her ALs and left school, she tells us things started getting harder as she started to grow her hair and nails, and wear make up. Her mother gave her a hard time, telling her to live somewhere else, but Bhoomi couldn’t even understand it herself. She prayed to God for a miracle to make her a girl.


Moksha introduced her to Equal Ground where she went to a sensitizing workshop on gender, sexuality and gender based violence run by Charles Nigel De Silva. It inspired her and she gradually started learning more and more about herself. She was glad that she wasn’t the only one in this situation and she realised that her life was valuable.
Bhoomi did an interview for a show called Mogamodhi (Mask), talking about her situation and her feelings about it. By some chance the program did not cover her face as they were meant to and it was viewed by her mother, their community and even the people at the Kovil. People who could not relate to where she was coming from began to give her a hard time. It was at this time that her mother kicked her out of the house. Bhoomi went to stay with her boyfriend at the time as she had no where else to go. The problem with this situation was that her boyfriend had told his parents that he was in a relationship with Bhoomi’s ‘twin sister’ (Bhoomi does not have a sister), so after 4
months Bhoomi moved to her own place in Rajagiriya. She tells us how difficult it was for her to find a place to live because she sounded like a girl on the phone, but looks like a boy. When she tried to explain to them that she was a boy physically but was going to become a girl, people were uncomfortable because they did not understand her situation.
Bhoomi started working at Equal Ground in 2011 (around the same time as the Mogamodhi interview came out), she tells us that it was them who helped her find a place to stay, gave her a job and the support to be strong. At Equal Ground, Bhoomi works as a Field Officer, a Counsellor and a Youth and Transgender Networks Co-ordinator. She likes her job and likes that she is slowly, one person at a time, changing people’s attitudes toward Transgenders.
Bhoomi says she knows girls don’t have all the same opportunities as men in this country, but at least they can be girls. She is frustrated that she speaks up so much for women’s rights, when women themselves don’t understand her plight and deny her her rights. There are moments that Bhoomi feels lonely and harassed, as even the simple pleasures are complicated. She says: “I get a lot of attention from boys – but I think it’s just for sexual things, not love, and I’m not happy with that. Once when I was sick and went to the hospital the receptionist called upstairs and said come down and see ‘magic’. It’s embarrassing. I’d rather be sick than go there again and be upset.”
She tells us that her parents accept her slightly more now and that her father told her that he doesn’t mind if she’s a boy or a girl, as long as she doesn’t let society laugh at her. She considers herself a Transgender who wants to be a girl. She is currently receiving treatments and is hoping to increase her doses of female hormones soon. One day her dream is to have Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) but there is no rush. She’s been reading up on it and tells us there are new methods coming up all the time. What she really wants is to be able to have a baby. Even if not her own biologically, she is sure that one day she will be a mother. Her friends have advised her to stay a shemale in case any problems occur, but she explains that she has been living this ‘halfhalf’ life right now. She just wants to be fully female, not for her society’s sake, but for her own happiness. Bhoomi is hoping to change her name officially but will need her parents present for that, so that has been put on hold for the moment.

source: http://lt.lk/a-girls-girl/

Monday, December 9, 2013

Will India recognize a third gender?

A biologically male teenager from Dattapukur on the outskirts of Kolkata was evicted from home for being too effeminate. Subject to routine family violence and exploitation, the child, who identified as a girl, was rescued by the Association of Transgender /Hijras in Bengal (ATHB) in August. ATHB soon realized that there were neither any shelters for transgender children nor any sensitization in the Child Welfare Council regarding the children's sexuality. In the absence of state protection, the teen was sent back home after some parental counseling.

The incident is telling of the legal vacuum that marks the life of the transgender community in most parts of India. "In most government hospitals, there is a male and female ward, but no space for transgender individuals. There is ambiguity in access to most basic services," points out Ranjita Sinha of ATHB Bengal.

But change could be in the offing. A petition that is due for a verdict in the Supreme Court (SC) has been weighing whether transgenders can be given legal recognition. This has been a longstanding demand of the gender rights movement, and was reiterated during the multi-city Queer Pride Parades. Its significance however, is often drowned out by the debate over decriminalization of homosexuality.

The issue got an impetus thanks to a public interest litigation filed by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) in the SC in 2012. It seeks equal rights for transgenders which could translate into a third gender category in hospitals, toilet allocations as well as separate recognition in basic identification such as ration cards, election cards, passports and driving cards. The arguments have concluded and the verdict is due.

Transgender is the term broadly used to refer to people who prefer to adopt a gender role different from the biological sex they are born into and includes transsexuals, cross-dressers, intersex persons and gender-variant persons who could be male-to-female, female-to-male or gender queer. There are no exact estimates, but the community is estimated to be between 0.5 million to 1 million. Time is rife to question whether India can look beyond gender binaries of male and female to accept a third gender into its fold. Could we liberalize sexuality rights like neighbouring Pakistan, Argentina or United Kingdom?

It may seem radical, but piecemeal changes are already underway. Tamil Nadu has paved the way by setting up a Transgender Welfare Board in 2008 which certifies aravanis (male to female transgenders ) and provides them with identity cards. The IDs entitle the group to 33% women's quota in higher education, facilitates hospitalization and loans for self-help groups. In 2012, the Karnataka government included transgenders in the category of "backward communities" entitling them to social welfare benefits. The Centre-initiated Aadhar card and voter ID too allow an "other" category.

Amritananda Chakravorty of Lawyers Collective explains why legal recognition is crucial. "Though some documents have started to recognize third gender identity, the law continues to operate within a binary norm, creating a system where hijras/transgenders are left in a legal grey area, where their gender identity is not recognized for all purposes," she says. For instance, a hijras driving license may be female, voter's identity (other), birth certificate (male), causing public embarrassment and personal humiliation. "Non recognition of the identity of hijras/ transgender persons denies them equal protection of law. They have no recourse to legal protection, in case of sexual assault and rape," she adds.

Dr L Ramakrishnan, country director, Solidarity and Action Against the HIV Infection in India (SAATHII), Chennai, says that in Tamil Nadu, access to transgender benefits vary across districts as screening committees often adopt their own criteria. For instance, some insist that transgender IDs can be given only to those dressed full-time as women or those who have undergone a sexual re-assignment surgery. Even passport authorities in India accept sex change of individuals only after medical certification. But that is precisely where the hitch lies as most transgenders don't have access to sex reassignment surgery as it is available only at private hospitals , and expensive.

But does legality guarantee a better life? "Transgender persons are happy to get themselves registered...but discrimination towards our community continues and will take time to end given that it has existed for years," says Bindiya Rana, who contested Pakistan elections as its first transgender candidate. In a 2009 SC order, Pakistan granted legal status to transgender individuals allowing them to be registered under the computerized national identity cards but change in attitudes, of course, could take much longer.

OTHER COUNTRIES SHOW THE WAY

* Argentina passed the Gender Identity Law, 2012, giving individuals the right to determine their own gender. No third or gender-queer option

* Pakistan computerized national identity card offers three options — male transgender, female transgender or (Khunsa) and male/female transgender

* South Africa Act 49 allows transpersons to change their IDs with a note from a medical professional

* UK: The Gender Recognition Act (2004) recognizes trans-persons if a medical doctor certifies that they have lived with gender dysphoria for two years

* Germany: A new law passed in November 2013 allows parents to register their children's sex as not specified

source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-12-08/india/44941182_1_third-gender-transgenders-ranjita-sinha

Monday, December 2, 2013

Queer language, The author looks into the lives and the secret language of Hijras.

I will send someone to get you,” she says and hangs up, as I wait under the knotted cable wires in a three-storied building. Winter’s blowing into the Kolkata streets, and the moss on the walls is turning from green to grey. A brawny young man, with neatly trimmed eyebrows and bell-bottom denims, comes down the alley and takes me up a flight of stairs to Ranjeeta Sinha’s one-bedroom flat.
It’s a home like any other — with speckles of tiny mirrors across a wall, a stack of fat books on a rickety coffee table, and clay dolls in a glass showcase. Only the photos in the frames are different. In them, Ranjeeta — formerly known as Ranjit — has her hands suggestively slung around the waist of the brawny man who came to get me.
“You read a lot of books on sociology?” I ask Ranjeeta, looking at her Malcolm Gladwell and Max Weber books. She looks up from her reading glasses and smiles. “I’m doing a Masters in Sociology from Jadhavpur University,” she says in a low falsetto voice, running her hand through her long, coloured hair. She is wearing a cotton salwar, and looks to be in her early forties. Unlike the articulated hyper-feminine fantasies of other Hijras — of being Cleopatra or Bobby Darling or fashionistas — Sinha’s dream is to become a full-time academician and activist. She is currently the head of the Association of Transgender/Hijra in Bengal.
Dressing up as a girl for a festival dance and later finding herself unwilling to shed those clothes, Ranjeeta realised in her early teens that she had left the “real self behind”. “How does a boy in a small, provincial Indian village even find the language to express these feelings, especially when he is expected to grow up in a hurry and take on men’s responsibilities?” For her parents, the idea of their son becoming a woman was beyond imagination.
And so, Ranjeeta ran away and found people like herself; people who slipped into the social fissures where outcasts make their own ghettos. They formed their own familial band with a hierarchical structure in the Hijra society, with the naik at the top of the pyramid, and gurus (leaders) and chelas (disciples) below. Some of the oldest Hijras are the head gurus who teach the chelas how to cook, dress and act.
Ranjeeta, though, isn’t a Hijra. She is a transgender who underwent a painful and potentially life-threatening surgery that meant a ceremonial break from her maleness. “Kinnars or Hijras aren’t always the result of birth defects. Medical advances like ultrasound now help detect embryo issues and resolve them even before the baby is born. Hijras are mostly castrated now, whether unwillingly as children or willingly as they get attuned to their effeminate nature,” says Ranjeeta, who travels across the country fighting for the rights of India’s third sex, hoping to get them a more secure place in the society.
Hijras are mostly from lower income groups. Or even if they are from the upper classes of society, they have no support of any kind; not even from their families. Landlords refuse to rent out homes, schools suspend them for cross dressing, the law discriminates against them, and jobs in respectable institutions are hard to get. They have virtually no safe spaces that protect them from prejudice and abuse, not even familial. They are forced to live in cloistered groups, on the fringes of society and in extreme poverty. “For these reasons, they have developed this language called Gupti (the secret), as a weapon to defend themselves against any infringement in their cocoons,” says Ranjeeta.
And that’s where this story started from. At traffic junctions, or in baby-naming ceremonies, I always wondered about that distinct gesture of the Hijras, of flat palms striking against each other, with the fingers spread limply. A few published papers in journals such as International Journal of Humanities and Social Science imply that this is an extension of their physiological identity. It means ‘I am who I am’.
“There is a sense of instant identification of the community they belong to,” says well-known activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi. Sociologists think there are subtle variations in the taal (beat) of the Hijra’s clap that, apart from controlling the attention of ‘normals’ , are also used for internal codified messages. Besides, the visual beauty of the henna design on their hands gets a resounding slap — the accent on femininity is taken away.
Gupti or ulti vhasa has remained an esoteric language till recently, as the Hijra community stonewalls attempts to probe. Even well-researched works like Gender, Sexuality and Language, an essay by Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall in Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics edited by Keith Brown, have failed to take note of the clandestine nature of this language. Tariq Rahman, a Pakistani academic and intellectual, and author of Language, Ideology and Power: Language Learning Among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India (2002), brings to light many languages of the sub-cultures in the subcontinent but makes no mention of Gupti.
However, a few reference it every now and then. A paper by Dr. Muhammad Safeer Awan from Pakistan says, “A Hijra can detect from the sound of a clapping that other Hijras are around. Besides when Hijras interact with each other, only gurus are entitled to clap. A violator of this norm is instantaneously fined.”
Ranjeeta says, “They have two kinds of languages. Muslim Hijras speak mostly Farsi and Hindu Hijras speak Gupti with regional dialects. So depending on where you are in India, a Hijra could be called hikra, kinnar, safadi or khujda.” A community that survives largely on alms has to have numbers and its own counting system. This counting system in some dialects of Gupti is used just for alms and compensations — dasola (Rs.10), adhi vadvi (Rs.50), vadmi (Rs.100), panj vadmi (Rs.500), katka (Rs.1000), and nira patt (Rs.10,000). The lingo does not have an equivalent for an amount more than this, perhaps hinting at impoverishment and financial conditions.
The streets of Sonagachi, Kolkata’s centuries-old prostitution district, offer means of livelihood for many such impoverished eunuchs. Mallika Bose* is a Hijra who is also a commercial sex worker. “I started when I was 11,” says the fair, clean-shaven young man, punctuating his confession with a wink. He’s in a frilly black blouse with gold embroidery and a pair of jeans so tight they seem to be sewed on. He speaks in a high-pitched voice, and twists the hemlines of his shirt when he gets excited.
Mallika was a victim of sexual abuse at an early age. When he was in the third grade, a neighbour lured him to his house promising the boy pieces of coloured Chiclets and then sexually abused him. “Every time the neighbour and his friends used me, I got Rs.50-100 as a reward. I was always short of money. There was no profession where I could respectfully earn so much. Gradually, I started enjoying it.” By the age of 13, he had in effect been turned into a prostitute, and would hire himself out through the night. “It seems like the ideal job,” he says, with a laugh.
“Sometimes I got caught by the police,” he says. That’s when he started picking up Gupti.Dengu, dengu, someone would shout. It translates to ‘Police, police’. I picked up a lot of other words too. Like nejma (tooth), chalka (breast) and chamki (skin).” There are also unique words that have no equivalents in other languages — for instance, chapti (the orifice left behind after castration), a feature found only in Hijras.
Mallika was eventually initiated into the Hijra society, and given that name. “Hijras are always renamed and given girly names,” Mallika says. “The Hijra language has substitutes for words. For sister, it is gothia, and grandma is nanguru. Though they have words to describe male characters — like chodda for an aged man or tonna for a young male or parik for male lovers — there is no male role inside the Hijra familial and social structure.”
Later, over the phone, Ranjeeta tells me why people like Mallika joined the community. “There is so much of woman in us that it’s hard to hide it most of the time. That makes us a social taboo. It’s hard to get jobs because of this and most people resort to joining the Hijra community for financial security. During the post-Mughal time women had to be hidden. They weren’t allowed to go out alone or reveal their faces. It was almost like the men were ashamed of them,” she says, her tone almost resentful. “But women have come such a long way. The last few decades were a struggle for them. We might have to undertake this struggle too.”
The first step may be giving up the Hijra clap. Laxmi Narayan Tripathi discourages its continuing use, as it has come to signify begging and extortion. “We have to blend in,” says Ranjeeta. “That’s the only way to be.”
Hijras dropping this unique aural identifier in an attempt to assimilate into the rest of society? That could mean the birth of a new era for this long-marginalised community, and the death of a rich language, beautiful in its own way. 

source: http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/queer-language/article5407840.ece?fb_action_ids=10200370818627987&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=[473273436114391]&action_type_map=[%22og.likes%22]&action_ref_map=[]