The Choice

Becoming a Hijra in India is both dangerous, and also life fulfilling. There is no protection for Hijras in India, so they have to figure out ways to live safe lives without the government’s protection. The people who become Hijras are aware of this, yet they choose to fulfill a part of their lives that needs to be filled-the woman part. There are many ways that Hijras can become a part of the community, some are taken as children when they are born a hermaphrodite or have genital deformities, and others choose to run away from home at some point in their lives. They are unhappy living as men, or they just don’t feel like it’s who they are at heart.

Living as a Hijra does become somewhat easier when they come to a community of Hijras. Most Hijras live in communities composed almost entirely of Hijras. Inside these communities there are families. They are fictive kinship families, but for the Hijras, most of who are abandoned by their families, they become their family. Each family has a head of the family, a Hijra who is older and more knowledgeable, called a ‘guru’, and their “children,” or ‘chela,’ younger Hijras who they have taken in. There are mother-daughter, sister-sister, and all sorts of other female relationships within one community. Because most are abandoned by their families when they become a Hijra, the community replaces what they lost.

Along with being abandoned by their families, most Hijras also had childhoods that were confusing and unhappy. They felt like girls, yet their parents told them that they were men. “My childhood was torture,” says Xavier Ammal, a Hijra. She had to leave her family at age 13 because her parents didn’t want a ‘woman’ for a son. When they return to visit their families later in life, most families pretend they don’t have a child, or simply refuse to see them. Luckily, the Hijras still have their fictive kinship families to return to. These communities are the safe havens for the Hijras, and are the only place they are pretty much safe.

source: http://indianhijras.blogspot.in/2008/10/choice.html

The Operation

Living in a society where you are tormented, bullied, and harassed can’t be much fun, yet the half a million Hijras in India choose this lifestyle. Why would someone choose this? It can’t be fun, having to beg for money, or being a prostitute. But the thing is, they don’t have a choice. Since their government won’t accept them as a gender, meaning that up until recently they had a hard time acquiring passports, there isn’t much choice. As I read more about the Hijra culture, I am beginning to be able to understand them better. Every culture has people who are forced to do whatever it takes to put food on the table for their loved ones. For the Hijras, they have to turn to prostitution, begging, and the tax collecting mentioned in a previous blog. Being the average white American female (physically and mentally), I can’t imagine feeling like I need to change my sex in order to be my true self.

For the Hijras, although it is a difficult choice, and a life that they would normally not choose, it is the correct choice, because it is who they really are. It is not a good life, as many have said in the readings I have done, but it is a true life. For many transsexual people in the United States, an operation is not done, or just not considered. For Hijras, an operation is the final step in their transformation, although there are many today who are either hermaphrodites, have genital disfiguration, or just choose not to have an operation, however the majority have some sort of operation done. The operation the Hijras receive, as mentioned in the previous blog, is considerably different from the customary American one. This makes the Hijras even more frightening for some people, because they don’t quite have proper looking female genitalia, yet they look and act like females, and they are mentally female. Choosing this life and surgery is one of the most un-understandable things for me.

Works Cited:

Dutt, Nabanita
2002 Eunuchs-India's Third Gender. Electronic Document, http://thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2022, accessed October 22, 2008. 

source: http://indianhijras.blogspot.in/2008/10/operation.html

Under the knife

So while reading the book last night, I was tested on all of my beliefs. I’m afraid of surgery enough as it is, but what the Hijras do for their beliefs is incredible. In 9^th grade we did a religion unit in Ancient World Cultures, and we talked about ‘nirvana’ being the place that Hindus and Buddhists wanted to reach. Hijras call their emasculation process “nirvan.” This means to be reborn, in their case as a woman. It is a “rite of passage,” which I can understand. This passage takes them from being someone they know they are not to being someone they know they are. The three parts of the rite consist of removing the former being (the actual operation, which as mentioned before can only take place with a blessing), then recovery where the individual is neither a man nor a Hijra, and finally the ceremony where the individual becomes a Hijra with all the Hijra powers. Since I don’t believe in any sort of god, this was at first hard for me to understand, but now I have come to an understanding that goes along with my beliefs.

If I was going to be getting a surgery similar in risk to what the Hijras receive, I would want reassurance from the doctor, my family, and everyone else important to me that everything was going to be ok. Essentially, the Hijras get their reassurance from the god. If they don’t get the reassurance they don’t get the surgery, ensuring for themselves that they will survive. During and after the surgery many more “pujas” which are basically offerings to the god Mata, are made to protect the recipient. The entire ceremony and operation is very religious and ritualistic, which is done for safety and spiritual reasons.

Works Cited:

Nanda, Serena
1999 The Hijras of India: Neither Man nor Woman. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

source: http://indianhijras.blogspot.in/2008/11/under-knife.html

Becoming A Hijra

As far as I have found out, having the operation is the most important aspects of becoming a Hijra officially. There are of course Hijras who have not had the operation, but generally they are either born as a Hijra (either a hermaphrodite or with ‘not perfect’ male genitalia) or will perhaps someday get the operation. The basis of being a Hijra depends on the emasculation of the male, or becoming impotent. Since being a Hijra is comparable feelings wise to being a ‘woman’, meaning that Hijras have feelings for men rather than women.

During my research, which I was doing once again by reading the book by Serena Nanda, I got the ritual operation explained to me, and it, as several other aspects of my research have done, surprised and shocked me. Being from a Western country, namely the United States, it is hard for me to understand people getting things similar to gender reassignment surgery done not in a hospital, or by a licensed medical doctor. Nonetheless, I decided that I was going to understand why the Hijras were willing to get this surgery done by other Hijras.

First off, getting the power to perform the surgery is not an easy process, so not just any Hijra can perform the surgery. Being an Atheist myself, I have never been a big believer in religions, especially when it comes to what I think of as crazy and dangerous rituals. This surgery fits right in with a dangerous ritual, but after reading the book I can understand the religious beliefs of the Hijras better and get some understanding of why they would choose to go to such lengths to receive this operation. In order for the Hijra performing the operation to be able to operate, she first needs to become a ‘dai ma’ which is essentially a midwife. This ‘dai ma’ receives the blessing from a god, the Mata. Once this blessing has been achieved, the Hijra can operate. In order for another Hijra to receive the operation she also needs to get the Mata’s blessing, which can take a long time and several attempts. This blessing is essential to getting the operation because without it, the surgery could kill the Hijra. The entire emasculation process is based very much on religion, something that I will be exploring more in the next blog entry.

Works Cited:

Nanda, Serena
1999 The Hijras of India: Neither Man nor Woman. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

source: http://indianhijras.blogspot.in/2008/11/becoming-hijra.html