Hijra Farsi: Secret language knits community

 MUMBAI: It's not often that one stumbles upon a secret language floating around the streets of a busy Indian metropolis, least of all a language that has been alive-and-kicking across the sub-continent for a century or two.

While the language in question is shrouded in mystery, its keepers are anything but obscure. The vivid make-up, rose-red lipstick and colourful saris draped across a body that is neither entirely male nor entirely female make South Asia's Hijra community among the most visible sexual minorities. Yet their lexicon is invisible to civil society, though it remains in use across much of India and Pakistan.

"Nobody besides the Hijra community would understand the language we speak. It was created for the purpose of self-preservation during the British Raj. While literature shows that Hijras occupied a privileged position in ancient India, the British criminalised us and put us behind bars. This language was as a survival mechanism for Hijras," says Simran Shaikh, an attractive and articulate member of the community, speaking to TOI at her guru's sunlit home in Kamathipura's 1st lane, a stretch of Mumbai's red-light district reserved for Hijras.

Shaikh's claims are backed by academic research in India and Pakistan. The language is sometimes referred to as Koti or Hijra Farsi, though it has more in common with Urdu and Hindustani than it does with Persian.

That the language is still in use may have to do with the fact that the community continues to be persecuted in independent India. "Seventy-four percent of the Hijra community has suffered violence and harassment," says Shaikh, who works with Alliance India, an NGO that works on AIDS prevention.

"Today, if there's some information I'd like to communicate with those within my community that the outside world does not need to know, I would use this language. For instance, if there's a police van in sight and I want to warn a member of my community standing on the road, I'd use this code language," says Shaikh.

'Complete language'

Academic research validates the claim that Hijra Farsi is indeed a language and not simply a collection of secret code-words. A research paper by Islamabad-based scholars, Muhammad Safeer Awan and Muhammad Sheeraz, who studied the language spoken amongst Pakistan's Hijra community, shows that the language contains its own unique vocabulary. It has its own syntax that differs from other mainstream languages, making Farsi "as good a language as any other."

Another academic paper by Himadri Roy, professor at Indira Gandhi National Open University, Delhi, shows that, much like any other language, the language of the Hijras has nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and other parts of speech, with verbs used to complete a sentence.

It's a language that a pretty young Hijra called Ayesha, who has yet to come out of the closet at home, uses when she meets other members of the community. She uses this language while talking to her friends in public, when she doesn't want the rest of the world to know what she's saying. She talks of the words used to allude to an attractive man, as well as words that distinguish men of different age groups. There's a specific word to describe a man in the age group 16-18, and another for one who is 25-30.

"See what I'm wearing," says Ayesha, pointing to her colourful get-up and bright sari. "We call this satla in our language," she adds, referring to a word used for feminine clothes. For Ayesha, a language to call her own has helped her embrace her identity as a Hijra.

source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-10-07/india/42793159_1_secret-language-urdu-alliance-india

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'

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/

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