Professional Documents
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DESIRE
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startling new perspectives; brought together people from spaces, both elite and non-elite, was the opening up of the
all over the country with international participants; and media in the 1990s, as part of structural adjustments in the
mobilized such politics at a countrywide level. Indian economy. Sexually explicit and suggestive images
The flip side of this is that official discourse of HIV/AIDS from the West flowed into homes through private cable
control and the funding generated by it is extremely State television channels, rendering ordinary a large range of
centric, and is about new ways of regulating and controlling images and behaviour that had hitherto been considered
sexuality and the population as a whole. However, its effects unspeakably salacious.
are uncontrollable, and spill over into forms of radicalization It is significant that counter-heteronormative movements
the State could not have predicted nor desired. Nevertheless, in India should have turned to the women's movement
the presence of large numbers of NGOs receiving funding as a natural ally. In the 1980s, the initial response of the
for AIDS-related work makes it necessary to maintain established leadership of the women's movement was
a distinction between political practice that is self-consciously entirely homophobic, denouncing homosexuality as
counter-hegemonic, and the increasingly acceptable discourse unnatural, a Western aberration and an elitist preoccupation.
about homosexuality that is restricted to AIDS-prevention. Even today, the alliance is not without its problems, but
But the whole unpredictable thing about politics is that there have been significant shifts. An important landmark
often, counter-hegemonic voices are able to tip the scales is the 1991 National Conference of Autonomous Women's
within a constellation produced by a heterogeneous range of Movements in Tirupati at which an open and often
ideas and circumstances. Thus by 1998, when Deepa Mehta's acrimonious discussion on lesbianism took place, with
film Fire depicting a sexual affair between sisters-in-law in the greatest hostility coming from leftist groups, decrying
a traditional Hindu household was attacked violently by the lesbianism as an elitist deviation from real political issues.
Hindu Right, there was a sufficiently self-aware community Since that time, there has been intense dialogue within the
for the attack to act as a catalyst for public demonstrations in women's movements, and great shifts in perception have
defence of freedom of expression and against homophobia, taken place, especially on the Left. Openly homophobic
on the streets of Mumbai and Delhi and some other cities, arguments are almost never made (publicly) any more within
of a size and visibility unknown before in India. These the women's movement.
demonstrations brought together opponents of the Hindu But there continues to be the sort of argument which
Right, defenders of freedom of expression, human rights suggests that sexuality is less urgent than the bigger issues
activists, and gay and lesbian activists-of course, many or facing the women's movement. Arguments about priority
and elitism have historically been made by left movements
all these categories overlapped.
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the urban elite likely to identify themselves as gay/lesbian/ from posts reserved for women. The banner was a protest
transgender/queer. It is significant, he points out, that while against these judgments. People's Union for Civil Rights,
upper-class and middle-class activists ofthe queer movement Karnataka (PUCL-K), an organization that brought out
to whom he spoke did not think of class as a problem, 'almost a powerful report on human rights violations of hijras in
everyone I spoke to from lower-class backgrounds felt class Bengaluru, criticized the judgments on the grounds that they
to be one of the major barriers facing the community at 'essentially imply that one cannot choose one's sex and that
large.' In a society of strong and visible class differences, one should remain within the sex into which one is born'
this is not surprising, and the temporary resolution that has (PUCL-K 2003: 51).
apparently been worked out, he says in an insightful and The questions that arise here, however, are more
troubling recognition, is to draw a line between social and complicated than that. The judgments were not reflecting on
political spaces; that is, to party and mingle informally only identity but on the even more fraught question of political
with 'people like us', while accommodating more socially representation of identities. Who can make the claim to
diverse groupings on political platforms. represent a particular identity-this is the question here.
Hijras continue to hold elected posts in general (un-reserved)
seats, and these judgments did not affect them. The identity
AND FEMINISM of hijras is not in question here. Nor is the fact that hijras
Queer politics and counter-heteronormative trends today are among the most marginalized of communities in
complicate notions of women and gender. They also India, often reduced to the borders of criminal extortion
complicate the answer to the questions: Who is the subject (in the guise of demanding traditional gifts at weddings and
of feminist politics? Can gay men be the subject of feminist childbirths) in order to make a living. They are routinely
politics? How about transpeople-both male-to-female and harassed by police and physically threatened and/or assaulted
under the umbrella of Section 377. Their specific needs
female-to-male?
Consider the following troubling example. Some hijras for a dignified existence are not addressed by any political
claim the right to be recognized as 'women' , and a prominent grouping, and certainly not by the women's movement. Many
banner at the World Social Forum, Mumbai (2004) said, hijras are also sex-workers, and it is as sex workers that they
Hijras are Women. Since hijras speak ofthemselves as neither have become politicized, and in sex workers' unions that they
men nor women-although they use the feminine gender find some oftheir demands articulated. The PUCL-K report,
in referring to themselves-this banner requires some in fact, is a study of transgender sex workers in Bengaluru.
explanation. It came out of a context in which, in 2002, two However, the question is-can hijras represent women
High Court judgments set aside the election of two hijras in constituencies reserved for women? It is, after all, not the
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was convinced she was born into the wrong body. 'I really
biological categoryof'woman' that requires reservation, but
wanted to be a girl', she told Butalia. Suffering throughout
particular kinds ofmaterially located experiences that need to
her childhood for her 'girlishness', she came into contact
find space in representative institutions. The point, therefore,
with hijras at the age of eighteen, and that changed her life
is not whether one can biologically become a woman at any
forever. She went with them to get castrated, a procedure
point in one's life, but whether the experiences of women
known in the hijra community as nirvana, after which she
of different classes and castes can somehow be written into
felt an 'enormous sense ofliberation'.
parliamentary discourses. Thus, ifwe are to think ofways in
Butalia, the feminist, with all the feminist discomfort
which the experiences of hijras, among other identities, are
about notions of some essential 'femaleness', wonders what
to be similarly written in, then we must think of more radical
it was about 'femaleness' that so attracted Mona. Then,
alternatives than simply divide up representation between
when Butalia's father passed away, Mona visited her mother
'men' and' others'. The experience of oppression that
and consoling her, said that she knew what it was like to be
hijras have, is not reducible to the experience of 'women'.
alone, without a man. This too, Butalia found paradoxical,
Therefore, I find more promising another strategy followed
coming from someone who had spent her life rejecting
by hijras-the demand to be recognized as a third gender.
her masculinity. And yet, never fully rejecting it because as
A few years ago, as the result of long-term lobbying by
Butalia found, Mona drew on her 'maleness' whenever she
NGOs working on sexuality and human rights, a provision
needed clout, a resource that Butalia herself could never
was introduced whereby, on Indian passport forms, hijras
have (2011).
could write 'E' in the column which requires M/F for
Are hijras then, part of the 'women's movement'? Not
'sex'.3 The recognition of several genders and of multiple
a question amenable to an easy resolution, and we will have
and shifting ways of being constituted as political entities
to keep talking and thinking, and arguing. In the meanwhile,
may be able to help generate new ways of thinking about
listen to the powerful and moving voice of a hijira, A.
representative institutions in a democracy. We will return
Revathi, telling her own story in The Truth AboutMe (2010).
later to the complicated question of reservations for women
in representative institutions.
The possibility of alliances between hijras/transpeople DELHI HIGH COURT JUDGEMENT ON SECTION 377
and the women's movement faces questions not immediately
In a historic judgement in 2009, the Delhi High Court 'read
amenable to any clear resolution. Urvashi Butalia raises some
down' Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to exclude
of these questions in the moving account of her friendship
consensual sex among adults. That is, adults of the same sex
with Mona, a hijra in Delhi. Mona was born male but from
are no longer criminals if they, with mutual consent, have
the moment she became conscious ofherselfas a person, she
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sexual intercourse with one another. 4 Although the court legal commentators have pointed out that the Delhi
intervention was initiated by an NGO working within the High Court's interpretation of the anti-discrimination
potentially de-politicizing framework of AIDS prevention, provisions of Article 15 could potentially benefit other
when the issue reached court, a number of other more discriminated-against groups such as disabled persons,
political groups also entered the process, such as Voices religious minorities, and so on.
Against 377, a broad coalition of feminists, human rights What is interesting is the general approval for the
and queer activists. Thus the judgement that resulted, in judgement even in the mainstream-an indicator, as I have
a sense, reflects the radical transformation in common sense
already suggested, of the successful shifts in common sense
brought about by over a decade of queer politics.
effected by over a decade of queer interventions at every
Anchoring the judgement to the Fundamental Rights to level. Of course, now that Section 377 is on its way out, the
life, equality and freedom guaranteed to every citizen, and fissures and differences within the movement will become
invoking the inclusiveness envisaged by the Constitution, more visible. There are those who are content to be gay or
the judges held: lesbian without fear of opprobrium, and don't want to be
political at all; there are queer, politically aware people who
In our view, Indian Constitutional law does not permit the are Hindu right-wing or pro-capitalist or anti-reservations;
statutory criminal law to be held captive by the popular and of course, there is queer politics that is opposed to
misconceptions of who the LGBTs are. It cannot be all these. This is the moment of coming of age for queer
forgotten that discrimination is antithesis of equality and politics, when it encounters the searing recognition with
that it is the recognition of equality which will foster the which feminism has only recently come to terms, that not all
dignity of every individual. non-heterosexual people are queer, just as not all women are
We declare that Section 377 IPC, insofar it criminalises feminist; and not all queer people (nor all politically active
consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of women) are Left-oriented or secular.
Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution. As a friend who is, among other things, a queer activist,
put it to me, 'Now that gay is glamorous, the media
Several right-wing groups have appealed this judgement in constantly want me to talk about my gay "lifestyle". But
the Supreme Court, where at the time of going to press, it when I say that my work is in urban studies, and I want to
was pending. talk about slum demolitions, they switch off.'
The judgement has given an unprecedented legitimacy It is not enough, never enough, to see sexuality issues
to queer identity, in ways that far exceed any limited in terms of a framework of minority rights/privacy/civil
notion of civil rights of homosexual people. Several liberties, so that the letters of the alphabet (LGBTHK ... )
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