Pakistan’s Undesirables: ‘Dealing with’ the Hijra Problem

There has been a lot of hype few days back in media and in the blogosphere about the radical pro-people Supreme Court. Some of these “radical” decisions include orders to destroy poultry feed which contained Pork , probably Pakistan’s public enemy number one and “granting of rights to the Hijra community,  the traditional indo/pak  transgendered community. Yet other “pro-people” decisions included the populist racket to lower the petroleum prices which was beyond its mandate and was reversed by the executive  in few hours with no reaction from the SC  and which drew angry responses from serious commentators like Ayaz Amir and Dr Ayesha Siddiqa. The action on NEPRA was a similar story where SC after getting  headlines in Right Wing press allowed government to increase the electricity prices as planned with some cosmetic changes.  All these show a paradigm shift in the character of SC ,  from judicial activism its moving towards Judicial populism and in the longer run trying to take the position which Pakistan Army enjoys in relation to the weak political dispensation. Whilst the English speaking elites have hailed the decision about the Hijras as some great civil right victory, freethinker elaborates what does it means for the LGBT community of Pakistan, for it means nothing. It has only increased dangers for us. A genuine civil rights  decision is what Indian High Court has taken. Whats happening in Pakistan is “rotten radicalism” which exists only in minds and it changes nothing and only helps establish reaction.

SA

Freethinker

Cross Posted At : Bazm-e-Rindaan

Through the last month, Pakistani media celebrated the recognition of the citizenship rights of the hijra community by a Supreme Court ruling which declared them entitled to ‘protection guaranteed under Article four (rights of individuals to be dealt with in accordance of law) and Article nine (security of person) of the Constitution’. The ruling has been hailed as an important step toward the integration of ‘the Third sex’ into the Pakistani society, who are now going to be registered and surveyed (with ‘Third Sex’ designating their gender on the ID cards and forms) so as to enable them to access the services of state social welfare departments and financial support programs. What does it mean – recognition of citizenship rights? It means enfranchisement, access to avenues of power and justice, along with better opportunities for education and health-care. But those lofty goals of modernity that always excluded the hijra are still going to remain out of their reach – the future of economic empowerment for anyone on the margins of Pakistani economy is bleak, the road to justice is not particularly favorable to the poor and the illiterate, and the hijra as yet do not enjoy any special ‘minority’ rights that are needed for political mobilization and combating discrimination in a liberal democracy. Yes, modernity in Pakistan does not seem likely to empower our social outcasts.

There has been little serious discussion of this SC ruling online or in the print media: no speculation whatsoever over the meaning of gender in Pakistan, or whether this ruling is right in creating a hijra subject for the purposes of bureaucracy. What is going to constitute ‘the Third sex’? And what happens to those who do not qualify for this category? What about those ‘gender-confused’ people who do not want to be identified as ‘Third sex’, preferring instead to be identified as ‘male’ or ‘female’?. According to the article quoted above, the hijra are ‘left by the society to live by begging, dancing and prostitution’, to be exploited by the ‘self-styled guru’ – does it mean that after this ‘social uplift’ program, they will be made to give up their lifetyle? What if they can’t? Does discrimination go away after formal barriers to progress have been removed, or does it merely become invisible and more difficult to fight? With the avenus of empowerment formally open to them, wouldn’t the society find it easier to blame them if their ‘begging and dancing and prostitution’ continues? Will they be persecuted or will we realize that a ‘respectable’ life is just not possible for the hijra without a radical change in the society, its institutions and maybe our ideas of ‘respectable’?

These questions do not surface because of the complete exclusion of a view from the transgender standpoint in our media. This not only means that the interests of the transgendered go largely unarticulated in our media, but also that the experiences of hijra remain shrouded in mystery. With a bourgeois mentality that is reluctant to recognize gender deviance (‘inverted’ gender identification, same-sex desire, transvestism, and other inappropriate behavior, all of which, it can be argued, find a measure of acceptance among the more traditionally minded who allow their sons and daughters to join the hijra), the hijra are comfortably assigned a ‘Third sex’, . Online, a few articles can illustrate this: it is thought that the hijra are ‘almost invariably hermaphrodites’, when in fact they are not, consisting in a large number of ‘biological’ males who would be described in the West as ‘transgendered’ and ‘transsexual’. Because of that, you find people talking about ‘the true hijra‘ and ‘the cross-dresser’ who only tries to pass off as a hijra. The castration ritual evokes feelings of fascination and horror; it is something that goes against the ‘rational’ sensibilities of most Pakistani moderns. Of course most of us are conditioned to react with feelings of revulsion and pity for their lifestyle, associated with shameless beggary, singing bawdy songs, dancing in the streets, prostitution and even theft and kidnapping. But these feelings also show under the ruse of rationality in articles like this and this. Such write-ups also show the hijra as the enigmatic, untamed Other of the Pakistani society. This is why it is easy to link the hijra with the rise of prostitution, the spread of HIV and other ‘evils’, especially for those who do not want to criticize the system of relationships that produce these problems. It seems as if we do not want any understanding of the hijra; we have alwayswanted to fina a way to deal with them.

An understanding of the hijra begins with an understanding of the society. Ours is a society where, in traditional spaces, you find life strictly segregated on the basis of gender, and where it’s not segregated, there is blatant male privilege. The (patriarchal) family reigns supreme as an institution that organizes much of life, based on appropriate gender role socialization, a preference for sons over daughters, early marriages marked by ceremonies that are a public spectacle, and an exclusive system for the care of the young and the old. Transgendered children have an awkward presence in this life –  they cannot take the responsibilities of a son, nor can they be married off. And who will take care of them when they grow old? All this makes the marginalization of all ‘gender-confused’ a necessary condition of our social organization. And the ‘unfortunate condition’ of the hijra as a community becomes even more understandable when you think about the effects of urbanization and modern life itself, which has taken away their traditional place in the society and exposed them to sexual exploitation

And so, I do not find this Supreme Court ruling very heartening. There’s nothing radical about it: by proposing that ‘the hijra problem’ can be solved by ‘registering and surveying’ them, it locates the problem in a few particular conditions of the hijra life, and not in the society. And of course no real change will be achieved: the program will suffer from the usual pitfalls of an inefficient bureaucracy. Moreover, the cause of the hijra is in danger of getting co-opted, who do not need to worry now that the State is doing all it can to save them. Gender injustice is a site of revolutionary potential, and that can be lost with the State apparatus formally committed to the ‘social uplift’ of the hijra. But, like I said before, there will be no real ‘social uplift’ because the focus is on saving them from this unfortunate situation, rather than working to change the deeply embedded norms of our society

But perhaps the greatest danger, to which I’ve only alluded so far, is further entrenchment of the gendered order. The hijra have traditionally aroused feelings of awe in the rest of the society, because they defied gender as taken for granted by everyone else. Increasingly, people’s attitudes toward them is changing, as people rid themselves of ‘silly superstition’ and see the hijra as part of the lumpen masses. And I can see this official recognition as ‘the Third sex’ taking the demystification of the hijra further along. When they are seen as another sex category, the gendered body politic of the society comes to regulate and control them as well, their bodies becoming ‘sexed’ and providing the basis of a sex role, a body ideal, and a clothing distinction that applies to their sex. Much more likely is a medicalized view that ‘pathologizes’ their condition as defective maleness or femaleness (‘intersex’ as the medical classification goes), like it did in late 19th century Europe and became a part of the notorious eugenics movement. The concept of ‘intersex’ is heavily criticized by transgender activists in the US. In Iran, an adherence to this concept has led to a State-funded program of SRS operations which has both religious and scientific backing. The rationale behind these potentially life-threatening operations is the ‘integration’ of their ‘hijra’ into the society, but that does not necessarily mean a better life (from the documentary ‘Transsexuals in Iran’) for the gender-ambiguous of Iran.

At this point, we cannot project anything about the future of the hijra of Pakistan. But what is clear is that there are good reasons to be skeptical about this Supreme Court ruling. Perhaps then, the wise thing to do is to see this decision as inevitable in the given political context (as Basim Usmani reflects toward the end of his article), and not to endorse it as a positive step toward the liberation of the gender-ambiguous from an oppressive social structure.

Free Sajjda still awaits Freedom!!

 

Slumdog Millionaire: Not Every One is Happy about It.

Shaheryar Ali

Danny Boyle’s movie “Slumdog Millionaire” has taken the world by storm. Based on a novel by the Indian diplomat and author Vikas Swarup the movie tells the story of a poor slum dweller of Mumbai who is contestant on the Indian version of “Who wants to be Millionaire”. The movie was a huge success and was able to bag 8 Academy Awards.

Poster

The mood in India is nothing less than ecstasy, merging with the new obsession of Indian ruling and middle classes about “Shining India”.

For more than a decade now India is in the grip of free market economy and its lustrous attempt of building an “Indian dream”, India the great democracy, the greatest country in the world, where poorest of the poor are also happy singing and dancing on the streets. Most of it is a cruel illusion, the recent capitalization of India is very patchy and un even. Only parts of India have seen this free market boom. Most of the India has remained un touched. The Indian peasants are worse affected and the suicide rate has hit new heights Emergence of fascism has become a real threat in India, the slow degeneration of Congress party has resulted in popularization of Hindu nationalists who are out right communalist. Worse are the “New Liberals” who pro claim to be secular but subscribe to a virulent Hindutva ideology. They are rabidly anti-left consider them “pseudo secularist” but fail to see themselves who are just “Jeans clad” version of RSS.

The attitude in general Indian intelligentsia has been to hide these contradictions under carpet and glorify them. Without addressing the material base of these contradictions , a metaphysical blanket is put on the un desirable side, thus the slum become some thing of an “ideal” living place, the poor happy in their life and communalism just work of an evil anti social gunda.

Roy's poster

While every one is busy partying on success of Slumdog Millionaire, we are providing an alternative view. This blog has always made sure that it gives voice to the suppressed opinion. .Arundhati Roy , the famous writer, anti globalization and anti-imperialist political activist has emerged as a conscience of India. A fierce critic of Indian ruling classes and established opinion, she spoke about the objectionable side of the movie

“People are selling India’s poverty big time both in literature and films. As they say, there is lots of money in poverty today. I am not against showing slums, but depicting them in a depoliticised manner, as has been done in the film, is quite unfortunate. Films do not show the real poor. Even if they are depicted, it’s not the true picture. The real poor are not shown in films because they are not attractive. Poverty sells but the poor do not. The film gives false hope to the poor that they too could become millionaires one day” The whole reaction can be seen here

Miss Roy wrote a wonderful critique of the movie for Dawn, the largest English newspaper of Pakistan. It was called “India not shining”. She writes:

“The debate around the film has been framed – and this helps the film in its multi-million-dollar promotion drive – in absurd terms. On the one hand we have the old ‘patriots’ parroting the line that “it doesn’t show India in a Proper Light’ (by now, even they’ve been won over thanks to the Viagra of success). On the other hand, there are those who say that Slumdog is a brave film that is not scared to plum the depths of India ‘not-shining’.

Slumdog Millionaire does not puncture the myth of ‘India shining’— far from it. It just turns India ‘not-shining’ into another glitzy item in the supermarket. As a film, it has none of the panache, the politics, the texture, the humour, and the confidence that both the director and the writer bring to their other work. It really doesn’t deserve the passion and attention we are lavishing on it. It’s a silly screenplay and the dialogue was embarrassing, which surprised me because I loved The Full Monty (written by the same script writer). The stockpiling of standard, clichéd, horrors in Slumdog are, I think, meant to be a sort of version of Alice in Wonderland – ‘Jamal in Horrorland’. It doesn’t work except to trivialize what really goes on here. The villains who kidnap and maim children and sell them into brothels reminded me of Glenn Close in 101 Dalmatians”

On the political side of the movie she comments:

“Politically, the film de-contextualises poverty – by making poverty an epic prop, it disassociates poverty from the poor. It makes India’s poverty a landscape, like a desert or a mountain range, an exotic beach, god-given, not man-made. So while the camera swoops around in it lovingly, the filmmakers are more picky about the creatures that
inhabit this landscape.

To have cast a poor man and a poor girl, who looked remotely as though they had grown up in the slums, battered, malnutritioned, marked by what they’d been through, wouldn’t have been attractive enough. So they cast an Indian model and a British boy. The torture scene in the cop station was insulting. The cultural confidence emanating from the obviously British ’slumdog’ completely cowed the obviously Indian cop, even though the cop was supposedly torturing the slumdog. The brown skin that two share is too thin to hide a lot of other things that push through it. It wasn’t a case of bad acting – it was a case of the PH balance being wrong. It was like watching black kids in a Chicago slum speaking in Yale accents”

The whole article can be reached here

A fellow blogger from Pakistan, Freethinker has subjected Slumdog Millionaire to very good “gender critique”. He deconstructs the “Hero Narrativity” and examines Slumdog Millionaire against these dominant discourses of Hero and Masculinity. He writes:

“It’s important to identify the mythical structure in the plots of both the movies which serves to build the hero narrative. Once the hero and the struggle have been identified, both movies establish the hero as the winner through leaps of logic that are more characteristic of myth than fiction.—————- But watching Sd M critically, asking how the protagonist has efficient reading skills without tutoring, or how all the questions asked on the game are linked to the most dramatic experiences of the protagonist’s life, brings home the mythical structure that serves to complete the hero narrative”

And:

“The narratives are also concerned with the hero’s masculinity. The happy endings themselves establish a definition of the masculine as the winner who ‘takes it all’. This is why in Sd M, it is not enough that the protagonist just resolves the central conflict of the plot, that is, his separation from his beloved. In the end, through strokes of luck that sacrifice the story’s plausibility, he not only has love but also wins fame and money.—- The hero’s masculinity is established in other ways as well.———- A different but more traditional approach to this same end is seen in Sl M, in which the hero of the narrative saves the archetypal ‘damsel in distress’. The hero here represents more the anguished warrior who, as he comes of age, gets to reclaim his manhood by getting back his childhood sweetheart and becoming the winner”

This is a very advance critique rooted in firm theoretical foundation, especially his formulation of concept of “emasculation of the collective”. The whole article can be reached here.