From J K Rowling to Congress Manifesto for 2024: Where is India’s queer voter?
Most transgender persons in the country come from low-income backgrounds and find work only in the informal sector. We need homegrown remedies — focussed on securing and helping implement rights for transgender persons
Less than a month to the first phase of elections, perhaps it is for us to ponder why this election is missing a rainbow — and how the next election can be different. (Express file photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee) In its recently released manifesto, Congress promised to expand Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution of India to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The other and only mention of queer rights is in the promise that the party will bring in a law, “after consultation”, legalising civil unions for LGBTQ+ couples in India. On the other side of the globe, another storm with J K Rowling’s name on it is brewing.
Yet again, capitalising on the language of clout, she dared the Scotland police to take action against her with a post in which she misgenders 10 trans people. This is in reaction to a recent hate crime law passed in Scotland which recognises transgender persons as a targeted community. “Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal”. Amongst others, Rishi Sunak has defended Rowling.
Online drama, real life trauma
Watching this all unfold on social media, as most Rowling drama does, reminded me why these spaces are not conducive for substantive debate — just for shock-value-based reductive statements meant to offend. I also realised that I was likely among many people who saw more content – much more – around Rowling than the Congress manifesto’s LGBTQ+ agenda. Perhaps this is a function of drama winning over policy discussion on social media platforms. Perhaps it’s a function of who gets to use social media and be “progressive” in India.
Back home, multiple messages have been circulating on WhatsApp chats with close friends, seeking a myriad of support for acquaintances and friends who all happen to be trans. Hospitals are notorious places — full of worry, alarm, vulnerability. If you’re at a hospital, it’s likely because something is wrong. It’s the place you go for care and safety.
Yet, save a few, hospitals in India do not have separate wards (or washrooms) for trans patients as mandated by Transgender Persons Rules, 2020. These were to be made available by 2022. Unless this was a stealth mission, or somehow 2024 precedes 2022, implementation on this front has been abysmal. I have seen how trans people are “shuttlecocked” from one ward to another simply because trained professionals are at a loss about how to handle the patient, medically or administratively. Being denied care or having it delayed because those in charge can’t decide which “gender” ward to put you in would hardly qualify as a dignified experience. Last year, AIIMS Delhi became the first and only government hospital with a Centre for Excellence for transgender healthcare.
Promises unfulfilled
April 15 will mark 10 years to the NALSA v Union of India judgment. It mandated reservation for transgender people, recognising them as “socially and economically backward”. There has been no central government policy to this effect.
There is no doubt that the struggle for equality is a global one. Yet, the conversation on the ground here, the challenges, and as a consequence, the policy approach has to be different.
While it is important to speak of injustices seven oceans away, in an election year which has seen next to no mobilisation on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, there are plenty of issues to attend to closer home.
Despite multiple judicial and legislative interventions, Indian society at large has failed to integrate transgender persons so far. LGBTQ+ people, in general, do not constitute a significant voter base in Indian politics if the election issues of the day are any indication.
Underemployed, under-represented
According to a 2017 Kerala Development Society survey sponsored by the National Human Rights Commission, only six per cent of transgender persons are formally employed — all of these were in the private sector or NGOs (provided, the sample size was 450 people).
In 2019, in response to a question in Lok Sabha, then Minister of Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank stated that “there are currently no transgender students in central universities except for the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) where a total of 814 transgender students have been enrolled during the last five years. There is no transgender teaching and non-teaching staff in various central universities of the country.”
Then there is the paucity of available data or even tabulation when it comes to transgender people in India.
India is a country rich in localised ritual, stigma, bureaucratic dead ends, and a widening poverty gap. Most transgender persons in the country come from low-income backgrounds and find work only in the informal sector. Caste also figures in a big way with the KDS study pointing to a majority of trans people belonging to the OBC category and over 10 per cent from SC and ST backgrounds. We need homegrown remedies — focused on securing and helping implement the rights of transgender persons. This is not a novel idea. But in an election year, it does bear repeating.
Less than a month to the first phase of elections, perhaps it is for us to ponder why this election is missing a rainbow — and how the next election can be different.
sukhmani.malik@expressindia.com
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