Why activists see the imprint of Hindutva in the new transgender law

What is common between khwaja sira in Punjab and Kashmir, thirunar in Tamil Nadu and nupi maanbi in Manipur? These are some of India’s traditional trans communities whose legal standing is left uncertain under the new transgender law passed in March.

The law in force earlier, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, contained a wide and inclusive definition of a transgender person. It began by stating that a transgender person was someone “whose gender does not match with the gender assigned at birth”.

This included a “trans man or trans woman”, irrespective of whether or not they had undergone a medical procedure such as a sex reassignment surgery, someone “with intersex variations” and “genderqueer” individuals.

Apart from these categories, the 2019 law also included individuals “having such socio-cultural identities as kinner, hijra, aravani and jogta”. Further, it accorded all transgender individuals “a right to self-perceived gender identity”.

In contrast, the new law has a far more restrictive definition of a transgender person. It foregrounds the four socio-cultural identities of kinner, hijra, aravani and jogta, adding “eunuch” to the list. The other categories it includes are individuals who have “intersex variations”, “a congenital variation” in certain sexual characteristics, or have been “by force, allurement, inducement, deceit or undue influence” been put through one of several medical procedures.

The 2026 law leaves out all other categories. Its statement of “objects and reasons” notes that the act’s aim is “not to protect each and every class of persons with various gender identities, self-perceived sex/gender identities or gender fluidities”.

Activists are alarmed at this dramatic reduction of the scope of the definition of transgender individuals.

They fear that the prominence given in the definition to the four specific socio-cultural categories, combined with the complete omission of self-determined identities, represents a grave threat to numerous other traditional transgender communities in the country, including the khwaja sira in Punjab and Kashmir, thirunar in Tamil Nadu and nupi maanbi in Manipur.

These identities are Muslim, syncretic or unaffiliated with any particular religions – in contrast, the four specifically named socio-cultural groups are broadly located within Hindu society. Thus, activists argue that the new law is, in effect, an extension of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the wider Sangh Parivar’s Hindutva agenda.

As a statement by the All India Students’ Association noted, the act was restricting the definition to communities that were “already culturally legible to the state”. It observed that the hijra, kinnar, aravani and jogta communities were “historically visible through ritual roles at births, weddings, and religious spaces” and so “may be tolerated within this framework”.

The queer feminist academic Jennifer Loh made a similar argument in a 2022 book chapter, noting that the “Hindu right favours Hindu trans (feminine) identities above other less visible, non-homonormative trans identities and Muslim trans people”. Loh argued that this was because Hindu trans feminine identities such as hijras align with the “broader goals of promoting Hindu ideologies, through the reinforcement of existing gender and religious norms”.

The writer and filmmaker Rayyan Monkey argued that even the traditional communities mentioned in the act were in a sense limited by it. “While the hijra and kinnar communities do want to sustain their place in the spiritual ecosystem of India, they also want to get into schools, colleges and jobs,” she said.

Scroll spoke with experts and trans activists in Manipur, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu and Punjab to learn about the traditional identities that are at increased risk of exclusion under the new act.

Activists from Tamil Nadu explained that the late chief minister, M Karunanidhi, had introduced the terms thirunar, thirunangai and thirunambi in the late 2000s, to refer to trans persons, trans women and trans men, respectively. They noted that the positive intent underlying the move was evident in the fact that the word “thiru” translates to “respected” in Tamil.

Many activists prefer this term to others, like aravani and “third gender” that are also used in the state. Negha, a trans activist and actor, noted that the former term, used for trans women, is rooted in Hindu mythology. The traditional aravani community worships the Mahabharata character Aravan – the son of Arjuna, who marries Krishna in the form of a woman, Mohini, before going to war and dying.

Not all trans women in Tamil Nadu participate in the rituals of the aravan community, Negha noted. “The term aravani is not an inclusive word,” she said. “Many trans women are concerned about being pushed to assume a Hindu identity. Not everybody believes in the Ramayana and Mahabharata.”

In comparison, she said, the terms thirunar, thirunangai and thirunambi were rooted in the legacy of the state’s self-respect movement, which promoted social justice and gender equality, and challenged caste-based oppression. Karunanidhi “researched Tamil literature and then came up with the words thirunar and thirunangai,” Negha said. “It is an inclusive word which can be used by Hindus, Buddhists and Dalits regardless of caste and religions. This amendment will erase and invisibilise these words.”

Activists and members of these and other communities are also anxious about the fact that the new act lays emphasis on medical procedures and clearance from authorities before a transgender individual is accorded recognition, such as with an identity certificate recognising them as transgender. Negha explained that these identities were not typically linked to gender reassignment surgeries or other medical procedures, but were based on individuals’ self-perception.

Under the previous law, a transgender individual could obtain such a certificate by applying through an online portal to the district magistrate – the rules of the act only required that they furnish a self-attested affidavit, along with identity documents and proof of their residence. It was only at a secondary stage, if a transgender person wished to revise their gender on other identity documents, that the rules mandated that they show proof of medical intervention to a medical authority – even then, the rules allowed for a range of such interventions, including “counselling”, “hormonal therapy” and “surgical intervention”.

The new law, however, notes that when an individual makes an application for a transgender identity certificate, the district magistrate must examine “the recommendation of the authority” – referring to a government medical board – and may also take “the assistance of other medical experts” before issuing such a certificate.

This process “pathologizes gender identity as a medical ‘condition’ rather than a human right”, a statement by the grassroots coalition CommonHealth noted.

It added that the process “violates bodily autonomy and dignity and the disclosure of individuals undergoing gender-affirming procedures to state authorities, infringes on their privacy, as protected under the Right to Privacy”.

Among the most prominent trans communities in the north-east is the nupi maanbi in Manipur. In a paper about the community, sociologist Rubani Yumkhaibam explained that in the Manipuri language, the word nupi means “female, lady, woman and also means wife”, while “maanbi” is derived from the word “similar”. Thus, the term nupi maanbi, which emerged in the 2000s, translates to “resemblance to a woman”. Similarly, the term “nupi maanba” refers to a traditional trans men community in the region.

Trans activist and writer Santa Khurai explained that trans identities have existed in the region since ancient times. “Trans people are mentioned in texts about ancient kingdoms, they were called pheitas,” Khurai said. “But many layers of colonisation dismantled this institution. At present, we have the nupi maanbi and nupi maanba, and there’s also the nupi amaibi and the nupi sabi.” Nupi amaibi are trans people who are also traditionally shamans, and function as healers and soothsayers, Khurai explained, while the nupi sabi are traditional performers who play the role of women in dramas.

As with the thirunar community, Khurai noted that these identities also were not fundamentally linked to gender reassignment surgeries or other medical procedures – thus, activists fear their exclusion also on this ground.

In her paper, Yumkhaibam delineated a vital way in which the nupi maanbi community was integrated into the mainstream of society – many members work as professionals in beauty parlours.

Khurai was one of the first in Manipur to start a beauty parlour run by nupi maanbis. “Beauty parlours became a space for the trans community to interact with non-trans people,” she said. “It really helped to bridge the gap between people. And it also improved the visibility of the trans people and the trans liberation movement in the state.”

Thus, Khurai argued that the nupi maanbi identity is a distinct one rooted in contemporary Manipuri culture, whereas the new amendment is “completely based on Hindu mythology” and thus erases the nupi maanbi identity. “I am not against any religion, but why should trans rights be linked to a particular religion?” she said. “Trans rights are human rights. They should be understood from a human rights perspective.”

Khurai also cautioned against a broader tendency to link trans identities to mythologies, to such an extent as to deify them.

At a recent national-level literature festival, she recounted, several trans women referred to themselves as reincarnations of Shikhandi – a character in Hindu mythology who is said to have been assigned the female gender at birth and later transitions into a man. Khurai worries that such deification ultimately dehumanises trans people. “Once a human is considered a demi-god, then that human is no longer considered a human being,” she said. “They do not receive respect from society, but fear.”

Rayyan Monkey, the writer and filmmaker, told Scroll that the term khwaja sira, as also the word hijra, has Arabic roots. Historically, Monkey noted, hijras were common people who “lived outside the palace”, whereas the khwaja sira belonged to the aristocracy and “worked within palaces”, were patrons and “custodians of art, poetry and tehzeeb”, or etiquette, and “built spiritual institutions”, such as mosques.

According to anthropologist Faris A Khan, historical documents from the medieval period noted the presence of a trans identity known as khwaja sira at the royal Mughal courts. “These individuals served as army generals, harem guards, and advisers to the emperors,” he wrote.

Over time, the term khwaja sira also came to be used more generally in South Asian Islamic culture to refer to trans persons.

Monkey noted that in the nineteenth century, the use of the term began to decline – among the key factors for this was the British empire’s passage of the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, which criminalised trans communities.

After Partition, the term khwaja sira further faded from wide use in India. But researchers told Scroll that Muslim persons in Punjab and Kashmir continue to use this term to identify themselves – though, they added, most are secretive about it because they fear the Islamophobic atmosphere prevalent in much of the country.

In contrast, in Pakistan, “the term khwaja sira is widely used as a term of respect for the trans community”, Monkey said. It is preferred over hijra, which “ is seen as a derogatory term”.

Monkey noted that certain practices of the trans community also embodied forms of syncretism that have seen a decline along with the decline of identities like the khwaja sira. “Even thirty years ago, most hijras went to both temples and dargahs,” she said. “It is only in recent times that a strict line was drawn between Hindu and Muslim practices.”

According to the 2014 NALSA judgement of the Supreme Court, which laid the ground for the 2019 legislation, “Kothis are a heterogenous group who can be described as biological males who show varying degrees of femininity – which may be situational”.

Trans activist Dr Gargi Dhananjayan noted that there were overlaps between the kothi community and the hijra and kinnar communities, and that members of each sometimes identified with the other. But the overlap with categories listed under the new act did not necessarily protect kothis from exclusion, Dhananjayan argued, because the law laid great emphasis on medical procedures, whereas “transitioning was not typically a key process for kothis”.

Dhananjayan explained, “We either don’t undergo transition, or the transition we undergo is not always of the same extent as trans women. And this might not medically qualify under what medical boards call complete transition.”

Activists are also worried about provisions of the act that could criminalise members of the community – these provisions prescribe imprisonment and fines for, among others, individuals who “compel any person” to present themselves as trans and engage in “begging, solicitation, servitude, or any other form of forced or bonded labour”. Activists argue these provisions could be misused by authorities and families of kothis to target friends, partners and others from the trans and allied communities who offer support to kothis.

This concern is particularly acute because kothis, many of whom engage in sex work, typically come from lower strata of society. “Many have been thrown out by their families. Even the NALSA judgement mentions that a lot of us from the kothi community are from underprivileged backgrounds,” Dhananjayan said. “People who are privileged among us may escape it somehow, but not all of us are privileged.”

The new law will also have far-reaching repercussions on trans persons in India who have not consolidated their identities under specific terms or communities, activists noted.

In Nagaland, a queer activist who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions, said that there existed terms for trans persons in tribal languages that were not officially recognised. “The Ao Naga community has a term called lapi and the Sumi Naga community uses a term called shokhu for people showing trans feminine gender expression,” he said. “People use these terms widely but trans people are afraid to come out officially, as they are repressed by conservative forces.”

He added, “This amendment will further prevent them from proclaiming their identities publicly.”

Similarly, Sawang, a queer activist from the Arunachal Pradesh QueerStation said, “We are still in the process of identifying and documenting local terms for the queer-trans community.”

Source: Scroll
Related Posts: Right-wing activists divide Dublin with lamp-post flag blitz A Hong Kong court uphold the convictions of activists in national security case Israel 'prepared for action' as Greta Thunberg and more activists sail to Gaza Lawyers, activists divided after SC declines plea on menstrual leave policy Israel deports 29 more Gaza aid flotilla activists Are students and activists being punished for invoking their faith in the Constitution Pro-Palestinian activists charged with damaging planes at UK air base in custody Lawyers, activists divided after SC declines plea on menstrual leave policy No bail for Indian activists after five years in jail without trial Parents, activists protest rising air pollution