Sexual mutilation and sexual abstinence

construct the personhood and social worlds of

hijras in India. Discuss
The word hijra is an Urdu word meaning eunuch or hermaphrodite.
However, in reality, hijras are very diverse and most join the
community as young boys. Hijras consist of hermaphrodites, as well
as women who are unable to menstruate and lead the normal
female life which consists of getting married and producing children.
However, a great number of hijras are men who identify themselves
as more feminine than masculine, mostly because their sexual
desire is for men and not women.
The hijras are an ancient community in the Indian subcontinent with
members in Pakistan and Bangladesh. They are classified as the
third sex and have their own gender role. Serena Nanda describes
them as man minus maleness and man plus woman. They are
not considered either because of their inability to reproduce. In the
Indian subcontinent, great emphasis is placed on ones ability to
have children. Someone who is unable to have children is not
considered a true man or woman. Therefore, hijras are a separate
identity, who fit into neither category, with aspects of both genders.
The traditional occupation for hijras consists of begging for alms
when bestowing blessings on male babies and at weddings. They
are notorious for knowing when a baby boy is born and arriving at
the right house to sing and dance and demand alms. Most of their
songs are about pregnancy and their dances are mostly parodies of
pregnant women. They also demand to inspect the baby to check if
he is a normal boy or an intersexed baby, in which case they might
start demanding that the child be handed over to them as it is a
hijra. They are considered as profane because of the fact that when
they perform badhai many families do not allowed their daughter in
law to be present there due to fear of her infertility that might
happen because of exposure to hijras. On the other hand they are
seen as sacred and they are endowed with power to bless. It seems
ironic that the hijras, who are unable to reproduce, have the power
to bestow fertility blessings on brides The power to do so comes to
them through Bahuchara Mata who is a version of the Mother

Goddess. The Mother Goddess plays the role of the mother, who is
the creator and nurturer, as well as the destroyer. Hence, she has
the power to grant fertility or take it away. However, because of
increasing westernization, the traditional roles of hijras are no longer
in as much demand as they used to be. Hijras have a hard time
accessing houses and apartment buildings because of security, and
with an increasing middle class that has access to other forms of
entertainment such as cinemas, hijras are no longer required for
diversions. A great number of hijras are turning to prostitution which
goes against the hijra ideal of asceticism. Ideally hijras are meant to
renounce sex and be the devotees of Bahuchara Mata.
All true hijras are required to undergo an emasculation operation
called nirvan. Nirvan means rebirth and most hijras see this
operation as their rebirth into the hijra form from the male. It
consists of the complete removal of the penis and testes and is
essential in transforming them from men to women. Only after this
are they granted their special powers of blessings and curses. The
operation consists of three stages: the preparation, the operation
and the recovery. All stages consist of various complex rituals. The
preparation stage involves praying to Bahuchara Mata and waiting
for a good signal from her. One such gesture is the breaking of a
coconut, and unless the coconut is broken in half, the hijra-to-be
does not go through with the operation because it is seen as a sign
that Bahuchara Mata does not want this person to be a hijra just yet.
Once the operation has been granted to a hijra, she is given a period
of rest where she is not allowed to work or be involved in any sexual
activity. This can vary from a week to a month. The actual operation
is done by a hijra called a dai ma who is granted the power to do the
operation by Bahuchara Mata. On the day of the operation, the dai
ma lets herself into the room of the hijra to be operated on and
prays to Bahuchara Mata. The severed genitals are then buried
under a tree and a tube is placed in the urethra. The blood coming
out is allowed to flow because it is seen as the bad male blood and
getting rid of it will get rid of the male inside the hijra. This is one of
the reasons why hijras do not get proper doctors to operate upon
them since they would stop the blood flow. The time when the blood
is flowing is considered the most important time where the hijra,
who has just been operated upon, is battling between life and death.
Many prayers are said for her, but the blood is never stopped. The

recovery period also involves many rituals which include forty days
of rest (similar to that for a woman who has just given birth) and
vomit inducing foods to get rid of the maleness.
Although most hijras identify with Islam, they do not seem to have a
conflict with being part of a community that worships the Mother
Goddess instead of Allah. Most of them fast during the Muslim holy
month of Ramzan, get buried instead of cremated, and if they get
married, they have a Muslim wedding called a nikkah. Some hijras
do get married and live with their husbands, but by doing so, they
are not cut off from their community. They live apart from them but
still work with them. Most of them also adopt Muslim female names.
The hijras acceptance into Indian society is due to Hinduism more
than Islam. Many Hindu deities are linked to the hijras such as Arjun
(who lives for a year as eunuch), Vishnu (who transformed himself in
to the most beautiful woman in the world in order to defeat a demon
by seducing him), Shiva (who is both male and female and whose
image is represented by a phallus in a vagina), and Krishnas son
Samba (who was a homosexual and cross dresser). What is
noteworthy about the hijras is that the role is so deeply rooted in
Indian culture that it can accommodate a wide variety of
temperaments, personalities, sexual needs, gender identities, crossgender behaviours, and levels of commitment without losing its
cultural meaning. Because hijras are able to identify with different
figures in Indian mythology, they are tolerated and were traditionally
much respected as the third sex. Also, as Serena Nanda points out,
hijras do not have to conform to one set of norms since they are a
very diverse group and have room for such diversity in their
community.
Although most hijras dress as women, they engage in activities that
would be considered inappropriate for Indian women such as
dancing in public. They almost seem to be a caricature of women
because hijras wear their hair long and wear saris and other
traditional female dresses, whereas, in modern sub continental
society, the upper and middle class women cut their hair and wear
western male clothes. Hijras also sing and dance and sway their
hips in public, which women do not do.

While the religious identification with the Goddess is the source of

the hijra s power, many hijra s self-identify as women, emphasizing
their preference for womens clothing and womens occupations,
their liking for children, and their gendered erotic fantasies and
experiences, which centre on their desire for male sexual partners.
Hijra s also emphasize their feminine identities through their
imitation of feminine gestures and body language, their use of
feminine linguistic terms, and their subjective experience as sexual
objects of mens desires. A huge difference between hijra
community and common society is related to sex which is seen as
taboo in society, but that is one thing that marked out by their
presence itself.
All hijras are part of one community. The community consists of
households where all the members contribute to run it like an Indian
sub continental joint family system. All hijras are part of one of
seven houses which function as a family unit. Each house has a chief
who represents them at meetings with all the other houses in order
to discuss important issues. Being part of any specific house does
not mean having an advantage or disadvantage over anything. They
came into being in order to organize the community. Anyone wishing
to join the hijra community must be sponsored by a guru whose
house she will join. The guru functions as a teacher, as well as a
mother. In fact, hijras refer to their gurus guru and other members
of their household with feminine relative names such as
grandmother (nani for the gurus guru) and aunt (khala for their
gurus sisters). Hijras, whose gurus have more than one disciple,
refer to each other as their sisters. They critique our world for but
due to this guru chela concept they understand their world through
the same language of heterosexual world.
In contemporary usage, transgender has become an umbrella term
used to describe identities and expression, including but not limited
to: pre-operative, post-operative and non-operative transsexual
people (who strongly identify with the gender opposite to their
biological sex); male and female cross-dressers ; and men and
women regardless of their sexual orientation, whose appearance
and characteristics are perceived to be gender atypical. A male-tofemale transgender person is referred to as transgender woman
and a female-to-male transgender person, as transgender man.

With the advent of globalization majority of transgender people

coming out and accepting themselves among the global diaspora,
hijras along with gays, lesbians, and bisexuals are on the forefront to
prove them that they are not less gifted in comparison to others in
the society. In todays world, transgenders are giving a tough
competition to the people in areas of education, personalization,
orientation, and socialization. A revolutionary change in the mind-set
of the people has led to accept the fact that Hijras can live a life of
peace and security owing to the media, and various institutions that
have offered a helping hand to the transgender people. Once such
example adopted by India is the Pride Parade .Recently, a
transgender was elected as mayor in raigrah district of
Chhattisgarh .In 2014 India's Supreme Court has created an official
third sex for its transgender eunuchs and announced they will have
a quota of government jobs and college places to help them
overcome discrimination. This verdict is certainly landmark and a
new beginning. The biggest challenge is the social recognition. Now
they will be able to educate themselves and make people aware that
they exist and there's nothing abnormal about them. This will give a
boost to the transgenders who want to study or work but were
denied a chance. They can now be part of the mainstream.

Bibliography
Nanda, S. (1990). Neither Man nor Woman, The Hijras of India
Reddy, G. (2005). With respect to sex: Negotiating hijra identity
in South India
http://www.brill.com/downloads/BEHMWHijras.pdf