Piyali Pan in this article talks about the discrimination and stereotyping that transgenders fall prey to in the society.
India’s name features in various world rankings as one of the best countries to live in and has shown various economic improvements as well as has moved few ranks for technological advancements and other developments but if we come to cultural and social aspects of India still we find that India is way backward due to its ideologies that indulge in stereotyping. In India, we talk about Human rights and have so many laws relating to Human rights and our legal system pursues this human rights violation issue way too seriously but then what about the human rights of the transgender community? What is our country doing about their human rights, the way they are being treated and the fact that they previously were not granted any rights and what about their violation of Human rights.
Previously they were not even considered a gender and now we have others in the gender column but they were not granted any rights. They did not have the rights to marry, to adopt and no legal rights as well as constitutional rights. India was sleeping over their rights for a longer period of time.
In the Indian Penal Code, we have laws which makes transgender marriage or intercourse illegal. Section 377 of the IPC reads:
Unnatural Offence: “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Explanation: Penetration is sufficient to constitute the carnal intercourse necessary to the offence described in this section.”[1]
Their marriage or intercourse is considered as unnatural offence and hence, they are liable to be punished for this. There are no constitutional rights provided to them and they are not even considered as citizens.
There are various case studies which actually show how they are ill-treated and they are not considered as human rights violation. From a real incident, “On December 1 2002, Chandini, a Hijra, died of severe burns in her home in Kamanahalli, Bangalore. She had been married to Jnanaprakash, a painter, who claims that he was unaware of Chandini’s sexual orientation till the day before her death; his reaction of shock and outrage as well as his threat to expose her to his parents drove her to commit suicide.”[2] This is the real face of India, where transgenders are so badly treated, the society literally forces them to choose the path of death. In these cases where is the human rights protection?
After many struggles and riots by these people, our government has finally taken up this issue. Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill 2016, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 2 this year, which claims to “provide for protection of rights of transgender persons and their welfare and for matters connected there with and incidental thereto.”[3]This bill is still pending but it talks about the protection of the rights of these people. Experts think that this bill would not completely eradicate the problem because the bill has been drafted by people who are not representatives of transgender community. Hence, before the passing of the bill itself, the bill has attracted many concerns.
But, still there is a little relief because this issue has at least been taken up and another main issue which the parliamentarians are facing is Section 377 of the IPC, that criminalizes homosexuality. [4]The Transgender Persons Bill cannot co-exist with Section 377, because they are anti thesis to each other. So for this bill is yet to be passed and specific amendments to section 377 of IPC needs to be implemented. Hence, a huge debate has already begun regarding this issue, and its not known when this bill will be passed , when transgender rights will be recognized and hence, there needs to be a nationwide campaign relating to the passing of this bill to become a law.
References-
[1] Section 377 of IPC, 1860
[2] PUCL, Karnataka: Human rights violations against the transgender community, available at http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Gender/2004/transgender-excerpts.htm.
[3] Titash sen, ransgender persons’ rights group highlights various shortcomings of the Bill., http://thewire.in/60938/will-the-transgender-persons-bill-2016-actually-enable-the-community/
[4] Ibid.
