Cooch Behar, West Bengal

The noise of election campaigning in West Bengal is getting louder, as candidates from the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), headed by chief minister of Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), trade insults, accusations and challenges. One marginalised community in the state looks on, wondering if this election will be any different than the ones before it? Most of the hijra community, also known as eunuch, third gender, or transgender, think not. They dismiss the impassioned promises of the campaigners as just empty rhetoric.

“Every time, before an election, political parties come to us promising they will do so many things for us, but after the election season is over, we never see them again,” Sweety from Chakir More village in Cooch Behar, North Bengal, told Gaon Connection. The village has 21 hijras. 

“How will we vote when most of us have been struggling to get a voter ID for so long,” complained Chandni, also from Chakir More.  The community feels that government bodies do not take them seriously. They struggle to get voter IDs, Aadhaar cards and ration cards, all so necessary to access welfare schemes. 

West Bengal prepares to vote in eight phases, spread over a month, between 27 March and 29 April.  The results will be declared on May 2. The battle is for 294 seats. Cooch Behar district goes to vote on April 10.

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Whether it is health, education, employment or even a square meal a day, it is an uphill task for the state’s hijra community. Discrimination, sexual harassment, constant bullying and humiliation are their lot. They say they have nowhere to turn to, and don’t think the elections will bring about any change in their lives.  

Transgender Development Board: Dysfunctional

In July 2015, a West Bengal Transgender Development Board was set up in Kolkata by the state government’s department of women and child development and social welfare. It was ostensibly to help the transgender community access government welfare schemes. 

But, only a handful of the hijras are aware of the board’s existence, and those who do, say it has been inactive and ineffective in solving any of their problems. The board does not even have data on the population of the hijra community in the state. 

Asked about the number of hijras/transpeople in the state, Manabi Bandhyopadhyay, vice-chairperson of the West Bengal Transgender Development Board said, “Can you tell me how many beggars, sex workers, hungry and homeless people there are in this country? Why should we know the number of hijra or transpeople? It is a tough job to trace and make people register.” 

Meanwhile, Sonamoni Sheikh, also referred to as boro maa (head) of the Uttar Banga and Assam Hijra Association, told Gaon Connection, “Though there is no census on the number of hijras in the state, I think there are around two thousand of them in North Bengal alone.” She is from Raiganj in Uttar Dinajpur district and recently became a member of the West Bengal Transgender Development Board.

“How can the hijra community be merged with the department of women and child development and social welfare? Why is the chairperson a woman and not a transperson?” Ranjita Sinha, advisor, association of transgender/ Hijra in West Bengal, and secretary of Gokhale Road Bandhan, a community-based organisation working towards the development of the transgender community, told Gaon Connection.

“The whole point of forming the board was to address our issues, and make society more inclusive. But for three long years after the board was formed, nothing happened,” she alleged. According to her, till 2018, the board members drew a handsome salary every month, after which it ceased to function. It was only in January the board was resurrected and some of its members replaced.

Sinha was sharply critical of the board’s insensitivity too. “Instead of addressing our basic issues like housing, education, dignity, I don’t understand why we are asked to participate in the Sindur Khela during Durga Puja for married women, when we still don’t have the right to marry or adopt,” she said.

Also Read: Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown, teenage girls continue to be pushed into child marriage in Cooch Behar, West Bengal

“I have never heard of any transgender board,” Madhusudan Sarkar, of Dalgaon Basti in Birpara, told Gaon Connection. The 62-year-old is one of 16 hijras in the village. 

The community is still reeling under the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. For nearly five months, members had no source of income. They were dependent on neighbours who reached out with rice and potatoes. “But we had no money to buy firewood, oil or spices,” Sarkar said. “Post-lockdown, I have cut down on my meals to save enough money to buy medicines for breathing difficulties I face,” she added. 

Five months after the COVID-19 lockdown, the panchayat helped Sarkar register under an old-age pension scheme that gives her thousand rupees a month. “That’s the only benefit I have received recently,” she said. 

Losing their livelihood

In Bairagi Haat village in Cooch Behar district, about 700 kilometres from state capital Kolkata, lives a group of sixteen hijras. The members say they are Koch Rajbonshi, from an ancient tribe that hails from the Koch kingdom that once ruled Cooch Behar town. This community also performs the jatra — Bengal and Assam’s folk theatre — and sings Bishohara and Satyapir (devotional songs) in cultural programmes, fairs and exhibitions in various parts of the district.

Mona Barman is one the best dancers in the group. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, people invited the 30-year-old to perform at religious and social functions. But, everything halted with the lockdown, and even after it was lifted, matters did not improve. “We were asked to leave from the gate of people’s homes; some threw two or five rupees from a distance… We collected the coins and left. People are scared to even come close to hijras, where once they would allow us to hold newborns in our arms and dance,” she said. 

If they get lucky, they make about Rs 200 to Rs 300 a day.  “Before the pandemic, we would get at least a thousand rupees from each event,” said Mona.

“During the lockdown, our ration ran out and we survived on water and a handful of puffed rice for days. We couldn’t pay our rent. A local club came forward to offer us rice, pulses and potatoes,” Chandni Biswas, member of the Uttar Banga (North Bengal) Hijra Association from Cooch Behar, told Gaon Connection. 

Beyond the ballot

Sheikh informed Gaon Connection that last month, the West Bengal Transgender Development Board held a meeting in which she  put forth the requests of the hijra community for housing, jobs, pension schemes, education, health and medical facilities. But on being approached, Manabi Bandhyopadhyay of the board, refused to share information about the board’s future plans. 

Predictably, the hijras are angry. “In 2014, the third-gender recognition was given to transpeople/hijras but what has happened since then? During lockdown, the government woke up and realised we too needed to eat and only then did they issue ration cards to a few of us. The rest are yet to get it,” Tapan Dey from Mathabhanga village, told Gaon Connection.

“Other states have absorbed hijra and transgenders in the workforce in hospitals, police stations, schools and so on. Why is our state so way behind?” she asked. 

Access to education is the other big issue for the community. They are constantly bullied wherever they go and that is why most of them have either dropped out of schools or never bothered to join one.  

“Educational institutes are not welcoming of us. We can only provide basic reading and writing to our children at home, there are thousands like us who have no place to go,” lamented Biswas. “My request to the government is to open a night school for the hijra community so that we can learn something and change our lives,” she said.

Meanwhile, sexual harassment is something the community faces regularly, but they say they have no place to turn to for help. “Which police station will accept an FIR from a hijra? One of us was recently beaten up by a group of men for refusing sexual favours. He broke her phone and injured her arm. People watched, nobody thought to call a cop,” Palak from Chakir More village lamented.

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“We struggle to rent homes. Owning a home is a dream out of reach,” said Ria Burman, from Mathabhanga. “Hijras are insignificant in the eyes of society,” she concluded.

Will the outcome of the Bengal elections bring any change in the lives of the state’s hijra community, which is living on the edge?