Human Rights and Hijra Criminalization in South India

• In Event: 106 - Regular Session. Human Rights

Abstract

This presentation explores the degree to which “pro-minority criminalization” impacts NGO-led sexual minority rights activism in India. I draw on ethnographic data from 18 months of fieldwork with a large internationally-funded NGO and local hijra groups in a large city in South India. I begin with a discussion of the history of hijra criminalization, which was codified into law during the British Colonial period. I examine the relationships between sexual rights NGOs and police, who have, at varying times, criminalized sexual minorities and surveilled NGOs who work for sexual minority rights. Though these organizations are criminalized, they also criminalize hijras, characterizing hijras’ traditional relationships as “against human rights.” My analysis explores the links between “pro-minority criminalization” that many Western LGBT communities participate in and the re-criminalization of hijras by transnationally-funded sexual rights NGOs such as Dosti. I argue that anxieties around hijras’ traditional relationships are related to wider cultural discussions that position certain subjects as “backward” and “not ready” for participation in the world’s largest democracy.

Author

• Elizabeth Ann Mount, Nazarbayev University