Dear saathis,
This is an open letter sent by my comrade Gee Ameena Suleiman based on
his workplace experiences at Sangama, an LGBT rights NGO in Bengaluru
that works for the rights of working class LGBT people, sex workers
and people living with HIV. It raises important questions about the
way in which sexual harrassment and classist structures are created
within the organizations that claim to be part of the movements
fighting these same structures.
I have been a personal witness to the way in which Sangama's presence
as a big-money NGO has created structures of class and gender based
oppression in the working class LGBT community with whom I live and
struggle. The goal of this letter is not to take away from any good
work the organization or anyone else is doing but to struggle
internally and hold each other accountable to fight the classism,
casteism and gender discrimination including transphobia that have
become so pervasive in the fight against homophobia. Please respond
with any questions or if you have an interest in directly engaging
with and providing support to this community and its struggle.
in solidarity
Kaveri/ Karthik
An Open Letter About Workplace Harassment in Sangama ?
I joined Sangama in Nov 2010 as Co-ordinator of the Information
Division, based on my interest in working with gender/sexuality
minorities, sex workers and PLHIV. Sangama’s website claims that
“Sangama is an anti-sexist, anti-classist, democratic and transparent
organization.”This letter will go on to show how Sangama is none of
these things. I will discuss three main issues:
1. How the organization has simultaneously ignored and misused
the concept of workplace sexual harassment
2. How the organization’s decisions are entirely made by a few
upper-class upper-caste people who are not part of the sexual minority
community and control access to funds
3. How attempts to question any decisions have been dealt with
in an anti-democratic and authoritarian manner, resulting in several
working-class
At the end of this letter I summarize the ways in which Sangama is
using its monetary power to control the working class gender minority
community it claims to be working for, and in whose name the
organization obtains huge amounts of funding.
On June 22nd 2011, I was sent with three male filmmakers from Kerala
to Ulsoor hamam by the
introduce them to some people from the hijra community. On the way
back, I remember being sexually harassed by a
blacking out. As soon as I came back with the team to Sangama
I communicated this incident to some staff members, including a member
of the Committee Against Sexual Harrassment . No action was taken in
office. I was taken back home, passed out, by 3 others whom I had
called from outside before passing out. While all this was happening
in office there was a complete lack of concern and sensitivity from
Sangama. No follow up was done after the incident and though the
Programme head, Akkai and other senior staff were present nothing was
done against
to me on the phone and agreed to terminate the services of the man who
molested me with immediate effect when I said I would not help them in
their work any further.
On June 28th, Akkai, head of programmes in Sangama wrote me a letter
that completely disregarded this incident although she was in the
office at the time it took place:
Today (27.06.2011), I was looking for you in the office to have a
meeting of all the program staffs but you were not to be seen in the
vicinity. You have failed to give information about your absence from
the office. As you are one of the senior programme staff and you
don't give any information to your immediate superiors, it becomes
difficult for me to function as a team, if small matters like this of
sharing information is not done. This shows that you have behaved
irresponsible and have not followed the procedures of the
organization.
I would like to meet you in person as soon you get back to duty.
Sincerely,
Akkai
Sangama Sangharsha
I immediately responded with the letter below-
Dear Akkai,
I appreciate that you have taken the effort to write to me about my
irresponsibility.I have a few things to say about this topic.
Is it not irresponsible for staff of Sangama to talk casually
about a sexual harassment case that a co worker has faced during the
course of the work that you as programme "manager" had sent me on to
Ulsoor hamam. Was it not irresponsible for you to not bother finding
out what was wrong even days after the incident.
Is it not irresponsible for the executive director Mr Manohar
Elavarthi to not come to office ever since he took over as the head?
Is it not irresponsible for Mr Manohar to not call even one staff
meeting and brief us on what we have to do?
Is it not irresponsible for people in advocacy [ who work under
you] to not inform the administration about their leaves and absence
from work? So are there different rules for people working in
different divisions?
A human rights organisation should be focussing on concern for co
workers who have faced sexual harassment at the job place instead of
being prompt only in matters relating to absence from work.
Thanking you,
Gee
No response after this. The only response I got a month later was a
termination letter for “
were asked about the sexual harassment complaint inspite of my having
mentioned it in the previous letter. There is a complete lack of
understanding and sensitivity towards the issues of female born gender
and sexual minorities in particular, especially around issues of
sexual harassment. So was the Committee Against Sexual Harrassment
formed in haste just to make a case to terminate the ex Director Dr
Vijayakumar for asking too many questions about financial
irregularities in Sangama? Please note, that I am not discrediting any
of the complaints that were filed but I am questioning the motives for
forming the committee that has since been inactive.
------------------
It was around the time that I joined Sangama that 4 hijra activists
lost their jobs immediately after they protested against the
undemocractic manner in which the AGM (annual general body meeting)
process for Samara[ a community based organization controlled by
Sangama] was conducted. They were given termination letters for
misconduct, for speaking out against the organization and not being
“loyal”. Nobody working in Sangama or Samara from within the community
also came out in support of these 4 hijra women when this gross
injustice was done to them, for fear of losing their jobs. Later when
two of the abovementioned women filed cases against Samara, they were
alienated from the rest of the community with instructions being given
to the Drop-In community centres to not allow access to them, and to
the self-help groups to exclude them. Sangama has been using the power
of
working class gender minority community to blindly follow without
questioning, if they want to keep their jobs.
This is something that I had written about to the board, Director [ Mr
Manohar Elavarathi] and Secretary [Ms Shubha Chacko] about when I was
being victimized during my employment there for raising some
questions. In a letter dated May 6th 2011, I wrote ,” Some of the ways
of working we have in Sangama that have been put up right at our
entrance are “open, inclusive and enabling”. I felt that the process
that is going on is none of these and any progressive political
movement can only be based on inclusiveness whatever the differences
of opinions that exist amongst community members may be. To squash
dissent or to not allow space for questioning is to impose an
authoritarian rule over your allies and fellow community members and I
have serious problems with this”. None of these issues were addressed
then or later.
How is Sangama an organization that works for gender and sexuality
minorities keeping all these instances in mind? Sangama and its
collectives give false hopes of dignified jobs to working class gender
minorities and make them puppets of the establishment, who can keep
their jobs only if they parrot what the organization needs, whether it
be in front of the public, press, funders etc. The community’s
dependence on the organization for livelihood makes sure there is
loyalty without questioning and the huge number of hijra and kothi
community members waiting for jobs makes it easy to replace any
dissident staff members. Those who raise questions are immediately
branded as anti Sangama, a Payana worker (Payana is an alternative
organization), a Mangalamukhi supporter (Mangalamukhis are a self
organized collective of transgender women who do not fit within
Sangama's framework).
My question then is- why is it that a bisexual, upper caste,
cis-gendered man like Manohar Elavarathi, who is English speaking and
middle class, making decisions and controlling working class sex
workers, gender and sexual minorities? Sangama does not have a problem
with creating these class differences within the organization, paying
me Rs 25000 while other working class staffers are paid between Rs.
5000 and 10,000. This differential pay scale privileges educational
qualifications over experience and works counter to the claim that it
is a working class organisation - this was a point I had made at the
time of joining the organization. These are not minor issues but major
problems that affect the daily lives of the communities in whose names
and identities the organization takes funding. Knowing that Sangama
does not care enough to make changes, as is obvious from the
consistent efforts from my part and the lack of response from theirs,
I have left my job in Sangama.
Sangama behaves as a multi national company marketing human rights. It
has built an empire with foreign funding consisting of several
community-based organizations and trusts, many of which are completely
independent of Sangama on paper, such as Aneka,Samatha, Sangama
Sangharsha, Samara, Sangama Vikasa and multiple new CBOs being
established in Kerala and Karnataka. This makes Sangama the biggest
direct or indirect employer of sexual and gender minorities in
Karnataka, with control over decisions and money resting in a few
privileged persons’ hands. A large number of people who have worked in
Sangama or the collectives it controls therefore find life very
difficult if they persist in speaking up against this structure of
control. Most community members continue to work in one of these
groups, or remain somehow dependent on other community members or
systems within this structure, talking about the workplace repression
they face only in safe, personal spaces. This is a big part of why the
magnitude of this issue is something that I have been unable to
capture through this letter.
There is no accountability from the establishment for any of their
actions or lack of actions. The board remains mute to all the
complaints and issues raised. The mouth of the community is muzzled.
Who will speak for and with us when we raise questions for which there
are no answers? Though I know that activists are more interested in
having a conflict-free working relationship with Sangama, I appeal to
all organizations and individuals who believe in working together to
build a sexual and gender minorities movement based on radical
politics that allows space for solidarity over and above difference of
opinions to come out in our support. This letter is to tell people
involved in sexual minority struggles that Sangama is not representing
the interests and needs of the community. We should find ways in which
support can be routed directly to community members or community based
organizations [where decisions are actually made by community members]
without middlemen or NGO heads making a business of soliciting funding
in the name of a community over whom they exercise control.
Gee Ameena Suleiman
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