The recent order of a lower court granting bail to a eunuch arrested for a petty offence has thrown up a curious situation the society hardly thinks of. What happens if someone from the LGBT (lesbian, gay bisexual, transgender) community is held and denied bail. Should the accused be kept in the jail, detention home or in a special cell? In this case,
Rupa alias Mazarrul, a eunuch, was granted bail. Though the offence was petty quarrel the court also reportedly thought of legal provision __ and difficulties __ about keeping a eunuch under detention. Though some of the legal experts claimed the bail was granted after considering the not-so-serious offence and had nothing to do with gender issue, the decision has put the focus on the limited legal space __ what happens if a eunuch commits a serious crime?
This has brought to light loopholes in the judicial system when it comes to securing rights for the LGBT community and the stigma attached to its members. Neither CrPC nor IPC, Additional SP Ram Kumar Panda pointed out, has any separate provision for the ‘third sex.’ The role of police is limited to taking the accused to court, he added. Retired Senior Jail Superintendent DB Dharua from Sambalpur explained out such cases of housing LGBTs in jail seldom arise. “Ideally they are accommodated in special cells but again, all jails are overcrowded.”. Core team member of National Alliance of Women’s Organisation Subhashree Ray emphasised the need to change social outlook of the community.� The legal system, as well as society need to join hands to help them live a dignified life, she said.
CRIMAL Eunuchs Sent to beggars' home in Delhi Prevention of Begging Act 1959, by the SMM Nov 10, 2010
After months of detention at a beggars' home, a transgender caught seeking alms in south Delhi was allowed to walk free after the intervention of a Delhi court.
Setting aside an order of a special metropolitan magistrate (SMM) sending appellant transgender Rani to the beggars' home for two years, District and Additional Session Judge A.K. Chawla said: "The appeal is accepted and the order of detention is set aside."
"It is ordered that the appellant be released after due admonition on a personal bond of Rs.1,000. Appeal stands disposed off accordingly," said the court in its order June 6.
The court said that the transgender had a right to lead a life of dignity and earn a livelihood.
"The appellant undisputedly is a transgender and it is a hard fact that in our society, transgenders are being shunned even today," said Judge Chawla.
"It is difficult for them to get even menial jobs. The impugned judgment is also totally silent and does not reflect nor is there any material on record to show the circumstances in which the appellant was living or the antecedents of the appellant," the court added.
Appellant Rani was held guilty under the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959, by the SMM Nov 10, 2010. Rani was convicted for begging on the capital's roads and was ordered to be kept in a beggars' home for two years.
Rani was caught begging Nov 10, 2010 near the Moolchand Flyover in south Delhi and sent to the beggars' home the same day
The castration procedure, called ‘Nirvana’, is illegal, and forces many to turn to quacks for the operation, putting them at great risk. “No surgeon will do the emasculation surgery, since they need certificates from an urologist, a psychiatrist and other experts that the person needs such a surgery. The poor eunuch has no access to expensive surgeons. So they go to quacks,” said Saxena.
Setting aside an order of a special metropolitan magistrate (SMM) sending appellant transgender Rani to the beggars' home for two years, District and Additional Session Judge A.K. Chawla said: "The appeal is accepted and the order of detention is set aside."
"It is ordered that the appellant be released after due admonition on a personal bond of Rs.1,000. Appeal stands disposed off accordingly," said the court in its order June 6.
The court said that the transgender had a right to lead a life of dignity and earn a livelihood.
"The appellant undisputedly is a transgender and it is a hard fact that in our society, transgenders are being shunned even today," said Judge Chawla.
"It is difficult for them to get even menial jobs. The impugned judgment is also totally silent and does not reflect nor is there any material on record to show the circumstances in which the appellant was living or the antecedents of the appellant," the court added.
Appellant Rani was held guilty under the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959, by the SMM Nov 10, 2010. Rani was convicted for begging on the capital's roads and was ordered to be kept in a beggars' home for two years.
Rani was caught begging Nov 10, 2010 near the Moolchand Flyover in south Delhi and sent to the beggars' home the same day
Sagar Yadav, a trustee of the group, added, “If the eunuch wants to leave the ‘guru’, they are subjected to beatings and torture if they do not obey their gurus or share their earnings. If they want to leave the group, they have to pay the guru. They often borrow from another guru to pay the previous one. Then they spend years paying the loan. This is a kind of bonded labour.” Saxena states that the ‘price’ of a Eunuch is between Rs50,000 to Rs1,00,000 ? Reality Check ???
90 Transgenders Arrested by HYDERABAD Railway Protection Force (RPF)
HYDERABAD: Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel have arrested 90 transgenders for allegedly travelling without tickets on trains.Acting on complaints from passengers about harassment of transgenders, the RPF had launched a series of special drives since May 24. "So far, we have conducted 275 special drives and arrested 90 transgenders," a South Central Railway (SCR) spokesperson said.The arrested persons were prosecuted and Rs 26,100 penalty was collected from them. Among the arrested, 14 persons were sentenced to undergo imprisonment, while cases against others were at trial stage.
Zahoor Guru and his pupils at Cantt police station lock up. PHOTO: DAILY EXPRESS
Eight eunuchs were arrested and sent to jail for two weeks on Monday in Gujranwala under the Maintenance of Public Order ordinance.
They belonged to Mian Zahoor Guru Group and Ijaz Group.
They were arrested by Cantt police on Sunday after they brawled at a wedding ceremony. Ijaz Group had performed at the ceremony and made Rs6,000. Zahoor Guru Group had then allegedly attacked them claiming the Cantt police precinct belonged to them and that no other group was allowed to operate there.
SHO Amir Abbas said the police had tried to settle the dispute but the eunuchs attacked one another at the police station as well. He said when they were unable to calm them down they had to put them in separate lock ups.
Police learnt that the two groups had been clashing over demarcation of territories for over a month.
Earlier, a case was registered against these groups in the first week of January at Cantt police station when Zahoor Guru Group had allegedly broken into Ijaz group’s office and roughed up its members. SHO Abbas said they had detained them for several hours. “They were released with a warning to discipline themselves,” he said.
Those arrested, besides the group leaders, included:
Tahir alias Sana, Tariq alias Tara Ji and Mohsin alias Pooja of Zahoor Guru group and Shahbaz alias Sana, Hamid alias Midda and Javaied alias Jadda of Ijaz group. They were produced before Magistrate Ghulam Abbas on Monday morning who sent them to Central Jail for two weeks. Zahoor Guru Group claimed that they had been working in the area for over 18 years and Ijaz Group had recently settled in.
They accused Ijaz Group of trying to steal their business. Group leader Zahoor Guru said that their business had fallen ever since Ijaz Group’s ‘invasion’. “This is my area. Only my pupils can operate here,” he said. Guru alleged that Ijaz was not even a eunuch. “He’s married. He has hired these eunuchs as a side business. For us, this is our life,” he said.
Ijaz denied the allegation. He said he was as much a eunuch as Zahoor Guru. He challenged the suggestion that the eunuchs could be confined to specific territories. “Everyone should be allowed to operate everywhere. They can’t bar us from any place. We will go wherever we are invited,” he said.
Police arrests a doctor who forcefully operated upon many
youngsters and allegedly turned them into eunuchs!
KATHMANDU: When Bollywood director Anirban Dhar toured Nepal this week to showcase his new film, "I Am", he had two keen desires: to visit the fabled Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu and find a gay bar in Thamel, the place tourists flock to in the capital. Bollywood's only openly gay film director also had a teasing request for Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal's only openly homosexual MP and founder of the gay rights movement in the conservative Himalayan republic.
Such jokes and even serious considerations began to pour in since 2008-end, after Nepal's Supreme Court struck a vigorous blow for gay rights, recognising same sex marriages and ordering the government to enact laws to allow them. It also ordered the government to protect the rights of the gay community, leading to such unprecedented government recognition as issuing "Third Gender" identity cards and giving gays a place on electoral rolls.
But now, the new civil and criminal codes proposed by the government are threatening to undermine all that and bring homosexuality under the taboo of "unnatural sexual offences", just as the dreaded Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code had done in India. The new provisions to marriage regard the union as only that between a man and woman and sodomy still remains a punishable offence as "unnatural sex".
"If these bills become law, they will undermine the growth of the gay rights movement in Nepal and criminalise gays," said Pant, whose Blue Diamond Society (BDS), Nepal's first gay rights organisation, has begun protesting against the bills. On Wednesday, when the UN Human Rights Council began its first Universal Periodic Review of Nepal's human rights situation, BDS representative Manisha, a transgender born Suben Dhakal, raised a dissenting voice.
"I am Manisha Dhakal from Nepal speaking on behalf of the Blue Diamond Society and the Sexual Rights Initiative," said Dhakal, in her new persona of a woman. "The proposed civil and criminal laws by the Ministry of Law, which have been tabled in the Nepali parliament, contain provisions to re-criminalize so-called 'unnatural sexual offenses' and to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. These attempts by the law ministry are a clear sign not to follow international human rights standards, a clear intention not to implement Supreme Court's decision and also go against the spirit of the interim and new draft constitution of Nepal."
Nepal's gay community is now calling on the international community to make the Nepal government implement the Supreme court's decisions fully and ensure that the proposed civil and criminal laws are amended to ensure the human rights and equality of sexual and gender minorities.
The film titled To be... ME gave her the courage to go ahead with the transition in 2006. However, she claims that nothing much has changed for her after that. “Earlier, I was a woman who did not have a surgery, now I am a woman who underwent a surgery,” adds the Mumbai-based scriptwriter.
Dhaliwal and several other members from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community will now be sharing their experiences ina new documentary that explores the much discussed topic of the repealing of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that decriminalises homosexuality.
Titled Over the Shoulder, the film weaves the life stories and realities of the LGBT people across various social and economic strata. “As an ally of gay rights for years, I have seen quite a bit of work on the subject. But I still feel that an honestportrayal of the varied perspectives to an archaic law being repealedwas missing,” says theatre actor-writer-director Nayantara Roy who shot the documentary as part of her thesis at the New York Film Academy where she is currently studying. Shot using real life accounts of individual narratives of known andlittle known faces from the LGBT community, the film chronicles thelife and times of people like gay prince Manvendra Singh Gohil and eunuch social activist Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi. Organisations such asAzaad Bazaar, the Humsafar Trust and the Kashish Queer Film Festivalhave also lent their support to the film.
“Life after the repealing of Section 377 is rewritten everyday,” addsRoy who recalls how Gohil mentioned that he started celebratingIndependence Day only after July 2, 2009 when the court decriminalisedhomosexual sex between consenting adults.
The filmmaker says that the law means a lot to some people and verylittle to others. For instance, gay psychologist Deepak Kashyap, who is in a relationship himself, has been helping homosexual couples tocome out of the closet for years. “There is no room for Section 377 inyoung urban India and it should have gone out along with the British,”adds Roy who has plans to screen the documentary across the US inAugust before bringing it to India. “In our country, 80% of gay men are married.
Unfortunately, there is no awareness but only guilt in such cases,” the filmmaker rues.
"I wish Sunil would find me a partner," said Dhar aka Onir half-jokingly.
Such jokes and even serious considerations began to pour in since 2008-end, after Nepal's Supreme Court struck a vigorous blow for gay rights, recognising same sex marriages and ordering the government to enact laws to allow them. It also ordered the government to protect the rights of the gay community, leading to such unprecedented government recognition as issuing "Third Gender" identity cards and giving gays a place on electoral rolls.
But now, the new civil and criminal codes proposed by the government are threatening to undermine all that and bring homosexuality under the taboo of "unnatural sexual offences", just as the dreaded Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code had done in India. The new provisions to marriage regard the union as only that between a man and woman and sodomy still remains a punishable offence as "unnatural sex".
"If these bills become law, they will undermine the growth of the gay rights movement in Nepal and criminalise gays," said Pant, whose Blue Diamond Society (BDS), Nepal's first gay rights organisation, has begun protesting against the bills. On Wednesday, when the UN Human Rights Council began its first Universal Periodic Review of Nepal's human rights situation, BDS representative Manisha, a transgender born Suben Dhakal, raised a dissenting voice.
"I am Manisha Dhakal from Nepal speaking on behalf of the Blue Diamond Society and the Sexual Rights Initiative," said Dhakal, in her new persona of a woman. "The proposed civil and criminal laws by the Ministry of Law, which have been tabled in the Nepali parliament, contain provisions to re-criminalize so-called 'unnatural sexual offenses' and to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. These attempts by the law ministry are a clear sign not to follow international human rights standards, a clear intention not to implement Supreme Court's decision and also go against the spirit of the interim and new draft constitution of Nepal."
Nepal's gay community is now calling on the international community to make the Nepal government implement the Supreme court's decisions fully and ensure that the proposed civil and criminal laws are amended to ensure the human rights and equality of sexual and gender minorities.
“I was imprisoned in a male’s body, until a surgeon’s knife cut me free,” says 28-year-old Gazal Dhaliwal who underwent Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) a few years ago. The turning point in her life came when Dhaliwal made a documentary on trans-sexuality as part of her diploma in filmmaking.
The film titled To be... ME gave her the courage to go ahead with the transition in 2006. However, she claims that nothing much has changed for her after that. “Earlier, I was a woman who did not have a surgery, now I am a woman who underwent a surgery,” adds the Mumbai-based scriptwriter.
Dhaliwal and several other members from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community will now be sharing their experiences ina new documentary that explores the much discussed topic of the repealing of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that decriminalises homosexuality.
Titled Over the Shoulder, the film weaves the life stories and realities of the LGBT people across various social and economic strata. “As an ally of gay rights for years, I have seen quite a bit of work on the subject. But I still feel that an honestportrayal of the varied perspectives to an archaic law being repealedwas missing,” says theatre actor-writer-director Nayantara Roy who shot the documentary as part of her thesis at the New York Film Academy where she is currently studying. Shot using real life accounts of individual narratives of known andlittle known faces from the LGBT community, the film chronicles thelife and times of people like gay prince Manvendra Singh Gohil and eunuch social activist Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi. Organisations such asAzaad Bazaar, the Humsafar Trust and the Kashish Queer Film Festivalhave also lent their support to the film.
“Life after the repealing of Section 377 is rewritten everyday,” addsRoy who recalls how Gohil mentioned that he started celebratingIndependence Day only after July 2, 2009 when the court decriminalisedhomosexual sex between consenting adults.
The filmmaker says that the law means a lot to some people and verylittle to others. For instance, gay psychologist Deepak Kashyap, who is in a relationship himself, has been helping homosexual couples tocome out of the closet for years. “There is no room for Section 377 inyoung urban India and it should have gone out along with the British,”adds Roy who has plans to screen the documentary across the US inAugust before bringing it to India. “In our country, 80% of gay men are married.
Unfortunately, there is no awareness but only guilt in such cases,” the filmmaker rues.
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