Surveillance, Censure and Support: Gender Counting in South Asia

Abstract

Gender counting has been a longstanding concern of South Asian politics. For the past several years, gender counting has taken on central importance in South Asia in a new register. In both Pakistan and India, as part of a larger discussion on transgender rights and welfare, the state has engaged in various efforts to count the number of transgender persons living within its borders. In this recent (trans)gender counting, we see not only progressive welfare ambitions, but also the resurgence of regressive attitudes and practices towards transgender individuals, the transgender community and kinship practices.

Keywords:

• Biopolitics
• census
• demography
• India
• Pakistan
• rights
• transgender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. According to historian Rashmi Pant, this colonial census took particular cognisance of how ‘[t]he low ratio of females to males in [the North West Provinces] and Panjab [could be] attributed to the preponderance of certain castes that devalued female life in their culture’: Rashmi Pant, ‘The Cognitive Status of Caste in Colonial Ethnography: A Review of Some Literature on the NorthWest Provinces and Oudh’, in Indian Economic & Social History Review, Vol. 24, no. 2 (1987), pp. 145–62 [148, n. 8].

2. This is a term originally coined by Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen in 1989: see Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).

3. Rajani Bhatia, Gender before Birth: Sex Selection in a Transnational Context (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018). For an India-specific discussion, see Mahendra K. Premi, ‘The Missing Girl Child’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 36, no. 21 (2001), 1875–80.

4. For more information on the 2018 Act, see Jeffrey A. Redding, ‘The Pakistan Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of 2018 and Its Impact on the Law of Gender in Pakistan’, in Australian Journal of Asian Law, Vol. 20, no. 1 (2019), pp. 103–13.

5. For a narration of events precipitating the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s commencement of hearings in 2009 on a legal petition concerning the welfare and rights of transgender people in Pakistan, see Jeffrey A. Redding, ‘From “She-males” to “Unix”: Transgender Rights and the Productive Paradoxes of Pakistani Policing’, in Daniela Berti and Devika Bordia (eds), Regimes of Legality: Ethnography of Criminal Cases in South Asia (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 258–89 [265]. For a description of significant pre-2009 developments, see Claire Pamment, ‘Hijraism: Jostling for a Third Space in Pakistani Politics’, in TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 54, no. 2 (2010), pp. 29–50 [35–7, 41–3].

6. Arjun Appadurai, ‘Number in the Colonial Imagination’, in Carol A. Breckenridge and Peter van der Veer (eds), Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 314–39 [335].

7. Here I am taking a cue from historian Eleanor Newbigin’s challenging of narratives that diagnose a fundamental break with colonial and patriarchal forms of governance at the time of India’s Independence: Eleanor Newbigin, ‘Personal Law and Citizenship in India’s Transition to Independence’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, no. 1 (2011), pp. 7–32 [10].

8. Redding, ‘From “She-males” to “Unix”’.

9. Valentine dates the emergence and consolidation of the term ‘transgendered’ to the early 1990s in the US: see David Valentine, Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007).

10. For a discussion of the uneven reception of traditional terms such as hijra, and the language politics surrounding this term, see Faris A. Khan, ‘Institutionalizing an Ambiguous Category: “Khwaja Sira” Activism, the State, and Sex/Gender Regulation in Pakistan’, in Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 92, no. 4 (2019), pp. 1135–71.

11. Faris A. Khan, ‘Khwaja Sira Activism: The Politics of Gender Ambiguity in Pakistan’, in TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol. 3, nos. 1–2 (2016), pp. 158–64 [164, n. 2].

12. Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018 (Pakistan).

13. Ibid., s.2(n)

14. Dr. Mohammad Aslam Khaki v. Senior Superintendent of Police (Operation) Rawalpindi, H/R Constitutional Petition No. 63/2009 (on file with author), para. 5. This constitutional petition appears to have been mistakenly labelled with the number ‘43’ in a few of the documents I obtained from the Supreme Court.

15. There are differently punctuated and capitalised versions of this controversial term circulating in the materials related to this Supreme Court case. I use this version of the term unless quoting directly from case-related materials.

16. Dr. Mohammad Aslam Khaki v. Senior Superintendent of Police (Operation) Rawalpindi, para. 5.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid., para. ‘Prayer’.

19. Human Rights Constitutional Petition No. 63 of 2009, 16.06.2009 Order (on file with author), pp. 1–2.

20. For a discussion of guru dynamics in a particular urban context in India, see Gayatri Reddy, With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 156–64.

21. See, for example, Aurangzaib Alizai et al., ‘Impact of Gender Binarism on Hijras’ Life Course and Their Access to Fundamental Human Rights in Pakistan’, in Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 64, no. 9 (2017), pp. 1214–40 [1221, 1225]. This recounts the experiences of eight-year-old and ten-year-old children. Also see Khan, ‘Institutionalizing an Ambiguous Category’, p. 1146, which describes how his particular informants joined guru households as chele between the ages of nine and eighteen.

22. See, for example, Alizai et al., ‘Impact of Gender Binarism on Hijras’ Life Course and Their Access to Fundamental Human Rights in Pakistan’, pp. 1224–5. The authors do present some positive aspects of guru households, while also describing abusive family dynamics which cause children to leave natal homes to join guru households as chele, but their overall assessment can fairly be read as negative.

23. Khan, ‘Institutionalizing an Ambiguous Category’, p. 1146.

24. Syed Nadeem Farhat et al., ‘Transgender Law in Pakistan: Some Key Issues’, in Policy Perspectives, Vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 7–33 [32].

25. Human Rights Constitutional Petition No. 63 of 2009, 16.06.2009 Order (on file with author), p. 2.

26. Government of the Punjab, Social Welfare, Women Development and Bait ul Maal Department, ‘Memo to the Registrar, Supreme Court of Pakistan on Human Right Case No. 63/2009’ (2009) (on file with author), p. 1.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., p. 4.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid., p. 6.

31. The Urdu text on the form here refers to the ‘kēfiyat’ (nature) of each ‘khwājah sirā’: Ibid.

32. I have only included the English text of this part of the form here. However, there were Urdu translations accompanying the English text for each of these boxes.

33. I have only included the English text of this part of the form here. However, there were accompanying Urdu translations for each of these questions.

34. Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, ‘Provisional Summary Results of 6th Population and Housing Census—2017’ (2017) [http://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/provisional-summary-results-6th-population-and-housing-census-2017-0, accessed 25 Jan. 2020].

35. Government of the Punjab, Social Welfare, Women Development and Bait ul Maal Department, ‘Memo to the Registrar, Supreme Court of Pakistan on Human Right Case No. 63/2009’, p. 5.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. The confusion in categories and measurements here echoes problems in the administration of British censuses as well. On this point, see Appadurai, ‘Number in the Colonial Imagination’, pp. 316, 322.

39. Government of the Punjab, Social Welfare, Women Development and Bait ul Maal Department, ‘Memo to the Registrar, Supreme Court of Pakistan on Human Right Case No. 63/2009’, p. 5.

40. Ibid. This report distinguishes these 97 individuals from another 38 who ‘reached to Guru’ via ‘Child Hood/Birth’.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. This count was especially incomplete because ‘the present Law and Order situation and the continued security operations within and the adjacent areas of NWFP’ meant that not all NWFP districts could be canvassed: Government of NWFP, Social Welfare & Women Development Department, ‘Memo to the Registrar, Supreme Court of Pakistan & the Advocate General, N.W.F.P. on Petition under article 184(3) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic 1973’ (2009) (on file with author), p. 1.

45. Ibid., pp. 11–4.

46. Ibid., pp. 2–3.

47. Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, ‘Provisional Summary Results of 6th Population and Housing Census-2017’.

48. See note 44.

49. See text accompanying notes 29 and 30.

50. See text accompanying note 19. I do not want to overstate the difference in these two provinces’ efforts because the Government of the Punjab’s report did also contain an attached spreadsheet of transgender individuals’ names, addresses and other particularised information—all included as ‘Annexure B’ to the report: Government of the Punjab, Social Welfare, Women Development and Bait ul Maal Department, ‘Memo to the Registrar, Supreme Court of Pakistan on Human Right Case No. 63/2009’.

51. Government of NWFP, Social Welfare & Women Development Department, ‘Memo to the Registrar, Supreme Court of Pakistan & the Advocate General, N.W.F.P. on Petition under article 184(3) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic 1973’, p. 3.

52. Ibid., pp. 3–6. Some of the various types of hijras described here include ‘spiritual hijras’, ‘dervish hijras’ and ‘pseudo hijras’.

53. Ibid., p. 4.

54. See text accompanying note 45.

55. Ibid., pp. 11, 13.

56. Ibid., p. 10.

57. Ibid., p. 9.

58. Human Rights Case No. 63 of 2009, 17-08-2009 Order (on file with author), p. 6.

59. Constitution Petition No. 43 of 2009, 20.11.2009 Order (on file with author), p. 2.

60. Ibid., p. 3. The actual term used in this order to refer to transgender people is ‘unix’.

61. Ibid., p. 2.

62. Ibid., p. 5.

63. ‘Govt Comments Sought over Transgender Persons’ Petition’, Dawn (28 Sept. 2016) [https://www.dawn.com/news/1286584, accessed 25 Jan. 2020].

64. ‘Transgenders Want to Be Counted in Census’, Dawn (20 Oct. 2016) [https://www.dawn.com/news/1291086, accessed 25 Jan. 2020].

65. Waqar Ali v. Federation of Pakistan, etc., Writ Petition 37499/2016 (on file with author).

66. Waqar Ali v. Federation of Pakistan, etc., Writ Petition 37499/2016, Petition (on file with author).

67. Waqar Ali v. Federation of Pakistan, etc., Writ Petition 37499/2016, 09.01.2017 Order (on file with author).

68. Ibid.

69. Waqar Ali v. Federation of Pakistan, etc., Writ Petition 37499/2016, Report on Behalf of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics i.e. Respondent No. 4, Annexure-C 1 (on file with author).

70. Shiraz Hasan, ‘“بالآخر ہمیں قبول کر ہی لیا جائے گا”: خواجہ سراؤں کا اندراج’, BBC Urdu (11 Jan. 2017) [https://www.bbc.com/urdu/pakistan-38585475, accessed 17 Oct. 2020].

71. Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, ‘Provisional Summary Results of 6th Population and Housing Census–2017’.

72. Sehrish Wasif, ‘Transgender Community Rejects Census Figures’, The Express Tribune (27 Aug. 2017) [https://tribune.com.pk/story/1492120/transgender-community-rejects-census-figures/, accessed 25 Jan. 2020].

73. ‘خیبر پی کے، خواجہ سراﺅں نے مردم شماری کے عبوری نتائج کو مسترد کردیا’, Daily Pakistan (27 Aug. 2017) [https://dailypakistan.com.pk/27-Aug-2017/633422, accessed 15 Oct. 2020].

74. Mithi Mukherjee, India in the Shadows of Empire: A Legal and Political History (1774–1950) (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010).

75. James Jaffe, Ironies of Colonial Governance: Law, Custom, and Justice in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

76. Newbigin, ‘Personal Law and Citizenship in India’s Transition to Independence’, p. 32.

77. Legal scholar Osama Siddique has also opined that ‘Pakistan’s formal legal/judicial systems are largely facsimiles of their colonial antecedents’: Osama Siddique, Pakistan’s Experience with Formal Law: An Alien Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 31.

78. Reddy, With Respect to Sex, pp. 27–8. Reddy’s observations about the British preoccupation with classification in colonial South Asia echoes earlier scholarly work discussing British authorities’ development and use of the census in colonial India. Prominent examples of this work include Appadurai, ‘Number in the Colonial Imagination’; Bernard S. Cohn, ‘The Census, Social Structure and Objectification in South Asia’, in Bernard S. Cohn (ed.), An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 224–54; and Sudipta Kaviraj, ‘Religion and Identity in India’, in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 20, no. 2 (1997), pp. 325–44.

79. Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, s.24

80. Ibid., s.24 and s.27, emphasis added.

81. Jessica Hinchy, Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c.1850–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), p. 2.

82. Ibid., p. 141.

83. See text accompanying note 28.

84. See text accompanying notes 46 and 51.

85. See text accompanying notes 69 and 71.

86. This observation takes inspiration from Richard Saumarez Smith, ‘Rule-By-Records and Rule-By-Reports: Complementary Aspects of the British Imperial Rule of Law’, in Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 19, no. 1 (1985), pp. 153–76 [155–6, 173].

87. Appadurai, ‘Number in the Colonial Imagination’, pp. 333–5.

88. Ibid., pp. 322–3.

89. See text accompanying note 52.

90. See text accompanying note 88.

91. Laurence W. Preston, ‘A Right to Exist: Eunuchs and the State in Nineteenth-Century India’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 21, no. 2 (1987), pp. 371–87; and Hinchy, Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India.

92. Imtiaz Ali, ‘In a First, Transgenders to Be Offered 5pc Jobs in Sindh Police: IG’, Dawn (2 April 2019) [https://www.dawn.com/news/1473252, accessed 25 Jan. 2020].

93. ‘Court Summons Edu Dept Officials over Transgender Job Quota’, The News (17 Mar. 2018) [https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/293462-court-summons-edu-dept-officials-over-transgender-job-quota, accessed 25 Jan. 2020].

94. Gayatri Reddy has argued that the ‘British obsession with classification and regulation was an elaborate discourse on the nature of hijras and the recruitment patterns of this caste/community, a narrative that obliquely acknowledged the inability of hijras to reproduce themselves in the manner of other castes and tribes’: Reddy, With Respect to Sex, pp. 27–8, emphasis added.

95. See Farhat et al., ‘Transgender Law in Pakistan’, p. 15, for a related but different use of the gender sovereign notion.

96. Grace Banu Ganesan v. State of Tamil Nadu, Writ Petition No. 6052/2019 (Madras High Court); and Deekshitha Ganesan, ‘Grace Banu Ganesan v. State of Tamil Nadu’, Center for Law & Policy Research (25 Mar. 2019) [https://clpr.org.in/litigation/grace-banu-ganesan-v-state-of-tamil-nadu-ors/, accessed 25 Jan. 2020].

97. ‘Spell Plan to Identify Transgenders: Court’, DT Next (1 Oct. 2019) [https://www.dtnext.in/News/City/2019/10/01040205/1189813/Spell-plan-to-identify-transgenders-Court.vpf, accessed 25 Jan. 2020].

98. Ibid.

99. See note 4.

100. Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, s.4–s.6 (India).

101. Ibid., s.7.

102. Ibid.

103. Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, s.24.

104. There are also ongoing debates in US academic and public policy literature about how to count transgender people. These debates include discussions of how people can be miscategorised and miscounted in the course of doing statistical research on (trans)gender populations: see Paisley Currah and Susan Stryker (eds), Making Transgender Count, special issue, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Vol. 2, no. 1 (2015).

105. Jyoti Puri, Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle over the Antisodomy Law in India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016), pp. 44, 13.

106. Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015), p. 138.