Chapter 2

Third Gender of India: Exceeding Bodily Boundary

Homosexuality in India has been there right from the beginning yet it is ironical

that it has always been seen as something ‘abnormal’. As Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai

in their book Same Sex Love in India: A Literary History talks about how in ancient

Sanskrit text, the story of Sikhandin is considered to be the best known case of sex change

in India. The literal meaning of Sikhandin means ‘the crested one’. Thestory is about

princess Amba who along with her two sisters was abducted by Bhishma on the day of

their Swayamvaram (a ceremony where a woman chooses her husband) as Bhishma

wanted them as wives for his brother. When Amba told him that she was already in love

with another man he let her go. However, when Amba went to the man she had chosen

to be her husband he refused to marry her because he considered her defiled by the

abduction. Amba then returned to Bhishma but his brother could not marry her now since

she had declared herself affianced to another. Bhishma himself had taken a vow to remain

celibate and so could not marry her. Amba retreated to the forest and started mediating

and worshiping Shiva. She then asked Shiva for the boon of manhood so she could kill

Bhishma. She was promised by Shiva that she would obtain manhood in her next birth

and would remember the incidents of the past life. Amba entered the fire and after which

she was reborn as a girl, Sikhandini, who later changed into a man. (36-37)

Vanita and Kidwai also talks about how homosexuality has also been mentioned

in ancient texts like Kamasutra which is attributed to Vatsyayana, a Brahmin scholar.

The Kamasutra talks about sexual behaviours between men- women, man-man and

woman-woman. It addresses the homosexuals as the ‘third nature’ (55). Homosexual

narratives can be seen in ancient texts written in Pali, Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi and other
languages. It is depicted in the ancient literature of Sanskrit like the Panchatantra written

by an eighty year old Brahman scholar Vishnu Sharma at the request of a king whose five

sons were averse to learning. According to Ruth Vanita, though the protagonists in the

stories are animals, they are also stand-ins for humans. She says that,“the oddness of life-

defining friendship between creatures of different species could stand in for the oddness

of life-defining friendship between persons of the same sex. Both appear unconventional,

even ‘unnatural’, in that they appear to defy biological, social customs, and inherited

traits” (48). Vanita talks about the ‘unnatural’ friendship between the ‘flesh-eaters’ and

the ‘grass-eaters’ by narrating various stories from the text. One such story is seen in

book two of Panchatantra which is about the odd friendship between the mole, crow,

deer and tortoise. They share a relatively close relationship though some are vegetarian

and others are not. Their love is tested when one of them is caught by a hunter and the

others risk their lives to save him. The ‘unnatural’ friendship is depicted to be odd as the

tortoise addresses his friend as vara which is normally used to mean ‘lover’, ‘husband’

or ‘bridegroom’, and literally means ‘chosen one’ (51). In their book they have also

mentioned how in Urdu, homosexuality is depicted in the work of Sufi poet like Siraj

Aurangabadi. Through his poems, Siraj Aurangabadi, a seventeenth century poet openly

expresses about his homosexuality. In his poem “The Garden” he narrates, “He started

coming frequently and I was in love. He started spending all his time with me for he too

couldn’t do without me. If he went home I couldn’t sleep and he too would return

immediately. We were one, by passion engulfed. People talked and the envious were

incensed” (193). Also, Vanita and Kidwai mentions how one of the ancient text written in

Pali talks about Mnikantha, a serphant king who left his palace and taking the shape of

a man wondered along the banks of

Ganga. There he came across the hermitage of a young man. They talked pleasantly to

one another and grew fond of each other, so fond that that they could not live apart (44)

Love between women is also depicted in Rekhti poetry in Urdu. Rekhti poets were

often men who took female pen names. This kind of poetry is remarkable for its use of

terms to indicate sexual activity between women (Kidwai 32-33). Existence of

homosexuality in India can also be traced back to the reign of Alauddin Khalji (1296-

1316) who had fallen for Malik Naib (Malik Kafur), a eunuch slave Khalji had captured

during an early invasion of Gujarat. He entrusted him with the authority over the

government and the servants under the influence of his love for Malik Naib ( Kidwai

150). Also in Hindu mythology Vishnu is said to have taken the form of a beautiful

woman, Mohini in order to delude the demons. Shiva becomes attracted towards

Vishnu’s Mohini form and Mohini becomes pregnant from the intercourse with Shiva

and produces a child. Ashamed, Vishnu drops the baby to earth where it was adopted by

the Pandayan king Rajasekhara of Pantalamin the mediaval legend the child is refered

to as ayoni jata (born not out of vagina) (Vanita 109). Vanita and Kidwai in the preface

to their book says that, “Labels like ‘abnormal’, ‘unnatural’, and ‘unhealthy’ are of

relatively very recent origin in India. Even the inventors of these labels, Euro-American

psychologists, have already retracted them and come to the conclusion that same-sex love

is perfectly natural, normal and healthy”. (36)

Thus, all these examples provide enough evidence that homosexuality has been there

since ancient times. According to R. Raj Rao the author of Criminal Love? Queer Theory,

Culture, and Politics in India, “it is a fallacy to say that there are only two genders, male

and female”. He then talks about how there are at least six genders that can be deduced.

Apart from ‘male’ and ‘female’ there are men who feel that they are really women and

women who feel that they are men. Such people’s biological gender
is often in conflict with their psychological identity. These people are known as

‘transgender’, the third gender which comes after ‘male’ and ‘female’. Under thisgender

category, a man who has a sex-change operation and becomes a woman is known as a

trans-woman. Likewise, a woman who has a sex-change operation and becomes a man is

known as a trans-man. The sixth gender category that Rao talks about are the intersexed

people who are also known as ‘hermaphrodite.’(31) The attitude towards homosexuality

varies from religion to religion, with some religions like Hinduism being less judgmental

about it unlike Islam and Christianity (Rao 14). Although the Indian government has

recognized the hijras as the third gender there is a great irony in how they refuse to

recognize homosexuality i.e, gay/lesbian relationships. The hijras, though legally

recognized still find difficulty in being socially accepted. Serena Nanda in her book

Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India quotes Opler as, “The most widely used

English translations of the word hijra, which is of Urdu origin, is either “eunuch” or

“hermaphrodite” (intersexed). Both terms are used in India, connote impotence- an

inability to function in the male sexual role- and the word hijra primarily implies a

physical defect impairing the male sexual function” (Rao 13). Serena Nanda writes that

the hijras are known for performing at homes where a male child has been born. Indian

society being patriarchal considers the birth of a male child as auspicious occasion for

great celebration. On this auspicious occasion the hijras bless the child and the family and

provide entertainment for the guests (1). She also writes that:

Although hijras have an auspicious presence they also have an inauspicious

presence... the stout, middle-class matrons who are so amused by the hijras

performances, and who may even pity them as tragic, hermaphroditic figures,

also have an underlying anxiety about them. As mentioned earlier,

 this is translated into a taboo of orthodox Hindus that the hijras should not

touch, or even see, a new bride, so that their impotence will not contaminate

her reproductive potential. (6)

Here, the irony of the hijra identity in the Indian society is seen. While they are considered

to have the ability to bless they are also considered as cursed and are thus excluded from

the society most of the time. It is because of this un-acceptance in her society that Anjum

decides to leave her home. It is true that she left home on her own will and no one literally

asked her to leave, but the circumstances that made her leave are also a matter of concern.

She knew that she was different from the rest of the people in Duniya. She was not one of

them and so she knew that they will never accept her the way she was. Thus, she leaves

Duniya and goes on to live in Khwabgah. The khwabgah represents the third gender

community and also a place which gives freedom to individuals with complex sexualities.

The hijras have their own social organization and every hijra has a guru. Each hijra house

within a region has a leader called naik or chief (Nanda 40). In the novel Ustad Kulsoom

Be can be seen as the naik as she is the head and the decision maker of the house.

Khwabgah was a safe house for the hijras but outside, they were mocked and often had

to undergo numerous insults as they passed by. When Anjum moved out of Khwabgah

and started living in the graveyard, life was not easy for her:

When she first moved in, she endured months of casual cruelty like a tree

would – without flinching. She didn’t turn to see which small boy had thrown

a stone at her, didn’t crane her neck to read the insults scratched into her bark.

When people called her names – clown without a circus, queen without a

palace – she let the hurt blow through her branches like a breeze and used the

music of her rustling leaves as balm to ease the pain. (1)

 Their lives were made difficult because of one sole reason i.e., they were neither complete

men nor complete women, they were the in-between people. Anjum’s life depicts the

harsh reality that the hijras live with everyday. The complexity of the hijra identity in the

Indian society is thus vivid and such beliefs are so strong that they refuse to die down

even after the hijras have been legally recognized. Homosexuality is neither a new thing

nor a product of western ideology. However, the fact that hijras like Anjum are

considered as an outcaste by her own family depicts homophobia. According to R. Raj

Rao, “Homophobia may loosely be defined as a prejudicial fear and hatred of

homosexuality, homosexual people, and homosexual acts” (76). One of the main reasons

behind homophobia in India can be traced back to the period of colonization. The Indian

Law Commission on October 6, 1860 presided by Lord T. B. Macaulay introduced

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. As quoted by Rao, “Whoever voluntarily has carnal

intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished

with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which

may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine”.

(127) In regard to this Rudranne Goswami in his paper entitled “Historical Evolution of

Article 377 and its Location Within the Lgbt Movement in India” says:

The language of ‘against the order of nature’ in section 377 provides little

indication that it is directed toward particular sexual subjects. The

commentary attached to section 377 indicates that the law is meant topunish

sodomy, buggery, and bestiality; In other words targeting sexual practices

rather than sexual subjects who come to embody socially constituted

perversities in the form of homosexuals.

Goswami also says that, “along with the introduction of anti sodomy law, the Britishers

also suppressed Rekhti (Urdu poetry representing sexual intimacy among women) and the
heterosexualization of the Ghazals (which apparently imbibed passion amongst men”. He

adds that religion has a role to play in shaping the Indian customs and traditions. He

mentions that Rigveda, one of the ancient and sacred text of Hinduism says Vikriti Evam

Prakriti, which means that ‘what seems unnatural is also natural’. Some scholars believe

that this recognizes the cyclical constancy of homosexual or transsexual dimension of

human life, like all forms of human diversity. Though the Indian government has recently

“decriminalized” section 377, the plight of whether these people will fully be accepted by

the society still remains uncertain.

The reason why Anjum’s parents visited the doctor and sealed her female part and tried

to make her a complete ‘man’ is because of the fear of homophobic attitude of the society.

They knew that the world will never accept their child the way he was and also as parents

they would be mocked and ridiculed by the society. By trying to fit Anjum within the

common boundary of gender identity they were trying to save themselves from the misery

of being a mockery in the eyes of the people. It shows how even Anjum’s parents

identified sexuality to be connected with the body itself. They believed that possessing

the body and sexual organ of a man would ‘cure’ her of the queerness. This also depicts

how the parents of the sexually minority people often tends to believe that the “thing”

that they had created is an aberration and thus needed to be put back to normal. Aftab’s

father “was sure that there was a simple medical solution to their son’s problem” (16). In

relation to this Rao says that, “Medicine, with its overemphasis on biology, has always

pathologized homosexuality, taking it to be a disorder. Like religion, medicine

disapproves of homosexuality because it thinks it to be against nature’s purpose, which is

to ensure that the species reproduce” (15). However, they realized that to ‘cure’ their

child was beyond their ability because later Anjum went on to live in Khwabgah leaving

her family behind and became a hijra. Thus, all their

efforts were in vain. To relate ones sexual identity to the body sets a boundary to the

‘inner’ reality of sexuality. Anjum was born with both male and female sexual parts and

the fact that she was physically a man did not stop her from finding her own identity, in

spite of external forces trying to pull her down.

According to Judith Butler both gender and sex are performative. It achieves its effects

through its naturalization in the context of a body understood, in part, as a culturally

sustained temporal duration. She has to say that the gender that is being introduced to us

lacks “reality” and thus corresponds illusionary appearance. She says, “we think we know

what reality is, and take the secondary appearance of gender to be mere artifice, play,

falsehood and illusion” (22). Butler stresses in doing away with the illusion of false reality

regarding gender. She advocates the idea of seeking “gender reality”. Butlertalks about

the gender roles that the society bestows upon individuals. It classifies human beings into

male and female. The role of men and women are ‘naturalized’ in such a way that the

individuals begin to think that the performativity in them is natural. It is because of this

reason that men themselves think that they are supposed to be masculine and manly, while

women think that she is meant to be submissive and possess feminine qualities. However,

a man can also possess feminine qualities while a woman can be masculine as well.

Being ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ are indeed a form of performativity, a kind of

performance that one performs according to the rolesassigned to them by the society. In

the novel, Anjum was able to be herself only when she moved away from the world which

restricted her to be what she was not, “Once she became a permanent resident of

Khwabgah, Anjum was finally able to dress in clothes she longed to wear” (26). The

gender roles assigned to both men and women appears to be voluntary because it has been

constructed that way from the beginning itself and also because of the fear of going

beyond the ‘boundary’. Heterosexual relationship has

always been considered as being “normal” and anything beyond that is considered to be

queer. By “performativity” Butler intends to talk about the gender roles assigned by the

society based on an individual’s sexual orientation. In the novel, Aftab (Anjum) was

expected to be that son who would carry on the name of the family as he was the first

‘male’ child. The “performativity” that was expected of Aftab was shattered as he began

to battle with his male body. He comes out of this “performativity” and let out the woman

inside him and thus exceeded all conventional expectations of the body. It was Jahanara

Begum, Aftab’s mother who first discovered his identity. Unfortunately, even Jahanara

Begum identified gender in the form of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ as she thinks that

everything in Urdu including the non-living things were either ‘masculine’ or

‘feminine’. It was because of this that the in-between identity of her child seem to be

troublesome to her. The fact that she perceives how everything was either ‘masculine’

or ‘feminine’ depicts how there was no third place and that the identity beyond this would

mean that it was ‘unnatural’. The uncertainty of Jahanara Begum and the way she hides

the identity of her child not only from the world but also from her husband shows that

she was certain that the society will never accept her child for who he was. This is

because in the society she lived in homosexuals were considered as outcaste. She failed

to understand the gender reality and identified her child only in terms of the male and

female identity as set by her society. She failed to understand that the baby was not a

“creation” of hers but a product of nature itself like all other creatures, nor was it an

“experiment” of God as Nimmo in the novels puts it. It also shows that the hijras

sometimes think of themselves as an aberration, a creation that was never supposed to

exist because the world have been telling them so and they start believing it. They have

always been excluded and marginalized from the mainstream world and
their identity have always been questioned that they sometimes begin to view themselves

from the eyes of those people who consider them as “queer”.

A person’s sexual identity is determined as soon as the child is born based on his sexual

organ. In regard to this Butler says, “the moment in which an infant becomes humanized

is when the question, “is it a boy or girl?” is answered. These bodily figures who do not

fit into either gender fall outside the human, indeed, constitute the domain of the

dehumanized” (142). Along with the sexual identities, the child is also given the roles to

perform according to his/her sexuality. In the case of Aftab, though he was born with both

male and female parts, he was identified as a male. This shows the male preference in a

patriarchal society. However, even though Aftab was identified as a male, the woman

trapped inside his male body was slowly overcoming him. The fact that Aftab was made

to dress like a man and behave like one did not determine his sexuality. This supports

what Butler says, that both gender and sex are social constructions. As a child, Aftab was

told that he was a male and his father after learning the truth about his sexuality tried to

impart “manliness” in him. In his attempt, “He stayed up late into the night, telling Aftab

stories about their warrior ancestors and their valour on the battlefield” (17). He was

unmoved by these stories and his father’s attempt failed. Instead from among the stories

Aftab was fascinated by the story of how Temujin-Chengez Khan won the hand of his

beautiful wife, Borte Khatum. He was moved by how Temujin fought for her when she

was kidnapped by a rival tribe. He fought the army virtually single-handedly to get her

back because he loved her so much. On hearing this love story Aftab wanted to be Borte

Khatun. He fantasised being sought after by a man who was madly in love with him. Aftab

also wanted to become like Bombay Silk, one of the hijras from Khwabgah as he saw her

walking down the street. The narrator narrates that, “whatever she was, Aftab wanted to

be her. He wanted to be
her even more than he wanted to be Borte Khatun. Like her he wanted to shimmer past

the meat shops where skinned carcasses of whole goats hung down like great walls of

meat” (19). These instances clearly depicts that the woman inside Aftab was slowly

evolving even as a child and that it was not something which could be ‘cured’. He hated

it so much that his body was developing into a ‘masculine’ one:

He grew tall and muscular. And hairy. In a panic he tried to remove the hair

on his face and body with Burnol- burn ointment that made dark patches on

his skin..... He developed an Adam’s apple that bobbled up and down. He

longed to tear it out of his throat. Next came the unkindest betrayal of all –

the thing that he could do nothing about. His voice broke. A deep, powerful

man’s voice appeared in place of his sweet, high voice. He was repelled by

it and scared himself each time he spoke. (24)

This is indeed a description of the metamorphosis that was taking place in Aftab’s body.

In regard to this metamorphosis of the ‘body’ Butler in Gender Trouble: Feminism and

Subversion of Identity talks about how the body is often misunderstood or believed to

be the signifier of one’s sexuality. The body has always been generalized into male and

female. She talks about the ‘boundary’ that has been set in terms of the body. She says,

“The boundary of the body as well as the distinction between internal and external is

established through the ejection and transvaluation of something originally part ofidentity

into a defiling otherness” (170). The fact that Aftab in spite of having a male body refused

to ‘perform’ the roles of a man and dressed like a woman and behaved like one is also a

form of performativity. Through this he was fulfilling the performative roleof being a

woman because his own identity seemed to be unknown as he was neither a man nor a

woman. He only knew that though he was physically a man he felt like a woman from

inside. Though he was considered as a male by the world, because he was

physically attracted towards men he adapts the characteristics of a woman as it is the

common understanding that men are ‘supposed’ to be attracted towards women. She not

only loved to dress like women but also, “learned to exaggerate the swing in her hips

when she walked” (27). Performativity can also be seen in terms of one’s dressing, in the

way one is supposed to dress as a man and as a woman. However, what if a manwho

dresses like a man is not actually one inside, and what if a woman who dresses like a

woman is not a woman inside? It is not possible to identify if an individual who is dressed

like a man is really one or if an individual dressed like a woman is truly one, for example

a drag queen dresses like a woman but is not actually one. The performativity could be

deceiving sometimes as they conceal the gender reality. Gender identity iseven more

complex in this sense.

The ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ or the ‘internal’ and the ‘external’ can be seen as a metaphor for

what Butler calls ‘gender reality’. The external/outer can be referred to the bodily tag that

is being given to an individual at the time of birth, the boundary that one is forbidden to

cross. While the internal/inner may be referred to the true sexuality of an individual which

can even exceed the ‘boundary’. According to Butler, “the boundary between the inner

and outer is confounded by those excremental passages in which the inner effectively

becomes outer, and this excreting function becomes, as it were, the model by which other

forms of identity-differentiation are accomplished” (170). In the case of Aftab, the ‘inner’

exceeded the ‘boundary’ as his sexuality contradicted his male body. Male and female

were considered to be the purest form of gender by the people of Duniya. Men are

supposed to love women and women, men. This is the boundary that Duniya had set and

because Anjum exceeded this boundary she was considered an outcaste. ‘Masculinity’,

‘femininity’ and dressing as a man and as a woman are all sets ‘boundaries’ through

which individuals reveal their identity of being a man or woman.

Anjum’s identity as a hijra made her battle against her own body. She found herself in

the wrong body and while the world around her was waging war against one another

her only wish was to “pluck the very stars from the sky and grind them into a potion that

would give her proper breasts and hips and a long, thick plait of hair that would swing

from side to side as she walked” (122). Thus, here we see how the body itself is a

‘boundary’. Also when it comes to child bearing, it is the female body that is supposed

to bear a child. A man getting pregnant is unusual and it does not fail to strike us when

such things are heard of. Paisley Currah in her paper entitled, “Expecting Bodies: The

Pregnant Man and Transgender Exclusion from the Employment” talks about how in

April 2018, the news of a pregnant man ‘spawned a media tsunami’ in US. These bodies,

she mentions ‘exceed conventional expectation’. Even in the novel, Anjum with her male

body wishes to have a child of her own and believes in having one one day. “I was born

to be a mother” says Anjum, “one day Allah Mian will give me my own child”(83). When

the people in Duniya were worried and unhappy about the “price-rise, children’s school-

admissions, husbands’ beatings, wives’ cheatings, Hindu-Muslim riots, Indo-Pak war”

(23), the hijras were fighting an endless battle inside them. The things that other people

took for granted were a dream for hijras like Anjum. Shedreamt of motherhood, of

having waking up in her own home but she questions if such ambitions of hers were

reasonable or unreasonable (30). The worldly problems could be settled but theirs was a

never ending war. As Nimmo in the novel says, “The riot is inside us. Indo-Pak is inside

us. It will never settle down. It can’t” (23). This throws light to the complex life of the

third gender in India and the unaccepted reality of their identity that they live with

everyday.

A close study of Aftab’s character and the complexities that had undergone because of

his sexual identity resonates what Butler says in her theory of “performativity”. Just
because a child is born with ‘male sexual organ’ or ‘female sexual organ’ it cannot be

certain that he/she is really a “male” or “female”. Gender and sex has always been

determined by masculinity and femininity and the in-between identity has always been

overlooked. However, Butler calls these gender identities as a ‘boundary’, and going

beyond this ‘boundary’ is what she might be referring to as ‘gender reality’. The fact that

we are unable to see ‘gender reality’ is because we refuse to see the truth. Our ideas are

illusionary and self conceived and because of these we are unable to accept the reality.

Blinded by the illusion, we refuse to see what has been there since the beginning of time.

It is either black or white, and the in-between people are considered to be an aberration

and something which should not have existed.

Just because an individual is made to dress like a man it does not make that person a man,

or just because someone dresses like a woman that person cannot be identified as a

woman as the gender reality could be something else. Like Butler says, we tend to

overlook “gender reality”. This also makes us question if a person’s sexuality can really

be determined based on his/her “sex” and “gender”. The conflict of the “inner” and the

“outer” is seen in Anjum. Though the “outer” appeared to be male, she considered herself

a female from ‘inner’ and though she appeared masculine outwardly, she was feminine

from within. Thus, these makes us go back to Butler again and question “gender reality”.

It is thus evident that both gender and sex is a social construction, and that there is much

more beyond the male and female identity. However, it is often homophobia which

precedes over the minds of the people and because of which homosexuals have been

looked upon as “queer