Understanding (the Hijra) Genocide

By Firdous Chowdri-Gaewalla

PICTURED: A group of dancing Hijras, circa 1860. [Retrieved from Dr. Hinchy’s book, Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India]

Ongoing events in the Levant have gripped the Global South. The injustices (to put it mildly) carried out against the Palestinians have left us shocked, horrified, broken. The discourses used by the West to wrap up this genocide as a right, discourses that echo colonial era narratives that justified our collective brutalization, have left us seething – livid at the West’s audacity and the fact that nothing much has changed since then and now. Or perhaps I’m projecting my feelings.

In any case, formerly(?) colonized people’s of the world have, for the most part, expressed unequivocal support for the people of Palestine. Unfortunately, white enablers scoff at the idea of their white brethren committing something as “savage” as a genocide – even though they are the historic standard bearers.

So in this context, one where we are once again witnessing a colonial state embark on a genocidal crusade against a native population, it is natural for all of us to feel triggered – the latent trauma of our ancestors’ brutalization under the yoke of colonial rule is re-litigated. The unhealed wound is open again.

How does one process this in the Global South? I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that question. The best I can do is examine the pain latent in me, transferred unto me from my community and the (post?)colonial society around me. Therein I find residues of the British attempt to genocide my people still. Therein I find triggers for what’s had me and so many others around me… angry at what’s happening to the Palestinians.

The Exception to the Rule…

The British attempt to eradicate Hijras is remarkable in light of the fact that India was(?) a non-settler colony. Conventional wisdom dictates that genocide is an inescapable feature of settler colonies, like the US, Australia, Canada, the entity known as “Israel,” and so forth. Colonizers needed to eliminate local “life forms” to make way for their cities, technologies, and states.

Conversely, non-settler colonies were primarily extractive, looting the wealth of local peoples and concentrating it back in the metropole. To achieve this, white people were ruthlessly barbaric, governing their subjugated colonies with an iron fist – the trauma of which people of color have inherited generationally. However, genocide was unnecessary, counter-productive even, for non-settler colonies since you needed an active labor class to plow the fields and mine the mines – “low-skill” tasks that were unbecoming of the white officials.

So then why did they try to cleanse India of Hijras? Dr. Jessica Hinchy, in her seminal piece Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c. 1850-1900, identifies three primary reasons. We explore these reasons below in order of significance – from lowest to highest.

Reason 1: Hijras Looked Different

From their first days in India, European visitors had repeatedly described Hijras as a social menace. We were sometimes seen as an affront to their religious sensibilities, but more often as non-human filth. This is no exaggeration; Hinchy explains how the Hijra community was understood, “scientifically,” as a social disease with the potential to spread. Moreover, not only were the Hijras a plight in of themselves, but they were repeatedly cited as evidence of India’s moral and racial inferiority – displacing the prejudice held against Hijras onto the broader South Asian populace and society as well.

It is important to note that whereas this was a significant motivator behind British genocidal ambitions, it was far from the most significant. Thinking that Hijras’ queerness alone compelled the British to eradicate them would suggest something inherent to the white condition – something that racially predisposes them to violence. That would, in its own perverse way, be a racist reduction of their brutality; that they simply could not see otherness and not eliminate it. It would play into the logic of racial difference, hierarchy, and competition. No, there were other more significant reasons for why the British had to eliminate Hijras; without which the prejudice against queerness would not be cognitively conceivable.

Reason 2: Hijras Were Non-Sedentary

To varying degrees, indigenous queer cultures across South Asia are nomadic – relying upon frequent travel between towns due to their unique economic practices. In the years following the 1857 War of Independence, the British were uniquely paranoid about maintaining their control of India (lest they lose their valuable cash cow). In this context, they came to believe that Hijras’ nomadism was a vessel for carrying not just seditious ideas and beliefs, but also a medium for transmitting resources and practices that would threaten British rule.

On one hand, this contributed to the notions of Hijras being a social disease capable of spreading. On the other, they held this belief because of presumptions about Hijras’ familial and intra-communal systems; tying Reason 1 to 2, and 2 to 3 (explained below).

Reason 3: Hijra Culture Is/Was Anti-Modernity

Hinchy writes how the British (and nouveau Indian elites) did not see Hijras having any place in a modern/civilized India. They described Hijras’ traditional occupations as inherently unproductive, nor did they believe Hijras had any ability to be “productive members of society” – incapable of any modernization/reformation. As mentioned earlier, non-settler colonies generally did not eradicate native populations since those populations were needed “to be productive.” But just like how white settlers in the US saw native populations as untamable beasts, culling whom was Manifest Destiny (and replacing them by “importing” “submissive” African chattel slaves to “be productive”), the British held similar beliefs about Hijras.

Moreover, the Hijras presented an existential threat to the legitimacy of colonial rule and capitalist order. For one, they were a, what I like to call, an inverted matriarchal society. Which is to say Hijras’ inheritance law was not predicated upon biological birthright patriarchy. Instead of the new gold standard of the day, wherein property passed on via biological children, and specifically from fathers to sons, Hijras passing their wealth to non-biological chelas was dangerous. In their quest to bring order and legibility to India, such peculiar forms of inheritance demonstrated that British “superior” truths were not necessarily absolute. Indeed, the Hijra Culture, with its parallel intra-communal legal system and familial structure acts as a nation within a nation. Naturally, this sort of societal organization was a threat to British authority and legitimacy (as well as Pakistani, Indian, and Bangladeshi authority and legitimacy). Coupled with the fact that “these people,” with their fundamentally dangerous lifestyle and societal organization were always traveling and spreading those beliefs, the British were convinced that Hijras had to be eradicated.

…Proves the Point

A common misconception is that one or a handful of British laws or policies or something of that sort displaced all Hijras to their modern marginal disposition. Actual facts illustrate a far more complex picture, revealing a pervasive obsession among colonial officers about Hijras and the need to be rid of them. Understanding this, and why we faced and how we survived genocide will require a more in-depth look.

Hence, this will be a multi-part series amid the endless new stories of violence and destruction emerging from the Levant; exploring each of these reasons in greater detail as well as how the impact of that genocide attempt continues to affect us today – all of us, not just the community.