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Hijraism: Jostling for a Third Space in Pakistani Politics
Abstract
The tropes of mainstream and peripheral transgendered performers are explored for their playful negotiations in the body politic of Pakistan.
... In Pakistan, social relations and hierarchies are framed by a heteronormative male/female gender binary, and the supremacy of heterosexuality as the only normal and legally acceptable sexual orientation (Pamment 2010). These preconceived notions mean that the bodies 2 embroiled in love, sex and relationships are conceived and recognised only within the ambit of 'state-recognised, family-approved and religiously-sanctioned' 3 heterosexual marriage (Khan 2014). ...
... In the Mughal era, KS served as army generals, harem guards and advisers to emperors (ibid.). However, with the onset of British rule and the fragmentation of the Mughal courts, KS were stripped of their powerful positions and no longer participated in government (Pamment 2010). Moreover, this time period also witnessed the implementation of discriminatory colonial law that criminalised and sanctioned the KS. 6 This law remained intact in postcolonial Pakistan, solidifying the social stigmatisation informed by heteronormative shackles around KS gender and sexual identity (ibid.). ...
... The literature emerging from Pakistan on KS falls broadly into two categories: firstly, anthropological investigations of their gender identity and lives; and secondly, research aimed at understanding their social exclusion and its impact. The literature exploring their gender identity explores the varied nomenclatures within the KS community and brings their experiences to the fore in the context of their customs and rituals (Haider 2008;Pamment 2010;Sultana and Kalyani 2012). These studies expand on how KS enact family life, focusing on rituals surrounding marriage and parenthood. ...
... As a result of social exclusion (Hussain, 2019), khwajasaras face many endemic problems. Economic pressures have forced khwajasaras into resorting to sex work and beggary (Pamment, 2010). Indulgence in sex work has made khwajasaras vulnerable to HIV AIDS (S. ...
... Under this act, khwajasaras were pigeonholed and listed "along with other criminal castes" (Reddy, 2005, p. 26) and were "considered criminal at birth" (Semmalar, 2014, p. 289). Pamment (2010) argues that the British colonial government dethroned khwajasaras from their court positions and redefined their existence as beggars and obscene. The British Raj's criminalization of the hijra community left them unemployed, which forced them to engage in prostitution in exchange for money, resulting in their defamation and dehumanization. ...
The phenomenon of being a khwajasara has not by any means been resolved. In Pakistan, having a trans identity still puts khwajasaras at the social stigma, social exclusion, exclusion from language and human rights, and discrimination. In this article, we argue that Islamic feminist hermeneutics have the potential to debunk negative/un-Islamic attitudes towards khwajasaras in Muslim societies. First, it adumbrates a discursive account of Islamic feminist hermeneutics and proposes “the egalitarian paradigm” for complete gender equality. Next, it applies Islamic feminist hermeneutics to the Quran to restore the Islamic notion of gender equality underpinning the existential status of khwajasaras, who have been jostling for the “third space/gender.” The theoretical and activistic cooperation between Islamic feminism and khwajasaras offers an opportunity for khwajasaras to transform and tackle negative/un-Islamic attitudes and discourses, developing an alternative pedagogical strategy and counter-discourse—narrative visibility. The article’s main argument identifies the need to form cooperation between Islamic feminism and khwajasaras to question the gender-oriented interpretations of the Qur’an and move gender activism into an effective sphere. It concludes that the subaltern—khwajasaras—can speak from their own realities to claim an egalitarian existence.
... The khwaja sira identity has traditionally included individuals who have been assigned male sex at birth, but who currently identify as otherwise-some as women, some as both men and women, and some using a number of other labels, including hijra, khusra, kinnar, kothi and zenana (Alizai, Doneys, and Doane 2017;Pamment 2010). As people who identify as neither male nor female, or as both, khwaja sira are able to occupy liminal spaces in South Asian society, crossing borders of norms in gender and sexuality typically taboo for cisgender women and men. ...
... As evidenced by previous research in Pakistan (De Lind van Wijngaarden, Schunter, and Iqbal 2013), many khwaja sira lack social capital as they were bullied in school, sexually abused by their teachers, and forced to drop out of school at a young age. Many participants reported running away from home as adolescents, creating limitations for their later occupational opportunities, pushing them towards engaging in begging and sex work (Pamment 2010). Without formal initiation into a dera, the khwaja sira cannot 'authentically' be identified as a member of the community. ...
The focus of this study was on identifying themes regarding the financial relationships between gurus (leaders) and chelas (disciples) in khwaja sira communities in Khyber Pakhtunkwa, Pakistan. We interviewed 45 khwaja sira in Mingora, Swat on their experiences of guru-chela culture. All interviews were digitally audio recorded, then translated and transcribed directly from Pashto into English. Transcripts of the interviews were analysed using thematic content analysis in a manner informed by both social reproduction theory and notions of Islamic capital. We identified four major themes related to relationships within guru-chela culture: (1) financial relationships are highly structured; (2) financial exchanges can be mutually beneficial; (3) systems of payment and debt can be exploitative; and (4) financial ties to gurus continue throughout the life course of khwaja sira. Findings show how financial interactions within guru-chela relationships are reflective of larger social forces, reproducing kinship structures, systems of Islamic gift-giving, and capitalist processes occurring within Pakhtun society.
... The main trauma is leaving parental home and join the Hijra group. Being socially unaccepted most of them started to earn their living through begging and in most of the cases through sex work (Pamment 2010). ...
... The history of transgender community in Pakistan can be traced back to the Mughal Empire of Indian Sub-Continent. They were treated as respected individuals of the royal palace where they were hired as the keepers and messengers (Pamment 2010). Since that time transgender were also termed as 'Khwaja sira' but it has now become an umbrella term and includes cross dressers, transvestites and intersex (Saeed et al. 2018). ...
Transgender (s) are among the most discriminated and marginalized population majorly in South Asian countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Being unable to fit in the binary division of gender they are treated harshly as subordinates. In Pakistan, due to lack of acceptance, transgender are forced to leave their homes which compels them to join Hijra communities. In these communities they live under the supervision of a Guru. They face violence of almost every kind whereas the present study focuses symbolic violence and its impact on the social adjustment of transgender. For the purpose of study only those transgender were selected who were beggars and have no other formal means of earning. The concept of symbolic violence used in the study is based on Bourdieu concept of symbolic violence. The results showed that transgender do have considerable social adjustment within their Hijra communities, whereas, in the mainstream society, although, they lack social adjustment due to which they face social, economic and political inequalities, however, they perceive it as natural. This indicated that outside their communities, transgender face symbolic violence in the form of inequalities, subordination and non-inclusive environment that hinders them to become a part of the mainstream society. It is concluded from the present study that transgender being subordinate, have perceived inequalities and subordination as natural and they cannot avoid it. As Bourdieu (Language and symbolic power, 1991) asserted that with the passage of time the subordinate starts perceiving the symbolic violence as natural and unavoidable.
... The home owners, Pakistani immigrants , college boys and girls, policemen and politicians, feudal lords (Chaudhrys and Maliks), wives, multinational executives, and espousers of Western culture are all set against the marginal mirasis (a professional caste of Muslim hereditary performing artists), servants, khusras (transgendered males; in Urdu, hijras), dwarfs, gawale (milkmen), laborers, village idiots, cooks, prostitutes , thieves, and fakirs (Muslim ascetics). Through status reversals and mistaken identities, plays typically invert the hierarchy, chaotically progressing to climaxes whereby, for example, the rich householder is replaced by the servant; the elite drawing room is taken over by musicians ; the staid conservative takes to dancing; the patriarch takes on the khusra's qualities; or a multinational executive is replaced by a dwarf (Pamment 2010:37–48). ...
... When the government periodically launches more frequent raids and cracks down on women performers, their male colleagues stage their rebuttals by engaging in a dance with a lifeless female mannequin, or a group of men dressed as women and/or khusras will take on the female dancers' roles, with wild, exaggerated gyrations (Pamment 2010:37–38). Plays from the 2002/3 period abound with metacommentary on dance censorship. ...
Similar to many other genres globally, the popular Parsi and nautanki theatres used to have men enacting all the roles, male and female, reflecting long traditions of homosocial culture.1 As Kathryn Hansen notes in her research of these theatres in their 19th-century heyday, such gender impersonations "enlarged the performative possibilities within which theatre managers, dramatists and publics could experiment with the unfamiliar procedures of imagining and viewing women" (1999:127). © 2012 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
... These studies demonstrate that most members of Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities either choose or are forced to leave their familial home, meaning that they are left without property or inheritance rights. Once Khawaja Sra and Hijra people leave the family home, they are often subject to oppression and marginalisation from the wider community in Pakistan (Khan, 2014;Pamment, 2010). ...
This paper draws upon empirical data in order to offer insights to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities in Peshawar City, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan. The paper also considers the resilience that the community developed during this time. Drawing on Butler’s concept of precarity and liveability, we in this article demonstrate how the precarious positionalities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic and thereafter in Pakistan. 10 members of Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities were engaged in face-to-face interviews, and the paper demonstrates how community is made and maintained by Khawaja Sara and Hijra, who are amongst the most vulnerable, marginalized, oppressed, and isolated people in South Asian communities. Whilst not shying away from the violence that characterises the lives of participants, who face familial rejection, community, and social pressure to conform to strict cultural gender norms, and sexual and physical violence, the paper also works to highlight the ongoing adaptability and resilience of these ancient communities through engaging with the ways in which participants supported each other through the pandemic.
... Following British colonization, many khwaja sira had limited educational opportunities, which have also influenced their work and financial options (Khan, S., 2017). One means by which khwaja sira earn a livelihood is through badhai, or the receipt of donations in exchange for the conferring of blessings at weddings, childbirths, and other special occasions (Khan, 2016;Pamment, 2010). Khwaja sira are seen to be auspicious for the couple or child's future happiness and fertility, due to their divine associations as androgynous, spiritual beings who hold the ability to bless and curse others (Hamzić, 2019). ...
Due to their identification as third gender people, khwaja sira have historically been subjected to experiences of social marginalization. However, the extant literature has not fully explored the lived experiences of stigma and discrimination against khwaja sira in the Swat Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. To address this gap, we conducted 45 interviews with khwaja sira in Mingora, Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to better understand their experiences of gender-nonconformity stigma and discrimination in various social contexts, including within their families, in accessing health care, and within education and work contexts. Applying Minority Stress Theory and utilizing thematic content analysis, the present study identified three dimensions of gender-nonconformity stigma: (1) internalized stigma, namely feelings of shame and embarrassment; (2) perceived stigma, namely opinions others had of khwaja sira regarding lack of employability or engagement in sex work; and (3) enacted stigma, namely exclusion from families, in educational settings, in religious spaces, and in healthcare settings. Findings should inform future social intervention and community practice engagements with khwaja sira communities in Pakistan.
... Widely believed to be eunuchs by birth, the lack of male genitals makes the bodies of toli workers look 'like women'. In addition to the feminist looks, their higher spiritual status is linked with the purity of their souls, which is unadulterated with carnal desires (Pamment, 2010). ...
The regulative and oppressive effects of gender norms on bodies of transgender workers have been mostly explored in standard binary gender work settings. We explore the regulative effects of specialized transgender work regimes by posing the following two questions: How do specialized transgendered work regimes regulate transgender work and bodies? How do transgender workers cope with these regimes? Through a case study of khwajasiras, a community of male-to-female transgender people in Pakistan, we explain how competing and conflicting body ideals of hyper-eroticism, spirituality, and hybridity set by these regimes, allow khwajasiras to transgress the binary gender norms. Ironically, however, these specialized work regimes have their own regulative and oppressive effects on khwajasiras’ bodies and work. We then demonstrate how khwajasiras cope with these regulative effects in three different ways: embracing the body ideals, strategically shifting work and body across the regimes, and relegating body norms as unimportant for being a transgender. We finally argue that these differences in enacting different form of transgenderness is an outcome of a tight coupling or contradiction between audiences, khwajasira community and individual workers’ own sense of transgender authenticity.
... In 2018, Pakistan passed a landmark law to protect transgender rights, banning workplace discrimination against transgender employees and allowing citizens the right to identify as either male, female, gender non-binary, or non-conforming (Hashim 2018). Before that, Pakistan had already begun to issue thirdgender national identity cards, passports, and other government documents (Pamment 2010). However, everyday conditions haven't markedly improved, and experiences of discrimination (Gadit 2009), violence (Dhaka Tribune 2018), and murder (Independent 2019) still abound in the country. ...
Intended use and users: This evaluation reports the landscape of LGBTQ rights vis-à-vis workplace discrimination in Pakistan, and details the methodology, findings, and recommendations from a mixed-method posttest intervention group only evaluation of an entrepreneurial skills development program for gender and sexual minority (GSM) men in Lahore, Pakistan. It may be useful for LGBTQ organizations, training and learning units for LGBTQ people, small entrepreneurial development organizations, and gender and sexuality academics and researchers working on South Asia. Significance: Barriers to professional entry, amidst other workplace obstacles faced by LGBTQ persons are not specific to Pakistan; negative attitudes towards LGBTQ coworkers and professionals still prevail globally. Workplace discrimination is a "core issue" in LGBTQ discrimination (Badgett 2014) and has been identified as a major contributor to the overall gender-based violence on gender and sexual minority men, and transgender women in Pakistan and across South-Asia (UNDP, ICRW, and APCOM 2018). Homophobic attitudes, although prevalent, are neither uniform nor static. In 2013, only 2% Pakistanis viewed homosexuality positively (The Express Tribune 2013), whereas 66% consider homophobic content as online hate-speech against LGBTQ people, and 55% report having encountered such hate-speech (Bytes For All 2014). Transgender women (Aurat Foundation 2014) and gender minority men (Wijngaarden, Schunter and Iqbal 2013) report higher workplace discrimination and sexual objectification at the workplace in Pakistan. Consequently, communities of gender and sexual minority men report higher rates of HIV prevalence and depression (Betron and Gonzalez-Figueroa 2009). These poor health outcomes lead to lower labor force participation and are the key issue contributing to lower economic output, as opposed to lower education levels or skill (Badgett 2014). Exclusionary hiring practices and discrimination against LGBTQ employees is detrimental to organizations. Subsequently, the narrative of increased efficiency and productivity and reduction of worker and output losses due to LGBTQ integration has been pushed to persuade enough employers to make workplaces LGBTQ-friendly. The economic output lost to LGBTQ discrimination amounts to USD 70
... The pervasive public visibility of khwajasiras in the subcontinent has been much documented (F. Khan, 2014aKhan, , 2014bPamment, 2010;Reddy, 2005). The streetwalking of khwajasiras is part of the spectacle of the Pakistani metropolis, and their urban presence actively queers the city. ...
Modelled upon American slasher film tropes, Omar Ali Khan’s Zibahkhana (2007) is more than a transnational remake. It is a vision of a queer revolution, and imagines queer futures brought about through rural anarchy and violent eroticism. This article reads the masked killer of Zibahkhana as a monstrous queer agency armed with a queer (zombie) militia prepared to consume and transform the heteronormative matrix. Offering an unprecedented and unapologetic representation of queer aggression onscreen, Khan’s indie slasher explores queer articulations of desire and anarchy in the figure of the killer, Baby, a queer woman and a murderous cannibal. With Baby, Zibahkhana offers a queer anti-hero, the first of its kind for Pakistani cinema, that challenges normative modes of being, belonging, and desiring. Thus Zibahkhana not only offers a welcome revision of Western slasher film tropes, it blazes a trail for transgressive and incendiary portrayals of queer embodiments and intimacies in Pakistani visual media.
... Advancing this line of thought, I argue that this state of indeterminacy is partly responsible for producing khwaja siras as translucent subjects, nebulous and indistinct to the wider society and the state, a condition that prominent khwaja sira activists wished to preserve even as they demanded rights and recognition. This condition of in-betweenness is echoed in Claire Pamment's (2010) discussion on the exclusion of Pakistani hijras, who according to the author, are not completely sequestered from the social order despite being peripheral subjects, partly because they challenge their social and legal marginalization by performatively subverting "normative sociopolitical codes" (p. 31-32). ...
Between 2009 and 2012, the Pakistani Supreme Court granted a range of rights to gender-nonconforming people, sometimes known as the khwaja sira, in a series of historic rulings. While the judiciary sought to regulate this population through legal and policy developments, community activists aimed to change the public image of gender non-normative people through public advocacy. In this paper, I draw on James Scott’s theorizing on indigenous resistance to examine the practices of khwaja sira activists who sidestepped the trappings of dissent by anticipating potential pitfalls and avoiding any possibility of being accused of anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam activities. Instead, they employed forms of identification and refusal that not only impeded potential allegations of anti-nationalism but also complicated notions of dissent through engagement in modes of participation and resistance. I argue that underpinning this praxis is the khwaja sira desire for partial incorporation into the state, as citizens that are at once legally and culturally recognized and accepted, but also relatively self-governing and only partially intelligible within social and state spheres.
... The participants also reported that the police frequently used threats of abuse to extort money and forced them into sex (Pamment, 2010;Redding, 2015). The violation of hijras' human rights and abuse by individuals in positions of authority can perhaps be considered to be worst in terms of its impact because it may send a message to everyone that there is impunity in committing such abuses against hijras. ...
This study adds to the growing body of knowledge on gender nonconformity aspects of heteronormativity by examining its impact on the life course of hijras and their access to fundamental human rights in Pakistan. Drawing on 50 semi-structured interviews conducted in two sites, the findings suggest that the participants’ lived experiences associated with gender nonconformity significantly influenced the direction of their life course and their ability to have access to human rights. These experiences spanned from childhood to elderhood across a wide range of settings, such as family, school, guru dera (residence headed by a hijra guru), workplace, and interactions with authorities. The participants’ human rights were not recognized, resulting in abuse, social stigma and discrimination against them and their exclusion from mainstream society. Finally, implications are drawn for public policy and future research on third gender concerns in Pakistan and elsewhere.
... The Hijras of South Asia-including eunuchs, hermaphrodites, transvestites, and homosexuals-who wear women's clothing, also change their names 'on being initiated into the community' (Lal, 1999: 129). Unfortunately, despite detailed descriptions of the Hijra way of life in Muslim societies such as Bangladesh (Hossain, 2012) and Pakistan (Pamment, 2010), none of these authors has mentioned anything specific about the naming practices of Hijras. However, field research by the present author suggests, that they do not reveal their earlier name, a male name, to strangers. ...
This book is the first scholarly study of personal names in Pakistan and is based on an analysis of names from all over the country, both from the early years and from the contemporary period. The only earlier study was by Sir Richard Temple in 1883 and the data for that came from East Punjab, now in India. This book connects names with identity such as religious and sectarian identity; rural and urban identity; modernization of identity and so on.
... We must accept this invitation and explore the pleasures of human diversity and togetherness, and revel in the boundlessness of visual and performative human creativity. From the performance of Sufi music at shrines and civil society rallies to the bhands (wandering comics) who satirise contemporary politics in their performances at weddings, via theatrical performances and Hijra (transgendered) street dances, there is plenty of performative politics worth protecting in Pakistan (Afzal-Khan 2010; Pamment 2008Pamment , 2010. Even mundane events such as music concerts and the kite festival of basant (Spring) have taken on a political valence and are identified by many in Pakistan as charged political acts (AFP 2010; Buneri 2011; Husain 2010). ...
Focusing on Pakistan we address the human geography of politics and violence to argue that organized political violence is not only about death and destruction but also, more importantly, about the control of the public sphere, and vitally, the reorganization of space. To make this argument we also extend Arendt's thesis on totalitarianism and the human condition. Our argument is grounded in a review of the activities of Tehrik-e-Taliban, Pakistan's (TTP) during their brief control of the Swat valley in Pakistan. We argue that TTP's spectacular violence eliminates “worldliness”, plurality and life, so that spontaneous action is denied and the public sphere is destroyed through the universalization of terror. The practical implication of our argument is that, in significant contrast to state and military actions to date, productive measures to resist violence should protect the performance of politics in an extended public sphere.
Transgenders are given equal status and rights in an Islamic society and are human beings by all the definitions and standards. Being transgender is not a curse but a disability according to Islam. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, transgenders have not been given their true status and position and are rejected by the masses. A landmark judgment by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2009 proved to be a first step for the betterment of transgender community but not the last fortunately. In 2018, National Assembly of Pakistan passed a landmark bill named Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2018. It was a very bold and a well-taken step by the government of Pakistan.
This study is prompted by the realization of this bitter reality that even in the twenty first century, with the availability of human rights laws and living in a country that is created in the name and ideology of Islam transgenders are still deprived of their basic and fundamental rights. Although, TPPA 2018 is a good step forward, but whether this piece of legislation truly addresses the issues and problems of transgender community or not, is a question that needs to be answered.
This study includes historical background of transgenders in the subcontinent, rights and status of transgender persons in Pakistan and their rights and status in Islamic Law. An analytical overview of ‘Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018’ in the light of Islamic laws is a significant part of this study.
This paper examines the struggle of queer people through the perspective of the term Queer in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017). This paper aims to explore the persistent struggle of queer minorities in Indian society, their challenges to the cultural traditions of heteronormative society and their modes of resistance. The paper mainly focuses on the protagonist of the early part of the novel, Anjum, formerly Aftab, who is one of the socially abandoned transgender characters of modern India. The purpose of this research is to explore the queer subversion against the heteronormative ideals in Roy's novel and to show through Anjum’s vision of queer resistance and utopia. In the novel, Anjum's choice of leaving her house and living in a queer utopia, fighting individually with the society throughout her life, establishing a small, but self-dependent community in the graveyard, and sheltering the minorities like “queers, addicts, orphans, Muslims and other dropouts from the society” (Zubair, 2018, p. 35), does not exhibit her defeat or helplessness, but her defiance and rebellion against the status quo. This act has also empowered her to redefine her life in the best possible way by creating an alternative Duniya where she could shelter “all people from different shades and shapes of life” (Raina, 2017, p. 837).
Since the 1990s, scholars of South Asia have framed the hijra community in a variety of ways, for instance, as a third gender, a transgender group, and an identity made through more than gender difference. Both interdisciplinary and historical accounts have debated the relationship between “hijra” and other gender, sexual or social subjectivities and categories. Hijra histories suggest that the community has often been at the center of historical transformations in governance, households, gender, embodiment, epistemologies, and political economies. Yet historical research has especially focused on the 19th century, raising questions about what a deeper genealogy of the term hijra might reveal about longer trajectories of historical change in gendered categories and practices. I argue that hijra histories may provide openings for gender historians to think critically about what precisely they mean by “gender.” Moreover, because hijra and transgender studies from South Asia have foregrounded the geopolitics of translation, this literature prompts fruitful questions for the field of transgender history.
Hijras comprise a visible yet marginalized subcultural community of gender-variant female-identifying individuals in post-colonial South Asia. Hijras have survived their marginalization through community formation and other discursive strategies. Their survival strategies include peculiar gestures such as clap of the hollow palms. The hollow clap and other discursive strategies are not only integral to hijra communitarian system and identity formation but also help them negotiate their position in the mainstream society. However, a visibility politics conflated with logics of neoliberalism and supported by infrastructures of racial capitalism seeks to repurpose hijra clap and value-code their marginality for consumption as ideas for change. This approach is exemplified in an awareness campaign titled #ChangeTheClap, launched from Pakistan by a transnational not-for-profit organization. This article foregrounds the significance of gestures, which is usually shoved into background or obscurity, and analyzes the affective campaign and critiques its visibility politics that functions to create hierarchies of value in favor of sanitized, rehabilitated, and respectable bodies.
This essay advances a regional critique of the Indian-centric scholarship on hijra, a publicly institutionalized subculture of people typically assigned a male gender at birth who often sacrifice their genitals in return for spiritual power. The unexamined Indian hegemony in hijra studies works to reify not only hijra but also India. Drawing on ethnographic research in Bangladesh, this essay offers preliminary reflections on the need to adopt a regional approach in place of a national frame in studies of gender and sexuality, arguing that hijra subjectivities are constituted at the interstice of intra-, inter-, and transregional comings and goings. The regional approach proposed here also allows us to take into account the intraregional and cross-scalar inequalities within the geopolitically constructed South Asia.
The bhānd entered the Lahore Arts Council’s colonial-styled drawing room comedies in the 1970s. While the elite practitioners resisted these interventions, the so-called ‘low’ performers exposed the legitimate theatre’s exclusions in the mushrooming of the popular Punjabi theatre (1980–), giving way to playful subversions of class hierarchies and gender norms, which have been subject to frequent moral disapproval and censorship. It then presents case studies that explicate these interventions: Kuch na Kaho (Don’t Ever Speak, Baral 2002), which addresses class strife; Eik Tera Sanum Khana (Your Place of Idols, Jee 2003), wherein transgendering probes patriarchy; and Billo, Billi aur Baali (Billo, Billi and Baali, Anon 2004), where female performers adopt the bhānd mode in rejoinder to the censorship of the woman dancer (2002–2004).
This research paper looks at social adjustment of transgender of Pakistan and how they are survives in this society. In Pakistan transgender are a marginalized group and are commonly associated with dancing, prostitution and begging. This research looks at five dimensions of transgender, psychological, social, political, religious, and their individual adjustment. Based on fieldwork conducted in Pakistan the main factors influencing of the transgender are age, education, family structure and family members. One of the main features of the lives of many transgender is membership in a transgender community, which this research shows can have both positive and negative effects on society. The present study was designed to explore the social adjustment of transgender in district Chiniot. For the purpose of the study existing literature on the topics was thoroughly reviewed. A sample of 120 respondents was taken equally (40 from each) three randomly selected localities Towns, Villages and Mahallas. Questionnaire was prepared in the light of research objectives for data collection. Suitability of the questionnaire was examined through its pretesting on the twenty respondents Interviewing with questionnaire schedule was use as a tool to collected data. SPSS (statically package for social sciences) was used for data analysis. Statistical analysis Chi-Square secure test was taken to check the relationship between the independent and dependent variables.
DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n1p61
In light of the US-led "War on Terror" in which the Pakistani state has and continues to play a pivotal role as a frontline ally, this special section of TDR on Performing Pakistani Politics provides an urgent insight into the role of performance as artivist intervention for a citizenry confronting the tide of rising extremism as well as imperialism.
The prophet Muhammad served as a model for those entering into marriage and celibacy is rejected as a human invention, although the Islamic tradition embodies exceptions with Sufism and its more negative attitudes toward the human body. Sufi groups used celibacy as a form of social protest. There is also a relation between forced celibacy and political power during the medieval period. In addition to certain Sufi groups, eunuchs represented another exception to the general negative Islamic attitude toward celibacy.
Munir Hussain (b. 1949), a prominent bhÄnḠ(wandering comic), playfully teases at the mise-en-scène of Pakistani politics. This contemporary performer in his anecdotes in performances at weddings draws on the long comedic tradition to form a vibrant critique of the present sociopolitical scenario.
The dramas that triggered the British imposed 1876 Dramatic Performance Act in India reveal a playful indictment of the British colonial character in portrayals that range from benevolent missionaries, swindlers, rapists, lusty princes, and monkeys, to pigs and sheep. This paper examines the relationship between dramatic representations of the white sahib (colonial ruler) and the construction of theatre censorship, through the plays performed by The Great National Theatre, Calcutta: Dinabandhu Mitra's Indigo Mirror (Nil Darpan, 1860), Dakshina Charan Chattopadhyay's Tea Planters' Mirror (Chakar Darpan, 1875), Upendra Nath Das's Surendra-Binodini (1875), Gajadananda and the Prince (1876), and Police of Pig and Sheep (1876). In this discussion I hope to illustrate how the British perpetuated colonial hegemony in alliance with a Brahman and Indian elite and in so doing deflected the native gaze away from its own representations, whereby what was political was branded ‘obscene’ and resistance to the colonial ‘other’ was forced into self-abnegation.
A Common but curious sight of the Indian bazaar is the hijā, the ‘eunuch’ of Indian English. Obviously transvestites, the hijās beg from merchants who quickly, under threat of obscene abuse, respond to the silent demands of such detested individuals. On occasion, especially festival days, they press their claims with boisterous and ribald singing and dancing. Popular Indian opinion would label the hijās as nothing more than male prostitutes. Yet at the same time, and hinting at a more complex social function, they are expected if unwanted visitors at wedding parties and birth celebrations where they demand their share of the general largesse. Seen solely as one element in the fabric of contemporary society, the life of a hijā is surely ‘an alternative social role … which cater[s] not only for the temperamental misfits but also for disavowed yet persistent needs of the community as a whole’. However, such characterizations are made without much investigation of the ‘alternative social role’. The vast Indian underworld—the low caste and outcaste; the beggars, touts, petty criminals, and prostitutes; and also the hijā—has been much neglected as a subject of serious scholarship.
The hijra (eunuch/transvestite) is an institutionalized third gender role in India. Hijra are neither male nor female, but contain elements of both. As devotees of the Mother Goddess Bahuchara Mata, their sacred powers are contingent upon their sexuality. In reality, however, many hijras are prostitutes. This sexual activity undermines their culturally valued sacred role. This paper discusses religious meanings of the hijra role, as well as the ways in which individuals and the community deal with the conflicts engendered by their sexual activity.