Hijra Intimacies and Inheritances

In a judgment delivered on 18 September 1989 before the Madhya Pradesh High Court in a case of disputed property between Illyas and Others versus Badshah alias Kamla, Justice G. C. Gupta dismissed an appeal for a hijra / eunuch's property by Muslim kin who did not belong to the guru–chela system of the indigenous transgender community to which the deceased belonged. The order read: The learned trial Judge, on the basis of evidence adduced by the parties, held that there was a custom among eunuchs under which the property of a eunuch could be transferred only to another eunuch of the community and not to a person outside the community. The learned trial Judge further held that guru-chela system was prevalent amongst eunuchs under which the property in the hands of Guru was inherited by Chela. On these findings he held that the will dated 28-11-1956 (Ex. D/1) was illegal and void. That is how the suit was allowed and declaration given. (www.indiankanoon.org/doc/490695/n.d) This judgment that endorses an adopted kinship among the hijras f lies in the face of regular inheritance laws based on family/blood ties, as well as challenges religious (Hindu or Muslim) customs in India. Sexuality, Kinship, Finance I want to think here about patterns of kinship, intimacy, and public sexualities in hijra ‘ families’ in India in the context of financial transactions and anxieties that determine or transform the ways in which such tenuous and sometimes provisional relationships are lived. I will begin by re-visiting the guru–chela equation in the transgender gharana system in light of three ‘events’ or markers: first, the then Delhi Chief Minister's announcement of monetary compensation for the ‘next of kin’ of the dead in a fire incident at a eunuchs’ convention in the capital in 2011; second, a Government of India directive (announced in September 2012) that would allow a new option for registering voters in the electoral rolls, with ‘guru’ as an option to ‘parents’ and ‘chela’ added to ‘son/ daughter’ in recognition of nomenclatures of relationships in the eunuch community; third, what has been hailed as a ‘landmark judgment’ from the Supreme Court of India in April 2014, an order formally granting recognition to ‘the transgender community’ as a ‘third gender’ to be treated as a separate category for consideration in educational institutions and workplaces under the rubric of ‘Other Backward Classes’ (OBC).